How to solder small pins

If you're a maker like me who likes to test your ideas out with free samples (Texas Instruments, Microchip) then you'll want SMT & SMD soldering as a skill in your arsenal.

I'll be covering David Merrill's guide on soldering small pins, because I believe it's the best strategy with the resources many hobbyists have access too.


The tools I'm using in this demonstration are:

• BLE112 Bluetooth Smart Module
• BLE112 Bluetooth Low Energy Breakout
• SMT parts
• soldering iron
• solder
• flux

First thing you always need to do when soldering, is to find a open space where there is good airflow and sufficient lighting and of course a power supply for the soldering iron.  Basements are garages are usually good, and a fan can help if the area is on the smaller side.

Gather all your materials, and get settled in your workspace.

<workspace picture>

A great method for soldering small pins is to pre-solder all the pins on the SMDs and board.

<pre-soldered picture>

Once soldered, lay the parts down in their respective locations, and join the solder nodes together by gently touching the solder to the pins.

<soldered board>

It's as simple as that.  Now just interface your module and see if it gives you a good response!

I'm also going to write up a little guide for using conductive-glue pens, so stay tuned!

BLE112

The BLE112 module is a great option if you are looking to include the newest Bluetooth 4.0 (Low-Energy) functionality in a embedded system design.  The only downside (as you may be able to tell from above) is that the pins are fairly small, and are only suitable to be soldered to a final production design.

To solve this issue, I've ordered the breakout board below:

After soldering the BLE112 module to the breakout board (and the additional SMT components I recently found out are not included) the pins on the breakout should be easy enough  to access.  The final development set-up should look like the following:

Once broken-out, interfacing will be as simple as referencing this diagram:

CC2540 Mini-Development Kit

The CC2540 Mini-Development Kit

I'm super excited to crack into this thing, but I'll give a little background first on why this kit is so bad-ass.

The kit is for testing the CC2540, which is a Bluetooth Low Energy system on a chip solution.

What does that mean?  It means you can use your smartphone or any other Bluetooth Smart device to control embedded systems!

The applications of this chip are practically endless, so let's not wait any longer! Let's dive in!

Contents:

CC2540 USB Dongle

CC2540 Keyfob Board

Keyfob plastic case

CC Debugger

Debugger USB cable

Debugger pin cable

3V Battery

CC2540

The CC2540 is a Integrated Circuit (IC) System on-a Chip (SoC) responsible for microcontroller processes with an included 2.4 GHz Bluetooth Low-Energy module.