Re: gEDA-user: Free Dog meetings at MIT starting this September!

["Samuel A. Falvo II" <sam.falvo@falvotech.com>]

On Sunday 22 August 2004 10:14 am, Dave McGuire wrote:
>    I must strongly disagree with this statement.  The notion that
> through-hole soldering is easier than soldering surface-mount devices
> is, and always has been, a myth.  Personally, any more, I *hate*
> soldering through-hole parts.  Sure it takes a steadier hand due to
> the finer pin spacings and such, but give me an SOIC over a DIP any
> day.

You can strongly disagree all you want.  The fact is, without that steady 
hand, which few will actually have especially if they've never picked up 
an iron before in their lives, I'm going to be up all night handling 
tech support calls on how they damaged their kits.  :-)

>    Perhaps a part of the problem is that people want to be able to
> solder with a cheap soldering iron they bought at Radio Shack for $12
> that has a tip as big as their finger.  To that, I say "use crap
> tools, get crap results".

Most of the people who expressed an interest in my idea were people who 
never worked on electronics before, and weren't going to spend any more 
than $150 tops.  A good quality Weller alone costs that much, let alone 
the kit.

> With quality tools, good lighting, and a
> little bit (maybe a few hours) of practice, I'm convinced that nearly
> anyone can solder wide-pitch SMT with no problem.  Don't want to shell

Hmm...does a 208-pin FPGA count as wide-pitch?  How about a 128-pin PQFP 
(which is what the MIPS CPU comes in)?  How about a BGA?

> out a few bucks for a quality temperature-controlled iron?  Don't try
> to solder. It's as simple as that.

No, it's not.  Sorry.

--
Samuel A. Falvo II