annoying electronics building habbits

[Optikon]

** Not picking up the little lead clippings / wire stripped pieces or other throw away debris. Makes for a dirty work area.

** Not using proper ESD precautions like a ground strap / mat. (This one is worth the risk IMO, rarely ESD does any damage in my work areas)

** Eating FOOD with my hands after I have handled LEAD solder.. Oh dear, lead poisoning.. I'm sure my blood is coarsing with lead.

** Leaving equipment turned on when not in use / done with it.

** Soldering onto a circuit while it is powered! Just not patient enough to turn it off. Sometimes I short stuff out, mostly not though.

** Using solder that is EXPIRED. What? solder expires? Yes it does. Flux core solder does anyways. I dont care, I use expired solder.

 

[3v0]

d.
** Leaving equipment turned on when not in use / done with it.

I have that problem too. Especially hard on soldering iron tips. I have been thinking about a timer with a relay to turn off the iron and my worklights. Use a small PIC and a speaker to beep softly so that I can hit the reset button for another hour or time.

 

[picbits]

Just have 2 rings for your mains.

One ring is permanently live while the other has a switch near the door - when you finish for the night you turn it off and everything that doesn't need to be plugged in and turned on permanently gets turned off

 

[mneary]

I use a PIR for my lighting and any other safety related stuff like soldering irons. Set to maximum delay, it doesn't go out unless I'm not moving. (This happens sometimes when I'm soldering a small SMT board.)

 

[kchriste]

i get into this zombie like state where i put the whole thing together in a mess of wires. the next day i can't figure out how to work it. another thing i do is use my teeth as a wire stripper/cutter for wires and solder.

The reason you're in a zombie like state is because you have lead poisoning from biting solder!

 

[futz]

I have that problem too. Especially hard on soldering iron tips. I have been thinking about a timer with a relay to turn off the iron and my worklights. Use a small PIC and a speaker to beep softly so that I can hit the reset button for another hour or time.

My Weller WES50 shuts itself off if I forget. Tips last and last and last. Best iron I've ever owned.

 

[HiTech]

Install a pressure switch mat on your shop chair -- when you get up the solder station turns off -- have a seat and it's back on!

 

[mneary]

When I was a kid, I got a tempered glass front from a TV (now it's integrated into the tube). Placed it on the desk and used it for desoldering parts from boards. Heat a connection or two, then fling. Made a mess on the desk but saved the carpet.

 

[Hero999]

I've been guilty of using my teeth as wire strippers and they got a bit sensitive.

Nowadays I only resort to it, if I don't have any propper wire strippers handy.

When I was a kid I used to do soldering on my bed and burnt some of the sheets but I use a piece of chip board as a mat on a table or desk nowadays.

 

[dknguyen]

I've been guilty of using my teeth as wire strippers and they got a bit sensitive.

Nowadays I only resort to it, if I don't have any propper wire strippers handy.

When I was a kid I used to do soldering on my bed and burnt some of the sheets but I use a piece of chip board as a mat on a table or desk nowadays.

Wow. I'm OCDish and ultra paranoid about lead- if anyone soldered anything in my bed, or even put solder or an iron on my bed, I'd get a new bed! So you can probably guess it's unimaginable for me to see anyone sticking anything like tinned wires that have been lying around the lab into their mouth.

 

[Krumlink]

I always forget to turn off my Soldering irons, so I hooked up everything to a single power strip and have a little light that stays on if everything is left on. Before this I left my soldering iron on for about a week.

 

[Hero999]

Wow. I'm OCDish and ultra paranoid about lead- if anyone soldered anything in my bed, or even put solder or an iron on my bed, I'd get a new bed! So you can probably guess it's unimaginable for me to see anyone sticking anything like tinned wires that have been lying around the lab into their mouth.

I might have been stupid enough to solder on my bed but I've never beed stupid enough to put tinned copper wire in my mouth. Insulated copper wire normally isn't tinned or the sort I used to use certainly wasn't.

 

[futz]

Wow. I'm OCDish and ultra paranoid about lead- if anyone soldered anything in my bed, or even put solder or an iron on my bed, I'd get a new bed! So you can probably guess it's unimaginable for me to see anyone sticking anything like tinned wires that have been lying around the lab into their mouth.

Oh relax, wouldja! If you're not eating it you'll be fine. I've handled lead all my life. In business I've handled tons of lead toilet stubs and in the old days, sheet lead for shower pans and 5 lb. lead ingots melting in a lead pot to pour plumbing joints. Hundreds of pounds of 50/50 lead/tin solder went through my hands to solder a gazillion joints. Ate lunch with dirty hands. No big deal. Never worried about it (aside from the usual "don't eat it" precautions) and my health is fine.

