MightyOhm » Books and Resources

Jootmine On Imelihtne (Soldering is Easy: Estonian Translation)

Jeff — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:18:42 +0000

Markus sent us this fine Estonian translation of the Soldering is Easy comic book. Thanks, Markus!

Soldering is Easy – Traditional Chinese Translation

Jeff — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:19:19 +0000

Another translation! I present to you Traditional Chinese, by Shanghai’s XinCheJian hackerspace.

Souder c’est Facile (Soldering is Easy – French Translation)

Jeff — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 18:32:17 +0000

Lionel of Snootlab sent us this French translation of the Soldering is Easy comic book. Thanks, Lionel!

LÖTEN IST EINFACH (Soldering is Easy: German Translation)

Jeff — Wed, 25 May 2011 20:58:17 +0000

I’m pleased to announce that we finally have a very nicely done German translation of the Soldering is Easy comic book.

A huge thanks to Alexander Bodora and Richard Meinsen for volunteering to do the translation!

I also updated the original comic to include a link to the Soldering is Easy comic book download page (http://mightyohm.com/soldercomic). I heard a couple requests for this at the Maker Faire last weekend – so there it is.

Οδηγός Για Εύκολη Συγκόλληση (Soldering is Easy – Greek Translation)

Jeff — Mon, 02 May 2011 19:02:51 +0000

F.N just sent us a Greek translation of the Soldering is Easy Comic Book.

Soldering is Easy – Japanese Translation

Jeff — Mon, 02 May 2011 18:16:46 +0000

Yoshi just sent us this Japanese translation of the Soldering is Easy Comic Book.

Thanks, Yoshi!

… — .-.. -.. . .-. .. -. –. .. … . .- … -.–

Jeff — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 09:13:12 +0000

Soldering is Easy morse code translation, by David July.

(Click for the full-size version.)

Thanks, David! Mitch and I both really like this one. Mitch, who used to be able to do 20 wpm, could read it much faster than I could!

Soldar es Fácil! (Soldering is Easy – Spanish Translation)

Jeff — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 00:54:57 +0000

Last night we received two Spanish translations of the Soldering is Easy comic book, literally within minutes of each other.

The first, shown above, was sent in by SGTECH. He got a late start but submitted his translation first. Nice work! You can download his version here.

Minutes later, we received a second Spanish translation of the comic from juani_c.

Thanks, guys!

Note to other translators – please try to communicate and coordinate as much as possible with other translators so that we can avoid getting more duplicate translations in the future! The best way to do this at the moment is to post a comment letting people know you are working on a translation.

Menyolder Itu Gampang (Soldering is Easy – Indonesian Translation)

Jeff — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:08:39 +0000

More translations keep rolling in, and we’re having trouble keeping up with them!

Rudi Voon just sent us this Indonesian translation of the Soldering is Easy comic book.

Announcing the “Soldering is Easy” Complete Comic Book!

Jeff — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:00:22 +0000

Do you want to learn how to solder? Do you want to make really cool things? Do you want to teach other people how to solder (and make cool things too)?

I’m happy to announce the release of Soldering is Easy, a comic book that will teach anyone the basics of soldering.

This seven page comic book explains in detail and with pictures how to make a good solder connection. It also teaches you all the other bits and pieces of knowledge that you need to successfully solder together an electronic kit, even if you’ve never soldered before!

I worked with Mitch Altman (@maltman23) and Andie Nordgren to create this revised and extended version of the wildly popular one page handout that Mitch and Andie created in 2010.

The comic (and lots more cool stuff!) will be included in a book that Mitch and I are writing about How to Make Cool Things with Microcontrollers (For People Who Know Nothing). It will be published by No Starch Press.

Here’s a sample page (click for a bigger version):

As of January 2012 the comic book has been translated into 15 other languages! A huge thanks to everyone who sent in translations and is helping us spread our message around the world! We would love for people to translate the comic book into more languages! If you create a translation, please post a comment here and I’ll link to it! If you’re looking for help with a translation, you can try posting in the forums.

The comic is released under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-ShareAlike), so you are free to teach with it, color it, modify it, share it with your friends, translate it, and basically do whatever you like with it!

English:

The complete comic book is available for download here:

“Soldering is Easy” Comic Book (PDF)

We also have some other versions of the comic available:

FullSolderComic.mobi – Amazon Kindle version by bloo

FullSolderComic_Booklet_11x17_EN.pdf – An 11×17 version that you can fold into an actual comic book (with 8.5×11 pages).

FullSolderComic_Images_20110409.zip – 300 DPI images of each page
FullSolderComic_NoText_20110409.zip – 300 DPI images without text (for translation)
A PDF version without text is also available.
FullSolderComic.zip – the Comic Life source file used to create all of the other versions.

High resolution images of both versions of the comic are also available on Flickr:

Translations:

PDF File	Language	Translators
焊接是容易的	简体中文版 Chinese (Simplified)	XinCheJian
焊接是容易的	繁体中文版 Chinese (Traditional)	XinCheJian
Jootmine On Imelihtne	Eesti Estonian	Markus Järve
Souder c’est Facile!	Français French	Lionel Delteil (Snootlab)
Löten ist einfach!	Deutsch German	Alexander Bodora Richard Meinsen
Οδηγός Για Εύκολη Συγκόλληση	Ελληνικά Greek	F.N.
Menyolder Itu Gampang	Bahasa Indonésia Indonesian	Rudi Voon
Saldare E’ Semplice	Italiano Italian	Michele Maffucci
ハンダ付けなんて簡単だ！	日本語 Japanese	Yoshi
Det Er Enkelt A Lodde	Norske Norwegian	Henrik Sandaker Palm
Lutowanie Jest Proste	Polski Polish	Mark
Solder É Fácil	Português Portuguese (Brasilian)	Radamés Ajna
ПАЯТЬ ПРОСТО	Русский Russian	Atarity
Solder es Fácil (Version 1)	Español Spanish	SGTECH 2nd translation by juani_c
Att Löda Är Lätt!	Svensk Swedish	Christopher Eriksson




Special thanks to Alexander Bodora for creating this table!

And really, soldering is easy (and fun!). Learn how to solder and teach your friends!

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Update 2011-09-23:

Comments are now closed. Please use the online forums to discuss translations of the solder comic, ask questions, and give us feedback. Thanks!

Soldering is Easy: Here’s how to do it.

Best book to learn C?

Jeff — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 06:14:27 +0000

If you could recommend one book to a total beginner who wants to learn how to program in C, what would it be?

It shouldn’t be microcontroller-specific (more general is better), but it does need to make sense to someone with zero programming experience (in any language).

(Myself, I started with K&R, although I had some experience with BASIC (on the C64 and Apple II), Logo, and shell programming before that.)

Tips for finding test equipment service manuals

Jeff — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:02:40 +0000

When I buy a piece of electronic test equipment, the first thing I do is turn it on and see if it works. This is the moment of truth: was that awesome eBay find the killer deal I thought it was? (Hint: If it’s missing case screws and came with no packing material, probably not.)

Sometimes, everything works out and I have a shiny new piece of test gear for bottom dollar. Often, things don’t work out quite as expected. Luckily, test equipment is often made to be fixed.

To fix it, I need a service manual.

This means that with my luck, more often than not, the second thing I do is try to track down the service manual for my new semi-functional piece of test equipment. Even if the it’s not broken, I’ll usually try to get a service manual anyway; often the service manual doubles as a user manual and I need to figure out how to use special features, find specs, etc.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, here are some tips for finding test equipment manuals:

If it’s a fairly new piece of test equipment, chances are the manufacturer will have a manual on their website, usually in pdf format. For example, Agilent has lots of manuals online, but unfortunately, anything over 20 years old is probably not listed. Other vendors are better about archiving old manuals. I have had very good luck getting old Fluke manuals on their website.
Google is your friend. Are you feeling lucky? Some manuals are easy to find, like this one for the HP 3312A Function Generator. The first link that isn’t an ad goes right to it. Easy!
There are several free service manual repositories on the web. These can be very hard to find when you need them (spammy links from manual vendors sometimes derail your search). I have started keeping track of free sources for test equipment manuals on the wiki. If you are looking for the manual for a fairly common piece of HP/Agilent or Tektronix gear, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll find it for free on one of the sites listed.
As a last resort, consider paying for an electronic copy of the manual. Beware of vendors who are simply downloading readily available manuals for free and selling them to you. Use eBay with caution. The wiki now includes a list of reputable service manual vendors. The only vendor I have used is Artek Media. They have very reasonable prices and great support. At $5-$10 a pop, sometimes it’s easier to just buy the manual than scour the web for hours, so it’s nice to be able to trade laziness for dollars.

