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Where to get scrap circuit boards for soldering practice

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Z.K.

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I have been involved with electronics for a number of years, but I do not really have much experience solder the smaller components that are available today such as 0402 and 0201 smd footprints. I was wondering if anyone knows where I can get some scrap circuit boards with these footprints. I don't really care if the boards have components on them or not though that would be more useful. I tried doing a search on the Internet, but all I found was on the SparkFun website and they don't have any in stock at this time. Though I am unsure if the SparkFun boards have the 0402 or 0201. I think probably not as most of their boards tend to use larger components.
 
Some of the hobby suppliers sell a "SMD soldering practice board" which comes with bare PCB and dummy SMD components, normally lots of dummy ICs.

I don;t know if they sell 0204 soldering practice boards but it might be a new option for your internet searching.
 
How about some old pc motherboard or similar? You can take off the comonents and then try resoldering them, and you should have a lot of different packages there.
 
If you can't find a practice board online, then just design one yourself and get it made. Small quantity PCBs are quite cheap.
 
I use old circuit boards out of just about anything to teach my students how to solder..For smd components we use a heat gun to take them all off. The students that want to try (not required) can solder them back on. Best of all it's all free, and it was junk to start with, so they can't mess anything up.
 
An old motherboard will do

Any discarded PC motherboard could be used. Use a heat gun to desolder components massively and there you have it. You will end with various components / sizes available.

No matter what damages you cause to the board and / or components they are still good for practice.
 
My son found out that a guy was moving and had a lot of defective electronic items to be given away for free. My son took as much as he could carry in his car.
There were hundreds of cheap stereos, MP3 players and other items.
There is a JVC 5.1 high power amplifier that was dropped and a pcb was broken. I might fix it.
They were "returns" to a stereo store. Some were simply "I don't like that color" and they work perfectly.

I threw away most of the cheap stereos but I kept some Creative MP3 players that were the same and put the parts together to make one that worked. It even had a leather carrying case and a rechargeable battery.

I have used many of their resistors and capacitors for my projects.
 
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