Give a man a soldered component, and he'll tinker for a day. Teach a man to solder, and he'll invent for life. Truer words have never been spoken. SparkFun will not rest until every man, woman, and child wields a soldering iron with all the proficiency and deadly accuracy as the most seasoned of electrical engineers.
How do we plan to accomplish this solder-proficient world? Classes of course! We have two upcoming classes scheduled that are perfect if you are looking to augment your soldering skillz (yep, with a "z").
On Tuesday, September 14th, we are offering the PTH Soldering Class, where you and a dozen or so of your fellow component comrades will try your hand on our Simon PTH Kit. A week later (that's September 21st), you can take the next step with our SMD Soldering Class.
Look at how happy these people are! If you want to join the soldering movement, our classes will send you on your way. Soldering...it's what brings us together.
Not as clumsy or random as a heat gun; an elegant tool for a more civilized age.
Hate to break this to you, but most seasoned electrical engineers don't have the faintest clue as to how to solder.
No, we will not be bringing dragons or robots with us, but we do hope to hang out and teach some soldering to anyone interested. We are also going to be expanding our class selection beyond soldering, but soldering definitely is the foundation of electronics tinkering. So even if you can't attend, get your hands on a soldering iron, teach yourself or ask a knowledgeable geek to chill with you.
Any chance you guy would be interested in doing a webcast of the classes?
I'm not after anything fancy but a live webcam feed would be pretty cool for those that live too far. Maybe even a 5 minute youtube video compressing the class material would be very helpful.
Thanks for everything sparkfun
Steve: Hate to break this to you, but most seasoned electrical engineers don't have the faintest clue as to how to solder.
Seriously. I get a shocked look from assemblers all the time when I say I don't know how to solder well. I've never had a single class on soldering. Just learned from nerve-wracking trial and error.
Heck, solder never even enters into the equation during EE classes. All of those real world things like bad solder joints and unreliable parts come as a fun shock right out of college.
You guys should really consider doing soldering lessons in different places across the country (I know that's probably not as easy as it sounds). But, being in Michigan, I need a better excuse than "there's a soldering lesson" to go to Colorado. Maybe have fans or "program graduates" be able to host classes?
The SMD course requires "a good familiarity with soldering in general." Does a lot of years of ugly-but-it-seems-to-work soldering and component burning count? I have a general desire to improve my SMD skills past things with no more than two ends.
I'm still proud of patching into an unwired pin on an LGA package the other week. I didn't start doing advanced soldering until recently! Anyone in the bay area want to help me make a tutorial for it? I'm by no means pro, but I feel like its encouraging to newbies to know that you really can do pretty much anything with minimal equipment!
-Taylor