Electronics

The Electronics Area

Area Warden Dave Blundell

The electronics area exists on the two pallet rack work areas that are closest to the window across from the front door. It is divided roughly into an assembly area (closest to the window) and a testing area (closest to the door). There is an anti-static mat down on top of both desks.

Items on loan to the hive are parenthetically noted. Items owned by the hive are noted 'hive13'. If not noted, it is probably owned by Hive13, but please ask if uncertain.

Please keep table tops clear and clean.

Please do not borrow individual hand tools, take a tray if working on repairs, etc away from electronics area. This keeps the tools together and prevents small tools from disappearing all over the space.

Test equipment tested and in spec unless otherwise noted

Soldering Tools in the Area

• Weller WES50 Temperature control soldering iron (cjdavis) - located on top of workbench, plugged in
• Metcal soldering station - located on the other workbench. High end, very capable soldering station.
• Xytronic 968 Combination temperature control soldering iron / vacuum desoldering iron station (daveb) - located on top of workbench, plugged in
• Reflow Toaster Oven for solder paste / surface mount soldering. (Re-tested fully functional 10/1/2020)
• Soldering tweezers (player2) ( link)
• Leaded Rosin core solder, several rolls (hive13) - located on shelf of soldering bench
• Lead free solder, one or two rolls (hive13) - located on shelf of soldering bench
• Three tool trays containing tweezers, hemostats, wire strippers, and other hand tools. IMPORTANT: When using these tools away from the primary electronics bench, please take the entire tray so electronics tools stay together and get returned. "Grab a tray, not a tool!".
• 2x4 stand that says "SMT ONLY" with solder tip cleaner, 28AWG No-clean solder for SMT work, 28 AWG water clean up solder for SMT work, and 21 AWG water clean up solder for SMT work. Please note: this solder is expensive (~$50 / lb - roll) so do not use it for through-hole stuff. (hive13) - located on top of workbench by soldering irons.
• Reflow oven - stainless steel toaster oven with homebrew PID temperature controller (hive13)
• Stereo Microscope (jon) - assembly area, comes and goes
• Wire, clips, leads, etc - hanging on wall.
• Large Panavise circuit board holder (LorinP)
• Nifty flexible 3rd hand (Jon)
• Traditional 3rd hand
• Magnifier lamps, headbands, lenses.
• Wave solder machine (daveb) - no longer at hive13. If you require the use of it, contact daveb.

Testing tools we have

• Rigol 1054z, 100Mhz 4 channel Digital Storage Oscilloscope (hacked) - located on testing bench
• Rigol DG1022, 2 channel function generator - next to Rigol Oscilloscope
• Saleae Logic analyzer (PC based - download free software from vendor https://www.saleae.com/downloads/)
• Two Regulated, adjustable power supplies (hive13) - one on each bench
• Wavetech function generator
• Isolation transformer
• BitScope USB logic analyzer - located above testing bench
• HP 3457A, 7.5 digit bench multimeter - located on the upper rack (very accurate but hard to use)
• HP 3478A, 5.5 digit bench multimeter
• Fluke 45, 4.5 digit bench multimeter
• cheap handheld digital multimeter (DMM) - located in misc tray on bench
• Test leads, BNC's, and probes - hung in lead holder mounted on rack upright brace
• Alligator clip leads, meat hooks (grabber clips), jumper wires - hung in lead holder
• Extech lead adapter kit to use clip, probe, meat hook on any test equipment. - in plastic drawers below bench.

Programmers (Located in plastic drawers near bench)

• Adafruit usbtinyisp AVR microcontroller programmer ( link) (cjdavis Uses AVRDUDE programmer software. (instructions)
• Olimex 2101 DEV ARM-USBTINY LPC2148
• Serial interface Smart Card programmer for Satellite use (unknown, need to track down docs) (hive13)
• Crystal Fontz LCD
• Amex CC card reader
• OneFrog USB-Serial bridge
• Datarase EPROM eraser
• Willem Parallel port EPROM programmer (link) (hive13)

Dev boards (Located in plastic drawers near bench)

• TI Stellaris Launchpad LM4F120 (arduino compatible dev board)
• TI C2000 Piccolo Launchpad xL-F28027 (arduino compatible dev board)
• 2 TI MSP430 Launchpads (arduino compatible dev board)
• Stellaris LM3S811 Cortex 50 Mhz Cortex M3 ARM - complete and in box (link) (hive13)
• mbed NXP1768 96 Mhz Cortex M3 ARM - complete and in box (docs) (daveb)
• Olimex 70 Mhz ARM7TDMI ARM NXP LPC2103 dev board - needs Olimex USB JTAG (link) (hive13)
• HackRFBlue Software Defined Radio
• Lattice XP2 Brevia DevKit dev board

Electronic components

• There is a fairly large selection of wire on shelves next to the stations ranging from about 10 AWG to 24 AWG.

• Many Asst. components, many in the small drawers and mini bins on the shelf above the stations- ask area warden for details.

Consumable Supplies

The main consumable supplies in the electronics area are solder and soldering supplies. For many of these things, other brands/part numbers may work ok. These part numbers are for the exact replacement of what has been used successfully at the Hive:

• The Flux pen for hand SMT soldering Kester 2331-zx (may be discontinued)
• 21 AWG Water clean solder - Kester 24-6337-6403 $40/lb-roll (Digikey: KE1300-ND)
• 28 AWG Water clean solder - Kester 24-6337-6422 $70/lb-roll (Digikey: KE1303-ND)
• 28 AWG No-Clean solder - Kester 4-6337-8806 $60/lb-roll (Digikey: KE1405-ND) (Prices updated 1-2019)

Alphametals rosin core solder - (may be discontinued but daveb has about 20 rolls of it so if the hive runs low, let him know)

• Flux paste
• Flux pen
• 22 gauge wire of various colors
• Small hand tools
• Consumable parts for de-soldering station (cotton balls)
• Chore boy/sponge for solder station

Broken Items

Stuff breaks. If something is broken it is listed here until repaired: