How to Make (Almost) Anything



Found a nice home for my boards with this handy Altoids box

Started with the Vinyl Board

The majority of my section was getting started on the Modela so I took the opportunity to see how to create the circuit board on the vinyl cutter. Dixon who is a TF in my section really took the time and interest to show us all his tricks. He took me step by step on how to set up the vinyl roll, upload the image and get the correct settings. After we printed it we then spent nearly 40 minutes removing the vinyl. He showed us all his developed tricks for this part. I was excited about the flexibility in creating vinyl but was discouraged by how long the hand cutting took. Later we found it was much easier to simply put the copper tape onto the adhesive and this made for a simpler process. ...

Board

I came in the next day to learn how to make this board. Fortunatley I found Rob who patiently took me through the process. He would first demonstrate how to calibrate the machine and right after have me do it on my own. By allowing me to learn this way the process of it all registered much easier. The soldering was something that at first I did not enjoy. Believe I was tired so I decided to come in the next day to finish. I spent nearly 4 hours doing this part and I was happy to slowly realize that I have a soldering style. Feel comfortable with this piece now.

Programming

The first time that I hooked up the usb, it did not work. I was initially nervous that I wouldn't be able to figure out why. I went back and just put more soder on all the pieces to see if there was a conducting problem. I then realized that I forgot to put one jumper in. After adding the jumper the programming worked perfectly. I then removed some bits and was able to program another board. This went a lot smoother than I thought it would. Beginners luck?