Phew. Soldering the Boards is time consuming! I have been soldering and programming the Boards after coming home from work for the last three weeks. Soldering a few boards can be fun but multiply that and the fun goes away rather quickly.
I have a very systematic approach to producing these boards something which confirms some of my methods when I was in the Factory line. For example, when you have two PCBs but with different component values, start with one board and populate with one value. Then check that the components are used. For example, if you have 20 PCBs and it uses 20 100ohm resistors, which means by the end of the session you would have used 20 of the said resistors. No more, no less. This is a logical way to counter mistakes. Once that is done, you move to the next component and so on.
It sounds easy but, when it comes to PCB population, one needs to insert the smallest component first with the biggest/tallest at the end. This involves a lot of planning, from parts ordering to the actual manufacturing.
These are the Ghost Boards and although it has the same PCB design and shares most of the components with the PKD Board. However, its microcontroller has a different program and the resistors for the Ice Blue LEDs are different too.
I could not find my soldering jig (which are a pair of crocodile clips mounted on a heavy metal base) so I improvised with a clothes pin. The board is not very balanced and so, soldering it on a flat surface is frustrating. The clothes pin is to help me solder one leg of the DIP switch (front) which I can then use my fingers to level it while re-melt the solder and re-position it again.
They say iron is good for you but these are alloys. So do not place your coffee too near. I am using a newer cutter to remove the excess leads off the LEDs. But for the thicker leads such as the header and power connectors, I had to use the older cutter as its blades are quite worn.
Each board has 14 points of excess leads which I will use the new cutter. You can see lower right LED was not soldered properly so I will have to de-solder and re-solder it.
Luckily, I have another spare spool on standby. A production run can quickly exhaust at least one spool of solder.
Every time I use the older cutter to remove the tough pins, they tend to ricochet off my fingers. The masking tape helps to absorb some of the extra kinetic energy and lessens the pain.
As for the slide switch, I used the 3D printed ammo part as the jig for holding it in place while I solder the first anchor pin. Of course, the leads for the switch must first be pre-bent to a certain shape so that when you insert it, it is flexible enough to conform to the opening.
The 30mm wires I got solved a lot of issues. I do not need measure and cut the wires, then strip them. This alone takes a lot of time, something I learned when I was doing the run for the MkII Vipers in 2012.
After the two boards were completed, the LiPo chargers are next. This is an existing USB-C Lipo charger soldered to a custom PCB which has the connectors to the LiPo batteries. This too, take a lot of time since I have to align the pin correctly and solder them.
In the background are the USB-C chargers. They are slightly larger then the original prototypes and so, I had to redesign the PCB again to fit them.
The two boards, Ghost (left) and PKD (right) would have its own simple LiPo charger (Bottom) and also, the green pre-wired LEDs (even if you do not light them up)
Where to get what (no, not the Boards and I have not produced them, not even a link to sell them yet):
