On Sun, 2005-03-06 at 19:28 -0800, Jake Brownson wrote:
> > Mr Design, go for it. Us 'ole guys have been proven wrong before... I am not
> > afraid of being proven wrong...I can take it.
> 
> So what do you "ole guys" use for prototyping? 

Certainly not an "ole guy" but most of my prototyping has been
soldering, usually using a type of "breadboard" type PCB.

For more critical work I've actually just created a custom PCB, for some
designs (where most of the dirty work is software) a PCB can be faster
then any other method (provided you do put in SOME room for modding
things). 

> Just solder everything?
> Or is there some other technique I don't know about? I have done a few
> prototypes with soldering too, and found it to be very messy, and if
> there was a problem I always had to go back and double check my solder
> joints in addition to everything else. 

I'm sorry, but I haven't had to "double check" my solder joints for
quite a while. I'd say if you got more practise soldering you wouldn't
have to either. Soldering, if you're experienced, is very reliable.

> With WWing I have never had a
> problem due to a faulty connection (forgotten ones yes, but that's
> another story). There's no hot iron to worry about burning yourself or
> others with, 

If you can't be careful with an iron I don't know what to say...

> if you remove a connection there's no leftover solder,

Solder wick, very quick to use, I can probably disconnect and clean up a
joint in as fast a time as it takes you to remove a wire-wrapped
connection (and I'm even faster if we're sticking to through hole
stuff...)

> and I was able to wire much more quickly with WW than soldering, but
> maybe that's just lack of skill with an iron. Oh and is it just me or
> does soldering require 3 hands most of the time? One to hold the
> solder, one for the iron, and one to hold the wire.

It does simply sound like lack of experience with the iron. And no,
three hands are rarely needed. About the only time I haven't figured out
a way to get away with only two hands is soldering wires onto DB9, that
first wire always needs my pair of vise grips... after the first wire
I'm OK though.

> For small tests or playing around I do like breadboards. I have yet to
> make a PCB, but I'll be taking a PCB class here sometime, and I'm have
> a project going for which I plan on eventually making a PCB for, so
> we'll see how that works out, but I can't imagine ordering a PCB w/o
> hooking up the circuit some other way first.

Breadboards in my experience can often times be more trouble then
they're worth. I've bumped into quite a few bugs in the past due to
breadboards (mostly coupling and capacitive loading issues, some cross
talk problems too, along with power issues). I do almost all my
prototyping with solder breadboards, PCBs with patterns already etched
and holes already drilled, just a matter of soldering the parts in, and
the odd wire to connect things together.

> Always enjoy learning new things,
> Thanks :)

TTYL
 

-----------------------------
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