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Lab 4 Elec Bootcamp (2013)

 

Your TA’s will be available to help guide you through and check your work at your benches.

Watch the videos first.

 

 

Part 1:   Do at your team bench

• Soldering (15min)

  • Setup:

    • Eye protection   Wear eyeglasses at minimum,  safety goggles highly recommended (flux can splash / wire bits can fly everywhere)
    • Use fume extraction fans   (Edsyn FXF11 – check you have fan pointing in correct direction!)
    • Put water on your solder sponge.   (dry sponges are useless)
    • Watch one useful soldering video   (soldering video)
    • What is Solder?   (read  useful info about solder, rosin core)

  • To Do:

    • Gather up materials:
      • Used PCB (should have components already in the board)
      • Used stranded and solid-core wire from the Recycle Bin.
      • ~1foot of solder.
    • Clean and re-tin your solder tip  (Weller tips have several coatings and typically don’t need emery cloth, but some tips are old and need just a small amount of rubbing to remove oxide layer )
  • See if you can spot the rosin boiling off the solder.   Occasionally bubbles up enough to end up on hands, eyes.  
  • Use side cutters to trim back of boards.    Notice  how far clipped items can fly fromthe boards, watch out for people around you.
  • Solder the following into a used PCB
    • four short solid-core wires
    • four short stranded-core wires
    • two 8-pin sockets.
  • Solder two loose stranded-core wires together.
    • Do three sets of 2 wires.
    • Use 3rd Hand to hold solder or wire while soldering if necessary.
    • Cover joints with an appropriate amount of heat-shrink tubing.  Use hot air gun at back bench.
    • Use an excess solder on 1 set of stranded-core wires.  Feel how much stiffer the extra solder makes the joint and wire, even making it more  
  • Get a TA/instructor to inspect your work.

• Desoldering (15min)

  • Setup:

    • Watch video of desoldering tool,
    • Watch video of solder wick

  • To Do:

    • Remove 4 wires (stranded or solid) from a used PCB.  
    • Remove at least two BJTs.   Try to remove without resorting to clipping the leads from the PCBs.
    • Remove one 8-pin socket (this can be hard, you may have to destroy the socket by cutting it into pieces carefully with side cutters, then remove the socket 1 pin at a time.

• QRD and DC Motor connectors  (1 each) (15min)

  • Setup:

    • Check sample QRD and DC Motor connector at the front of the room (“Bernhard’s Sample”)
    • Gather materials:
      • 3 pieces of stranded wire, ideally from the used wire bins    You will need ~12″ of wire length for each color.
      • male header pins
      • 330 ohm resistor.
  • To Do
    • Cut male header pins to correct number of pins.   It is plastic, so you can use your side cutters.  Be careful, as you may accidentally cut adjacent pins in the header and parts may fly into your face.  Each strip of 40 pins costs over $1, so try not to waste material.
    • Solder, hot glue, heat shrink connections 
    • For the QRD, you will be including an appropriate resistor (330 ohms)  inside the QRD wire as shown in the sample and  in the diagram here.  



• • If the resistor is covered with heat shrink tubing, mark the resistor value on the  outside with a label.
  • Get Lab instructor / TA to inspect your connector.
  • Wash your hands.   Solder and particulates not good for ingesting.

 

• Circuit Schematic Programs (5min)

  • Have a brief look at two circuit schematic drawing programs:
    • https://www.circuitlab.com/editor/  (runs in browser, easy to get simple sketches).
    • Eagle Cadsoft  (installed on Hebb 42  computers, harder to use but useful for future PCB manufacturing in senior courses).   Lots of videos online for using the program (example1,  example2, etc).
  • Let us know of any other circuit schematic/simulation programs which you’ve found useful in the past.

• Datasheet Searching  (5min)

  • Fill in the blanks on the Handout Sheet.
  • Use the datasheets listed on the ENPH 253 Download page, or from an electronics vendor site like Newark Electronics ( 253 course sponsor, donates competition prize every year)

 

• Component Pricing (5min)

  • Look over the Online Inventory List of 253 Components and Tools and find 5 items which you are surprised how expensive they are, and 5items you are surprised how cheap they are.  
  • Write your items on the Handout Sheet.   Submit at the front.

 

Part 2:   Do in other room (at set stations):

Other Connectors   (15min)

Try one of each connector.  Try not to waste attempts, as each connector varies in price from reasonable to not reasonable.

1. Universal crimp tool for TINAH Battery connections
2. Terminal crimp tool for terminal connectors 
3. Ratcheting crimp tool  for Molex headers (not generally available, but new connectors from Tyco might be coming this year)
4. Twist-on wire connectors (aka wire nut / marette)
5. Ribbon cable connector (using vice or arbor press)
6. Other items to inspect:

• Polarization on 8-pin socket
• Probes for Oscilloscopes 
• Battery draw on TINAH boards uisng DC and RC motors.

 

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