You are too kind! My RISC-V notes are taking shape. I needed to put it aside for a while to let it simmer before I commit to recording priveliged instructions, I/O, virtual memory,...
Hi John, I've always had a passion for fixing electronics, and now I'm starting to learn micro soldering. My hopes are I could start refurbishing circuitry that was otherwise getting thrown out as a secondary income. This was an incredibly informative and helpful video to me, probably the best I've ever seen covering the topic. This deserves way more attention and should be shown to every technician no matter the skill level. Thank you, have a good one :D
1,356 views and only 43 likes? It's not right. Come on, folks. Share some love. Thank you for the excellent tutorial. I do this exact kind of work all the time and there was not one word of your description I would change.
Looks like a well designed board and probably not only fun to put together but fun to play with afterwards. As for the soldering, everyone seems to find what works for them but I am amazed at how much flux is thrown about these days. It may be inexpensive but it does all seem like wasted material to me. Flooding everything with flux before soldering is not my thing and seems like a lifetime's worth in a single use. Most solder has enough in the core alone for SMDs but occasionally it helps in tricky spots. I typically use paste flux and have had the same tiny can since I was a teenager from the 80s! So we are likely close to the same age John.
I never even owned a container of flux until recent years. The core in some 60/40 is all I needed.. until I started using surface-mount parts. I found that they often did not use enough solder for the core to work. Too little flux is a nightmare. Too much will work as long as you can get it all cleaned off. I also never used wick. Even now I often find it easier to melt a joint and tap it on my bench to shed any excess.
It depends on the type of SD card socket. The one I used is very similar to the one on the Raspberry PI. So soldering on one a PI would be almost identical to doing so on the retro board. My attempts at soldering mine on would have likely gone better if I increased the heat on the iron when soldering on the case.
Btw John what’s the definitive source for figuring out which components should be placed along side an SD card connector? I’ve kinda just looked at google images of schematics and noticed a couple decoupling capacitors on the Vdd line and pull-up resistors on certain data lines.
Good question! I didn't give it a whole lot of thought beyond the needs of the 3.3V regulator and an eyeball at what others have used around the Internet. There are a great deal of SD adapters with 5V interfaces and open schematics. I suspect I averaged the collective wisdom of several of them. The SD spec notes that the data output from the SD card goes into a tri-state when the card is not selected and it is hot-pluggable. So adding some sort of pullup would be a good idea. The size is likely up to you. 10K is pretty big. I would not go any larger. I've seen mine run on my scope and know that it is square enough for the Retro! So the 10K is not too big nor small to make the signal messed up. I will say that I have seen an occasional error after extended periods of write testing. Statistically, that will happen anyway. I'm just throwing that out there. It is possible that adding some more cap to the 3.3V line could help that (because the current draw on the SD card is not going to ever be greater than when writing.) Hmmm... I should run a series of tests with my 3.3V interface and then again with the 5V adapter from Sparkfun to see if there is any difference.
Pro tip, avoid as much as possible to add mechanical tension when you solder the first pin and finetune the pisition before soldering the rest. You dont believe how quickly copper traces do break. The smaller the trace the more it applies. I've even seen it on high volume professional PCB... Use some Patafix (do you know that stuff in the US?), use it to fix the PCB against your worksurface (desk/workbench, whatever it is) and use just a little to fix your card reader against the pcb. When in good position, solder the first pin, should be fine :) The you can remove that Patafix.
Probably a good idea when using an iron like I did in this video. UHU Patafix is available in the US. I've seen others use it. I'll give it a try sone time. Thanks for mentioning it.
Yeah. A few weeks ago I found a box of ancient Z80 systems I built, started tinkering, and started wondering how much I could get onto a cheap 100mm square prototype run PCB. I aimed for an all-thruhole project. But I couldn't find any SD sockets. So it can run with a @sparkfun breakout board or with a SMT SD socket. Once I'm sure I got a viable BIOS I'll record a series on the board and how I ported CP/M to it.
Without a stencil? On fine pitched parts I end up with a solder mess when I use paste. On these larger parts it might be more reasonable. Can you recommend a favorite product?
If only my professors were as clear and down to earth as you are. Hoping you will one day continue your Riscv lectures into a fpga implementation..
You are too kind!
My RISC-V notes are taking shape. I needed to put it aside for a while to let it simmer before I commit to recording priveliged instructions, I/O, virtual memory,...
Hi John, I've always had a passion for fixing electronics, and now I'm starting to learn micro soldering. My hopes are I could start refurbishing circuitry that was otherwise getting thrown out as a secondary income. This was an incredibly informative and helpful video to me, probably the best I've ever seen covering the topic. This deserves way more attention and should be shown to every technician no matter the skill level. Thank you, have a good one :D
You are too kind! Thank you for the encouragement.
