Friday 4 January 2013

USB Microscope

We were lucky enough to be given a USB microscope this christmas so decided to try it out by soldering some Atmega8A in a TQFP32 package that we got REALLY cheap from China. We etched a breakout board using the vinyl on paper - laser print - heat transfer technique (we will write a post up about that later) and prepared to solder.

We realised they were small but hadn't realised HOW small!



More after the break




Luckily we could get far closer than we will ever need to solder.



 The microscope can also record video - below is our first attempt at soldering this size package. So far everything seems to have been successful!



Not the most thrilling video in the world but it works!







2 comments:

  1. Let me know what is the temperature of the soldering iron?

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  2. Er, about half?! lol. I have a cheap, chinese, ebay special soldering iron with an undisclosed temperature range. I usually use it at just over half way on the dial but it doesn't seem too critical for what I have been doing. Hope that helped!

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