[Noisebridge-discuss] surface mount soldering equipment at NB?

[Andy Isaacson]

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 07:19:38PM -0700, meredith scheff wrote:
> I know Noisebridge can't have nice things, but, uh..I do a lot of SMT, and
> it broke my heart to see that nice tip made fairly useless.

I'd like to learn more about what we did to break the SMT tip!  I don't
know what / which tip is for SMT, I may have even been responsible for
some of the breaking, there's one soldering iron I've used occasionally
that has a wierd tip I don't completely understand.  I doubt that anyone
intentionally broke it, probably it was just ignorance.  If we make it
more evident to beginners that a particular tool requires special care
to use, I suspect it'll go much better!

Since this discussion of "boo hoo the SMT tip is broken" is the first
I've even heard that we *have* (well, had) a SMT tip, clearly more
communication is needed!

Can we get a demo from someone who knows how to use it, of what we need
to do to safeguard the tip?  Perhaps after the meeting next Tuesday?

Can we put up a sign explaining the details, and giving pointers to more
info?

Can we set aside the SMT tip / iron somewhere with a label so that it's
obviously not the right iron for "Bobby's first Arduino soldering
experiment"?

> I'd love to go
> in with peeps on a new one that maybe was on some sort of nice-things shelf
> for peeps who know how to use Nice Things.

And of course, I'm willing to pitch in for a new SMT tip to replace the
dead one.  What part do we need to order?  I don't think we need to be
super exclusive "OMG you can't use this unless you're SMT 31337
certified" thing, just let people know that it's not the right tool for
basic soldering.  More communication is almost always the answer!

-andy