Usually by step 3 I have the manual I need, so I rarely have to pay for a copy, but it’s nice to know that most obscure manuals can be had for a few dollars.

I hope these tips keep more old test equipment running – remember they don’t make ‘em like they used to!

If any readers have more sources for manuals to add, please leave a comment or add them to the wiki.

Ali’s Surplus Stuff

Jeff — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:23:56 +0000

Over the holidays I had a chance to visit Ali’s Surplus Stuff in Sacramento, CA.

This is my kind of place. Surplus electronics piled from floor to ceiling. Lots of oscilloscopes and useful stuff mixed in with bizarre industrial equipment.

Lots of cool rack-mounted equipment here. Lots of push-buttons too.

Need a random computer-related printed circuit board?

My recommendation for places like this is always to come to the counter with the biggest pile of stuff you can carry and haggle on a single price for everything. You’ll end up paying a fair price for one or two big items and getting the rest thrown in “for free”.

Here’s what I went home with: HP chart recorder, some IC sockets, webcam stand, random RF module, and some kind of monitor shutoff device from back when ‘green’ was just a color. This is a remarkably small pile of stuff given what was available, but I knew I would have to pack all this into my checked luggage on the flight home.

This was my first visit to Ali’s, and I came home really impressed. I can’t think of a better place to find surplus electronics junk in the Sacramento area, especially now that HSC Electronics on Auburn Blvd. is gone. I also feel that if you are looking for used industrial and test equipment, Ali’s has a better selection than Bay Area shops like Weird Stuff. I will definitely be visiting Ali’s again the next time I’m Sacramento.

Ali’s Surplus Stuff is listed under Sacramento Area on the resources:surplus page of the MightyOhm Wiki. Whew!

Changes to the MightyOhm Wiki

Jeff — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 21:46:53 +0000

I’ve been making some changes and additions to the MightyOhm Wiki over the past few days.

To complement the awesome list of surplus electronics shops, I started creating wiki pages for the various projects I have previously documented on the blog.

Last night I added a list of cheap PID controllers to the wiki page for my DIY PID-controlled Soldering Hotplate. (Backstory: the PID controller on my hotplate quit working this week and I’ve been shopping for a replacement!)

I have also been adding more information to the PCB resources page, including where to order cheap solder paste stencils and resources for making test fixtures.

More to come…

Cheap Prototype PCBs from DorkbotPDX

Jeff — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 09:49:16 +0000

Laen of DorkbotPDX has been running a PCB proto service for some time now, and I finally got a chance to try it out this month.

The pricing is simple. For 2-layer boards, it’s $5 per square inch for three (3) PCBs, with no setup charge, and shipping is free.

The tunaround time is typically 9 days + first class mail shipping, which ends up being just under two weeks total fom PCB release to delivery in Austin. This is pretty good for a group order, and signficantly faster than BatchPCB (based on my experience).

The only downsides that I am aware of are:

PCB orders only go out once a month, unless there is enough demand to justify a 2nd run.
If you wait too long, the panels can fill up. Again, if there is enough demand, sometimes a 2nd panel can be added, but don’t count on it.
The soldermask and silkscreen can be any color (and you don’t get to choose!) BatchPCB at least guarantees the standard white/green.

4-layer boards are available as well, but at a higher cost ($10/square inch) and less frequent intervals.

Entries for the next PCB order are due on October 25th. The more orders Laen gets, the more likely he is to continue the service, so if you have some designs you’ve been thinking about but have been put off by expensive PCB costs, finish them up and get some boards made!