One of the skills I really wanted to learn was the ability to solder. In all the years I’ve been involved with technology and tinkering the most I’d ever done was to solder one resistor to a breadboard. I really needed to learn more…
I turned up at hackspace one Tuesday evening when the regular electronics night is held. I introduced myself and was pointed towards Tim. I told Tim that I wanted to learn to solder and he very quickly had me sat at a desk with a small project in front of me- a fish!
Well not exactly a fish, but a Fish-dish header for a Raspberry Pi from Pi Supply. It has a switch, 3 LEDs, a buzzer and a few resistors along with a header. I spent 40 minutes or so doing the soldering, being careful to be as neat as possible! It was finished and looked pretty good for a first (real) attempt. I rushed home, set up a Pi, downloaded a little python script and…
It worked! Never has something so simple given me such a grin on my face. I know that those of you who can solder will think “so what? Hardly rocket science.” but, for a newbie, it’s magical! (apologies for the slightly dodgy focusing and TV sound in the background.)
So that’s that. A simple little circuit that was easy to do, good practice and gave me the confidence to move onto more complex kits.I should say that my electronics knowledge is very (very) limited, but enough to identify parts to put on a circuit board. My advice if you want to learn to solder? Get yourself down to (a) Hackspace, you won’t regret it!
Site Title 