What I accomplished this week

• Finished moving into the new office
• Ordered the rest of the equipment and tools needed to complete my research
• Populated the PCB with all the surface mount components. The process is as follows
  • Apply solder paste to component pads
  • Using tweezers, place components onto pads
  • Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
  • Place PCB in oven and wait a few minutes until you see the components ‘pop’ into place
  • Remove PCB and inspect joints. Use solder wick to remove solder if there is excess amounts and/or solder bridges
  • Clean PCB of remaining flux using toothbrush and isopropyl alcohol

Problems

• Accidentally snapped a pin off the slide switch which rendered it as useless so I had to purchase more

Next week’s work

• Solder the slide switch, push buttons and headers to PCB
• Test PCB for functionality (Any fried components or smoke coming from PCB?)
• Conduct electrical measurements using multimeter

Below is an image of the board for prototype 1.2