Really liked this episode and been wondering about this for a while. Thanks a lot guys.

You have to love the smell of solder in the morning.
by lm386/nte823

So where was the discussion of Vishay capacitors and gold banded resistors and how they improve sound quality?

Where is the comparison to a tube headphone amp?

What slackers.

BTW, Dave, good to see you kept Patrick out of the room, he bring bad mojo to circuit boards.

Enjoyable to watch even though I do that kind of soldering almost on a daily basis, but unfortunately no use to me. I use cheap (but sound extremely good) Philips buds with my iRiver H140, the player vol goes to 40 but I rarely go above 16 with the Philips buds.




Not if you use over 2 meters of the stuff in one short sitting! I had to solder both ends of 50 AAA batteries today, sure glad I had an extractor fan with carbon filter.
Generally though I kinda like the slight waft of solder fumes in the air, the 'tink tink tink' sound of the metal of the soldering iron expandind/contracting and the 'clunk' of putting the iron back in it's holder - it's the unmistakable smell & sound of electronic creation :D

I always found the wet sponge method of cleaning the tip to be a PITA, makes a nice 'tschhhh' sound but it also makes the tip cool down for a few moments and getting the excess solder off can sometimes be really awkward as you press the iron down against the sponge whilst trying to spin+drag it at the same time. I only use the brass wool cleaner now: stab + twist = cleaned.

BTW, diagonal cutters? oh, side cutters! :)


P.S. adding outtakes to the ends of the shows = excellent decision

Just a few comments:

Nice introduction to the very basics of electronic components.

Orange Weller? My WP25 is blue-ish. I have 3 of them, and I swear by them. (Well, very rarely swear AT them, which means about the same thing) :)

I gave up on the wet sponge thing 18 years ago. Brass shavings pad (wool?) F-T-W. You can find a brass wool pad at any thrift store for about a buck. Make sure you get the ones without any soap in them.

When assembling a project, it's usually best to start with the components which stick up from the PCB the least (jumpers, flat resistors), and end with the taller components (voltage regulators, relays). This way you can lay the PCB on a table and the new component is usually making contact with the table surface. This isn't a big thing, but it helps keep the new parts flat against the PCB as you're assembling, which can be a headache if you're doing it backwards.

Rather than spending money on a box of jumpers, buy some 22 AWG solid core wire and a wire stripper and make your own. It's an essential skill that you'll need eventually, so why not make your own? The solid core is great for protoboarding/whiteboarding, and can be used for jumpers on finished PCBs as well. Building your own will also help you get a feel for how to make your wires fit nicely into incremental lengths of 0.100", which will look nicer on predrilled proto-PCBs and protoboards than wires bending everywhere because they're too long. For wires with one end going away from your PCB (connecting to a case-mounted audio jack, for example) use stranded core wire for better durability.

That guy has possibly the best instruction manual I've ever seen.

Sometimes you can get a DMM (digital multimeter) for no cost. Jameco and All Electronics have both given them away with larger orders. They're not fabulous models, but they do everything you'd need for simple projects, and lots more.

Double sided foam tape makes a great insulated standoff for mounting things. :)

Definitely keep up the outtakes. :D

Trivia: In Japan, PCBs are called PWBs, or Printed Wiring Boards. Why? Some years ago, a pesticide with the acronym PCB was used in Japan, which resulted in quite a few deaths (think DDT in America). Thus, "PCB" gained a bad connotation, thus the use of PWB instead.

PS: Dave sounded kind of stuffed up. I have a suspicion there's a nasty cold bug jumping around at the Rev3 offices.

This was a really good episode,

"Hakko" is my Soldering iron brand of choice, We have 3 running 8 hours a day, every day, they have never failed(except when I dropped a large TV on it's handle, in its holder, but glue fixed it). "Sponge cleaning" is my tip cleaning method of choice, my boss uses the copper braid from around a microwave magnetron as his cleaning method.

When it comes to removing unwanted solder(soder to you guys), I find the best thing is dry-wick, also called soderwick, desolder wick or desoldering braid. The best brand we've found is Soder-wick from chemtronics. Best to buy it around 2mm wide. It'll remove all the solder from a joint as small as a leg of a smd transistor, to as big as a lug on a lopt.

Another quick way to remove a solder bridge between pin's, Just flux the joint and reheat, the solder will quickly flow away to the closest pad, this even works on tiny smd ic's.

Great work guys.

Mike.

This was a great episode. Not only do we see how to build a useful project, the soundtrack of David singing will take care of those annoying mice in my barn!

Even Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza, and Luciano Pavarotti can get old after a while. I say that with the up most respect for all three of them.
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I hoard things, but can't solder a bead...

So wait. I could just make an altoid amp for $30 and get great sound, instead of having to buy the $100 apple in-ear headphones? (I currently use Koss The spark - in-ear headphones)

Lovely episode. Good job! I think Systm has become watchable, again :)