During this week, I decided to test out the sound input devices, which can potentially be used for my final project, where the viewer can control the rotation using their voice.
As suggested on the website, there are 2 kinds of microphones, one of them is MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems), and the other is Electret. As Jen mentioned on the site issue, arch shops ran out of some component inventory. Thus, I pretty much decided what I should make based on what we had in the shop. I will be making the MEMS analog and the digital board.
As I was not successful in making the electronic design before, I paid much more attention in the making process.
When I was milling the board, I used the traces and the outline image, and milled the boards on the Roland Machine in the arch shops. And to my surprise, setting up the milling machine becomes easier and faster, and the process of waiting for it to be done is still satisfying.
After milling each board, I compared the boards carefully with the original images and see if the traces match up. Last time when I was making the board it was exactly because I did not check the traces before actually soldering them and then it became hard to fix the problems.
Then it came to the soldering part. Starting from the smallest parts on the board, I got to the part when I need to solder the analog microphone onto the board.
Because the microphone has to be soldered exactly on top of board, I have to use the technique called “reflow”. Neil mentioned this technique in class, and it seems really fun to learn it. So I put solder on both the bottom of the microphone and the connection places on the board. Then, I used the hot air gun to heat up the solder, and then use the tweezer to hold the piece in place. Then when it is in place, I turned off the hot air gun and left the piece to be set. However, I did realize the hot air gun might be too hot for the board, as some parts near the spot is slightly burnt. So, next time I will definitely use a “colder” hot air gun.
The rest of the solder went well, but at some point it was kind of hard to get between some tiny openings to solder little bits.
As I have midterms this week, I am not sure if I will have time to test out the boards and then debug if they are not working. But I will update the website after I test out the board.
First, test the boards. Then, think of an interaction between the viewer and my final project sculpture, and then learn the output devices, and then combine them
UPDATES: I remade new boards of analog microphone potentially for my final project.
