Having my reflow solder oven finished, I couldn’t wait to see how far can I challenge it with complex circuit boards and tiny components. I decided to build a system with components that are tricky to solder, such as BGA and QFN packages. Not interested in designing the whole circuit on my own, I looked for an existing solution and found a good-looking one: an embedded Linux computer by Henrik Forsten.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
One of my friends commented that this is really about meeting a self-set challenge with dealing with the most difficult of surface mount soldering.