The insanity these days about "mold!!!" and "lead!!!" and "asbestos!!!" and "the environment!!!" is SO overblown. It's mostly ridiculous media hype. Just don't eat it!

 

[m.levin]

Hello

Thought I would I would have a break form the studying electronics and visit an electronics forum!

My bad habits are Leaving the soldering Iron on and not cleaning my tip.

 

[Sceadwian]

I agree futz it is a bit paranoid. Even if you do eat it a solder ball is the safest way to ingest lead, it's spherical so the surface area is low which keeps the lead from dissolving at a fast rate, I'm not sure the exact reactions hydrochloric (stomach acid) has with lead/tin alloys but most dissolutions from a metallic form (especially alloys) tend to create a 'smut' which self insulates the surface from the acid, and it will end up just being passed quiet harmlessly with little material being disolved. Things like lead paint are horrible because they're extremely thin flakes of material that are easily chopped up into finer bits and disolve easily in the body. Absorbing lead through the skin from contact with cloth that's had a solder ball hit it isn't practically possible.

I was under the impression that 'tinned' wire was actually pure tin not a tin/lead mix. Tin whiskers can't form through an insulator so there's no reason for the lead. Even with a high thickness of 60/40 coating a wire completely dissolving the ends of it into an ionic state and introducing it into your system would barely be described as dangerous, the amounts involved are just too small. Metallic lead is HARMLESS, it has to be rendered into an ionic state (dissolved) to be dangerous. Hexavalent chromium coated cadmium parts have been using in the automobile industry for years and that's some pretty toxic stuff. The only reason the EU is doing ROHS and EVL initiatives is because when these substances are buried in the ground in the real world when they're thrown out it's easy for them to be in contact with slightly acidic or alkaline substances for very long periods of time causing them to dissolve and enter the water table which can then contaminate local ecology. Depending on the rosin/flux used with the solder it may be rendered completely inert in the human digestive tract.

 

[davidbball13]

i have my breadboard and every thing and my laptop on a desk ment for a three year old my knees are about a fot higher then the desk when i am sitting down

 

[atferrari]

My ones

a) Reversing a micro, upside down in the ZIF of a programmer. Many times. (Too many)

b) Taking the hot solder iron from the wrong end. Why the iron has the habit to show up in the wrong position? Happened thrice.

c) Turning upside down a big flat box with literally hundreds of resistors classified in tens of divisions. Just once, thanks God.

d) Turning upside down a box with tens of semiconductors duly and carefuly classified. Just once as well.

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Two bad habits I discontinued at any cost:

Teeth used to strip wires. Damaged my teeth insanely. Using carefuly a cutter instead, I can mark the jacket enough for pulling it apart.

Trying to extract the ICs (any size is the same) from a tight breadboard with my fingers. When get the IC free, the end pins are inserted in you fingers and THAT IS PAIN!

Your brain reacts too late and you keep pressing the IC even after it is freed, driving the pins in. It never fails.

One incredible problem I got, two weeks ago: the girl coming once a week to clean my apartment, decided to tidy my bench! One of the worst catastrophic domestic incidents in the last 30 years.

Besides piling up everyhting with her own criteria, she made the extractor I use for 40 pins ICs to disappear!

And she conciously mixed up the papers and components of various projects in an apparently ordered mass of things. Help!

 

[davidbball13]

a)



Trying to extract the ICs (any size is the same) from a tight breadboard with my fingers. When get the IC free, the end pins are inserted in you fingers and THAT IS PAIN!

Help!

i JUST did that. i have a paper towel on my finger the IC pin was all the way in my finger i did not realize it for about two min. when i scratched my face and i had blood all over my hand!

 

[Sceadwian]

Yeah, done the IC removal bit a few times myself, though not very badly. I always use a screw driver or proper tool now. My worst habit so far is when I switch chips on my STK500, I'll change the jumpers from the MEGA to the Tiny and pop the tiny in it's proper socket and forget to remove the mega, which causes the whole thing to fail programming. I must have stared at that bored for half an hour going "what the hell am I doing wrong" before I realized there were two chips plugged in. I've done it twice.

 

[RODALCO]

Good topic.

My bad habits are starting too many projects at once and never finishing them.

Same applies to fixing old R2R taperecorders, have three sitting in pieces awaiting cap replacements.

Leaving wire ends and cut offs all over the place. these hurt when you stand on them.

Too much bits and pieces floating around on my workbench, which reduces the size of the working area.

Tip. For keeping the solder sponge wet.
I use a small 600 ml coke bottle filled with water and a small hole drilled in the lid.
This water supply lasts for a long time and avoids having to get water for the next soldering session.

Use a 24/7, 240 Volts supply for equipment which can be left on.

And a switched 240 Volts supply which has the soldering iron on it as well as the extra fluorescent lamps to lit the workbench properly.
The fluorescents also give visual indication that equipment may be left on.