Soldering and Keyboards
After Electronics I ordered soldering gear, and a couple of little kits. I made up the less useful one first (a “decision maker”) to learn on. All seemed good, worked the first time I tried it, then failed the next. Oddly it all lights up when button pressed, but doesn’t carry on like it should. I suspect capacitor failure, but not sure how to verify that.
The second is a light sensitive night-light. This went better, and neater soldering by me. Worked first time and continues to work. I bought a multimeter in between, which let me test things as I went for peace of mind.
That leads me to keyboards. I thought I’d start simple, with a Gherkin, without LEDs. 30% should be an interesting thing to learn, I’ve thought about other layouts (like colemak too, but we’ll see. I ordered the kit, which arrived pretty quickly. So far I’ve done the easiest bit, soldering on the diodes.
I’ve quite enjoyed the blend of physical and mental required for these projects. It has been nice to concentrate on the process, almost meditation. We’ll see how the rest goes, but I can see more projects of this sort happening.