Techniques

Circuit board techniques

Toner transfer, Press-and-Peel(tm), photoresist, Sharpie, nail polish.

Ferric Chloride vs. Ammonium Persulfate and other etching chemicals.

How to dispose of etchant.

Commercial PCB fabrication. Vendors.

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Construction techniques

"solderless breadboard" is the fastest construction technique ... but it is very fragile.

Dead bug style. Manhattan style. Veroboard. Perfboard and point-to-point. Solderless protoboard.

traditional perfboards with holes on a 0.1" grid (2.54 mm grid) come in 3 styles:

• just holes in insulator
• little donuts of copper around each hole, usually plated-through (See this robot controller for an example)
• solid sheets of copper, usually with a little donut gap around each hole.

The best one to use is ...

With these perfboards, there's 2 ways to connect wires so they don't fall off:

• wire wrap, or
• solder.

Soldering techniques

How to use a soldering iron. What is flux for?

Hot air soldering. Huh?

Hobby replacements for commercial reflow: skillet soldering, toaster-oven soldering, soldering using an oil lamp or candle.

• the "Reflow Skillet" tutorial
• "Easy Reflow: Build an SMT Reflow Oven Controller" by Robert Lacoste 2004-July

How to fix mistakes: solder braid, solder sucker.

How to deal with fine pitch SMT devices.

How to deal with big, heatsucking components.

Other techniques

How to get started with a multimeter

How to use an oscilloscope