1,356 views and only 43 likes? It's not right. Come on, folks. Share some love.
Thank you for the excellent tutorial. I do this exact kind of work all the time and there was not one word of your description I would change.
From your mouth to the viewer's mouse buttons everywhere! 😀
John you’ve done it again. Great content.
Thanks!
Looks like a well designed board and probably not only fun to put together but fun to play with afterwards. As for the soldering, everyone seems to find what works for them but I am amazed at how much flux is thrown about these days. It may be inexpensive but it does all seem like wasted material to me. Flooding everything with flux before soldering is not my thing and seems like a lifetime's worth in a single use. Most solder has enough in the core alone for SMDs but occasionally it helps in tricky spots. I typically use paste flux and have had the same tiny can since I was a teenager from the 80s! So we are likely close to the same age John.
I never even owned a container of flux until recent years. The core in some 60/40 is all I needed.. until I started using surface-mount parts. I found that they often did not use enough solder for the core to work.
Too little flux is a nightmare. Too much will work as long as you can get it all cleaned off.
I also never used wick. Even now I often find it easier to melt a joint and tap it on my bench to shed any excess.
@@JohnsBasement I never had/used any solder wick either until recent years. Not great for everything but helps with some things.
Hi can you do this with like a broken micro sd ar on a notebook motherboard or is it something completely different
It depends on the type of SD card socket. The one I used is very similar to the one on the Raspberry PI. So soldering on one a PI would be almost identical to doing so on the retro board.
My attempts at soldering mine on would have likely gone better if I increased the heat on the iron when soldering on the case.
Hey John I need help installing a WiFi Bluetooth module on my tablet. Can you guide me on what goes where?
You'd be better off doing a google search on the products & software that you are using. There are likely tutorials out there on what you will need.
Thank you, I'll Google and try my best
Btw John what’s the definitive source for figuring out which components should be placed along side an SD card connector? I’ve kinda just looked at google images of schematics and noticed a couple decoupling capacitors on the Vdd line and pull-up resistors on certain data lines.
Good question! I didn't give it a whole lot of thought beyond the needs of the 3.3V regulator and an eyeball at what others have used around the Internet.
There are a great deal of SD adapters with 5V interfaces and open schematics. I suspect I averaged the collective wisdom of several of them.
The SD spec notes that the data output from the SD card goes into a tri-state when the card is not selected and it is hot-pluggable. So adding some sort of pullup would be a good idea. The size is likely up to you. 10K is pretty big. I would not go any larger.
I've seen mine run on my scope and know that it is square enough for the Retro! So the 10K is not too big nor small to make the signal messed up.
I will say that I have seen an occasional error after extended periods of write testing. Statistically, that will happen anyway. I'm just throwing that out there. It is possible that adding some more cap to the 3.3V line could help that (because the current draw on the SD card is not going to ever be greater than when writing.)
Hmmm... I should run a series of tests with my 3.3V interface and then again with the 5V adapter from Sparkfun to see if there is any difference.
Great, thanks for the thoughts on this!
Pro tip, avoid as much as possible to add mechanical tension when you solder the first pin and finetune the pisition before soldering the rest. You dont believe how quickly copper traces do break. The smaller the trace the more it applies. I've even seen it on high volume professional PCB...
Use some Patafix (do you know that stuff in the US?), use it to fix the PCB against your worksurface (desk/workbench, whatever it is) and use just a little to fix your card reader against the pcb. When in good position, solder the first pin, should be fine :)
The you can remove that Patafix.
Probably a good idea when using an iron like I did in this video.
UHU Patafix is available in the US.
I've seen others use it. I'll give it a try sone time. Thanks for mentioning it.
Is this a project you will be sharing?
Yeah. A few weeks ago I found a box of ancient Z80 systems I built, started tinkering, and started wondering how much I could get onto a cheap 100mm square prototype run PCB. I aimed for an all-thruhole project. But I couldn't find any SD sockets. So it can run with a @sparkfun breakout board or with a SMT SD socket.
Once I'm sure I got a viable BIOS I'll record a series on the board and how I ported CP/M to it.
@@JohnsBasement Great! Looking forward to it!
Why not use a flux with soldier paste.
With a stencil & hot air, I would. But with an iron, I've had bad luck with it.
(In this video I was shooting for what is possible for the hobbiest.)
I use paste flux, maybe not as messy.
Without a stencil? On fine pitched parts I end up with a solder mess when I use paste. On these larger parts it might be more reasonable.
Can you recommend a favorite product?