Project updates

[RJ]

This may be a dumb question, but what is the advantage of things moving to surface mount?

For everyone but the DIY guys it is GREAT!  Much smaller devices, Cheaper to make, Cheaper to build with in manufactoring, smaller warehouses.

For the DIY guys...  Getting parts is the big thing. Since the big guys no longer use the through hole stuff the manufactors have little incentive to keep making it. And it is easier to assemble if the parts used are large enough. Solding never takes me more than 4 minutes on any surface mount design. Of course I am not including the time putting the paste on and sticking the parts on the board. 

I mean how hard is it really with larger parts, you put a drop of goo on each pad. Pick the parts up and set them on the board. They stay there because the solder paste is like, well "PASTE" then when all the parts are on the board you sit it on the griddle and turn it on about 1/3 the way up. When it kicks off wait about 45 seconds and turn it 7/8 of the way on. When it kicks off wait about 30 seconds, Turn it wide open and watch as you the grey goo turns to bright shiney solder and the parts move around to line up straight like magic. Then once it is all nice you turn off the griddle and let it cool for about 10 minutes. All done!!  (Of course these crude instruction are for my griddle ymmv)

It is so COOL to do, the first time you see it you will be running around trying to figure out what else you can do! 

and you want have a single cold joint on the whole pcb.

RJ

[n1ist]

And if you want to use a soldering iron, and there are no QFN packaged parts, you can.  It's really not that hard, especially if RJ is using 0805 or larger parts, and if the chips come in SOIC packages.

There really is no need to fear surface mount, and as RJ pointed out, it's getting real hard to find newer chips in through hole these days. 
/mike

[egenoup]

I know it is not ideal, but why not have two kits... One through-hole with its own BOM and another kit for those of us willing to try surface mount.  I'm sure that the dongle price would drop a bit if we used SM for most of the parts, and the dongle would be smaller. 

just my .02!

Charles

[RJ]

I know it is not ideal, but why not have two kits... One through-hole with its own BOM and another kit for those of us willing to try surface mount.  I'm sure that the dongle price would drop a bit if we used SM for most of the parts, and the dongle would be smaller. 

just my .02!

Charles

Maybe I am not explaining myself well. It is not a matter of I could do either with no problem so I want to do SMD. It is a matter of the parts avaiable in the through hole format preventing me from going through hole. The through parts I could find are not for this world very long according to their manufactors. Since I am putting so much work and money into the project I can not move ahead with parts that will not be avaliable before long.  I could build the controller using old technology that waste a lot of power as heat so that the light runs hot and it uses a lot of power. But that is not what I am doing on this. I plan, as do a bunch of others that have contacted me, to use them as outdoor lights year round so I want Efficent, long lasting units which means going effecient. The Aether uses hardly over 20 watts of power for the light it puts out 

That is up in the 94% range of efficency. This means for 3 lights at full that is 60 watts which I can light my whole house at full brightness with. I would never want to use full for this kind of lighting from these lights it would be too bright for that kind of effect. So that means about 30 watts at half brightness to light my whole house.

Do the math... I can light it up for 4 hours a night all month for  3.6 kwh or about  $.60 a month ( 4Hours * 30W = 120W... 120W * 30days =3,600W  = 3.6KWH

Then during christmas season I can kick them up full power and do a heck of a show. Then put them back on my house. And doing so just involves moving them and plugging in power as there is no external controllers or power supplies to deal with on them. They are self contained in their housing needing no external items to operate when used in wireless mode.

RJ


P.S mike the smallest parts are 1206 and the ics are all SOIC so these are big parts for being surface mount. Anyone wnating to build them can do it and could do it with a soldering iron if they want I just prefer to use the griddle. I will show both technics in the build video so they can see how to do both.
 

[crazybob]

I'm all for trying surface mount. It's not like there's nobody around here who can give some guidance...

[foodseller]

I, too, am all for doing the surface mount.  We are DIYer's we will be able to work around all the issues.  I think, from what I read, that we can get the SMD and go from there.  I think it will be pretty cool to get into the "new" way of doing things!  As long as DIYer's can still get the parts as well.

just my .02 worth.

Thanks, btw, RJ for all of your hard work and brilliance on this stuff!  About the only thing I know is that when my kits show up--I put them together and they work like magic!! 

[n1ist]

1206 and SOIC are huge.  My soldering kit uses 0805 parts, so for those of you who will be building them, Aether will be using bigger discretes, and the same pitch ICs.

Building SMT is actually easier than TH; you don't have to worry about parts falling out when you turn the board over to solder them (since you don't) and you don't have to clip leads.  If you do use paste and a skillet or oven, it's even easier.  I have hand-soldered 0402 and MSOP with an iron - now those are small.

/mike

[Dennis Cherry]

Go for SMT.

We need to keep up with some of the new technology.

RJ: will the solder paste be furnished with the kits or do we buy it separately?

[wbuehler]

Yes surface mount is awesome.  I do the griddle method and it is cool.

[rogerwh]

For someone who just spent about 4 hours on a Dongle {CB with my first solder job and still ended up with several solder bridges to go back and fix, I would certainly be wiling to try surface mount.

[RJ]

Go for SMT.

We need to keep up with some of the new technology.

RJ: will the solder paste be furnished with the kits or do we buy it separately?

I think we will need to offer a seperate kit for just building supplys. In it we would provide Solder paste, plunger and correct size needle. Also the correct Non Conductive thermal paste used to attach the LED's plus a Flux pen for hand soldering the parts you will hand solder.  This way you get one build kit and it will do all of your units as well as other projects later. In quanities we can get it cheaper and it will be convienient to the user as they know they are using the exact stuff I am in the video assembly manual. All you provide is a cheap griddle from walmart or other, and you are set.

RJ 
 

[rrowan]

Go for SMT.

We need to keep up with some of the new technology.

RJ: will the solder paste be furnished with the kits or do we buy it separately?

I think we will need to offer a seperate kit for just building supplys. In it we would provide Solder paste, plunger and correct size needle. Also the correct Non Conductive thermal paste used to attach the LED's plus a Flux pen for hand soldering the parts you will hand solder.  This way you get one build kit and it will do all of your units as well as other projects later. In quanities we can get it cheaper and it will be convienient to the user as they know they are using the exact stuff I am in the video assembly manual. All you provide is a cheap griddle from walmart or other, and you are set.

RJ 
 

That sounds awesome, I have not done any smd/smt but I think we need to go in that direction.

Cheers

Rick R.

[tbone321]

I was reading one link where the people were using a toaster oven but the paste that they were using was water based and must be stored in a refrigerator.  I would think that you are not using that paste.

[thshadow]

If we are making these on a griddle sure you don't want to change the name to Lynx Pancake Lights
 

[batdive]

If we are making these on a griddle sure you don't want to change the name to Lynx Pancake Lights
 

Ok SMT and a griddle.. Well check have the griddle, but RJ or someone I sure hope a "how to" video would be great , if it seems that is the future of the Lynx line.

I know this DIYer could use it.