[TriEmbed] PCB Carolina soldering workshop

[Pete Soper]

My picture being on the web page for last year's workshop kind of 
implied I might recommend it. Multiple folks have asked me about this, 
so here are a few notes that might help with the decision of dropping 
$130 for a few hours of instruction and practice with premo equipment.

The executive summary is that if you want to learn from an extremely 
experienced instructor and use one of the best soldering systems on the 
planet together with a very good microscope, practice board and 
component set you can take home to continue with, then I recommend it. 
If you expect some miraculous effect on your skills or more than a bit 
of personal instruction you may be disappointed. IMO this would be a 
frustrating waste of money for a beginner, and the 30% inflation over 
last year is unfortunate. I wanted to get more details from the 
organizers to pass along, but can only share the hope that there are 
changes to the event this year that balance the extra cost.

This workshop caught me last year at a good time to get some calibration 
points for technique, tools and supplies.  I started soldering in the 
late 50s when my dad helped me build things like tube radios in coffee 
cans. Dad was part of an IBM team building and maintaining one of the 
Sage computer systems. But, apart from one job where I provided custom 
test firmware to the "board bring up" techs in the company manufacturing 
facility, I'd had no contact with people who make a living judging good 
vs bad soldering. And I just thought I knew what a nice soldering iron 
was like.

Angel, the instructor,  provided some excellent instruction last year, 
with demonstration of techniques clearly shown via his microscope 
camera. He went into detail about solder and flux and his info enabled 
me to make a smooth, one way transition to SAC 305 lead free solder for 
my hand soldering. (I'm still using lead paste for reflow work). Angel 
also covered enough standards details to give appreciation for the 
benefit of additional instruction should I get into a position where the 
expense is justified. I spent a few hours after the workshop finishing 
the practice board at home. The workshop and additional practice enabled 
me to reach a point where I don't fret at all about hand soldering fine 
pitch packages and I can reliably end up with neat results from assembly 
and rework with no extra stomach acid production. A few months after the 
workshop I bought a Weller WX like the one used there. I haven't had a 
second's remorse and this genuinely boosted my productivity. It's 
extremely unlikely I could have been convinced this tool would be worth 
the money if I hadn't used one seriously for a few hours. I had been 
using Gene Kahn's Nikon SMZ-U, but recently got an Amscope SM4-TPZ 
microscope and again, experience from the workshop served as a benchmark 
for the performance level I knew would let me get good results with 
challenging jobs.

The show page with a link to the workshop can be found here 
<http://www.pcbcarolina.com/>.

-Pete

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