Squishbox

[MarkOne]

Well, the kit parts have been sat on my desk for well over a month, but I got some free time yesterday so made a start.

It’s been possibly decades since I soldered PCBs, but given that back in the day that was my life, I really don’t remember the need for such a strong light source, a pair of reading glasses and a bench magnifier! Old age! [sigh]

I’ll try and take a few pics along the way, and post them up, and hopefully some audio later on.

[MarkOne]

And so it begins…

[MarkOne]

[Drew Stephenson]

I do like a nice build thread.

[BJG145]

Excellent.

I still have one of these sitting in a bag since your original post. But I did at least order a soldering iron on eBay the other day. (I scrutinised the vintage Weller offerings, then shrugged and picked up some new Parkside tat for a tenner.)

Why people don't just supply pre-soldered pin headers, I'll never understand. Still saving for the Dobot.

[Folderol]

Excellent.

I still have one of these sitting in a bag since your original post. But I did at least order a soldering iron on eBay the other day. (I scrutinised the vintage Weller offerings, then shrugged and picked up some new Parkside tat for a tenner.)

Why people don't just supply pre-soldered pin headers,

in a word... Packaging.

I'll never understand. Still saving for the Dobot.

There was at least one rather dodgy looking joint in that vid

[BJG145]

There was at least one rather dodgy looking joint in that vid

(Well spotted. I commented on that but I don't think it was approved.)

[Wonks]

There was at least one rather dodgy looking joint in that vid

I saw no spliffs?

[Wonks]

There would be certain components e.g. transistors, that could easily be fried by the length of time that Dotbot applied heat to the pins. An application of flux paste would probably allow for a much shorter soldering time. You could manually solder each pin in about a second, whilst the dotbot took 3+ seconds.

[BJG145]

I saw no spliffs?

You can tell from the smoke.

You could manually solder each pin in about a second

Pics or it didn't happen.

[BJG145]

I thought I'd spend the morning building my Squishbox kit. I confidently ignored the advice to follow all the steps in the correct order, and was pleased with progress until I reached the last step of the electronics assembly and realised I'd soldered this pin-header into the wrong side.

Well, you'd have thought the "top side" was the side with the logo on it, wouldn't you.

Unfortunately this is quite a major blunder; I don't think I've got the skill, tools or patience to try and remove it again, so this will likely remain as a breadboard project once I've summoned the will to continue.

[BJG145]

It might be OK...I think one of these will get me back on track. Hopefully.

[Wonks]

This is a great video on how to desolder multi-pin components. I’ve recently used it on some switches and it worked just as described.

https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU?feature=shared

(there is a part 2 that carries on with more awkward components).

Using extra flux is important in a situation like this, so get some and use it. The stuff he recommends doesn’t appear to be available any longer, but any ‘no-clean’ flux should be OK.

For the thick copper wire, I used the earth wire from some solid core twin and earth cable I had laying around.

[Sam Spoons]

That's brilliant, good find Wonks.

[ajay_m]

You need one of these. They are the gold standard for removing components and I promise you they can remove wrongly soldered headers too.

https://thepihut.com/products/adafruit- ... rYQAvD_BwE

[ajay_m]

And further to the previous post I purchased a job lot of really cheap 4 digit X 14 segment displays without realising that for some weird reason two digits were red and two amber. But a session with The Engineer soon removed two displays from each board, allowing me to create some nice all red and all amber displays for a couple of quid each.

[Wonks]

You need one of these. They are the gold standard for removing components and I promise you they can remove wrongly soldered headers too.

https://thepihut.com/products/adafruit- ... rYQAvD_BwE

I have one of those and whilst good, I couldn't unsolder a six-pin switch from a through-hole PCB with one, despite using extra solder and extra flux, whereas the video method worked perfectly and in much less time than I spent with a solder sucker and desoldering braid etc.

Maybe with a lot more practice I could do it all with a sucker, but I want to do it now, not in 6 month's time. I used to do it just with a sucker on single-sided boards long ago with leaded solder, but through-hole and lead-free always leaves enough residue when I do it to stop the component from coming loose.

[BJG145]

Another morning of cursing, burns, and toxic fumes, and the wretched thing is nearly done.



The last time I tried soldering together an electronics kit was a 300 baud modem from Maplin when I was at school. It never worked. This has cured me of electronics kits for life; it's far too fiddly and annoying. It's different working on your own creative/original stuff, but putting other people's boxes together isn't worth the effort. I'd rather just buy something that's finished.

[Folderol]

I don't think I've ever built any kit without making some 'personalising' modifications

[BJG145]

MarkOne clearly made better progress in 90 minutes a fortnight ago than I made this weekend, so I'm not sure why the updates stopped. He didn't even finish the tinning.



Anyway, my cable arrives Tuesday. I'm hoping to have my Squashedbox running then, with the screen at a debonair angle to include this impromptu addition. So it's game on.

Who uses soundfonts nowadays...? Well, you might be surprised. They're used by the Digigurdy, for example, so I'm hoping to set the cat among the pigeons in the Midi hurdy-gurdy community with this build.

[MarkOne]

MarkOne clearly made better progress in 90 minutes a fortnight ago than I made this weekend, so I'm not sure why the updates stopped. He didn't even finish the tinning.



Anyway, my cable arrives Tuesday. I'm hoping to have my Squashedbox running then, with the screen at a debonair angle to include this impromptu addition. So it's game on.

Who uses soundfonts nowadays...? Well, you might be surprised. They're used by the Digigurdy, for example, so I'm hoping to set the cat among the pigeons in the Midi hurdy-gurdy community with this build.

Sorry. Slow progress here I’m afraid, a combo of business travel, a gig, some well earned down time on Dartmoor and then a stinker of a cold!

[The Elf]

Fascinated to hear how these turn out!

[BJG145]

Cable arrived, spent the evening tinkering around with Pi OS, and...

...doesn't work. I give up.

[Folderol]

Cable arrived, spent the evening tinkering around with Pi OS, and...

...doesn't work. I give up.

Give ... Up
Does not compute!

[BJG145]

I'll wait and see what happens with MarkOne's anyway...!