Reprap Prusa i2
PCB arrived; electronic components stock raided!
The Sanguinololu PCB arrived in the post this morning. I have a lot of the needed components in stock already so started soldering them in place this evening. It’s been a while and my soldering iron is proving somewhat inadequate for this kind of mass-produced board due to its age (nearly 25 years old!), tip size (enormous!) and general crappiness. I even managed to pull a pad off the board from one of the microcontroller pins due to the solder not getting up to temperature. Thankfully, it wasn’t attached to a track (part of the reason it pulled off so easily, I think) and the solder got through to the other side sufficiently to create the needed connection (confirmed with a multimeter).
I didn’t have the 4x16 pin female headers for the Pololu boards but I did have various shorter ones which made up exactly the right number with a little cutting, filing and gluing. Here’s a photo of the underside showing my passable, if a little blobby, soldering:
It’s worth noting that I’m not planning on adding the FTDI components to this board but, rather, will use a 6 pin header and one of my existing FTDI cables. There are a few more connectors to solder in place immediately and I’ll need to place an order for the remaining parts before this board will be complete.
Posted on 29 October 2012
