The reason I am asking this is because I want to delegate the soldering and assembly of modules for my product to a community. I'm here to learn if that is feasible.
Ask HN: Can You Solder?
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Re: Ask HN: Can You Solder?
#2Re: Ask HN: Can You Solder?
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#4I wouldn't be interested in doing it professionally all by itself, but would be fine with a job where soldering is one of the tasks involved. I certainly would be willing to be part of a soldering assembly line for a project as a community service, though, as long as the effort and organization were in line with my personal volunteering guidelines.
Re: Ask HN: Can You Solder?
#5"delegate the soldering" ... do you mean sell an electronic product as a kit? there's probably useful discussions about that you might look at, many people do kit / assembled options for small run manufacture.
Re: Ask HN: Can You Solder?
#6yes but not quite to SMD levels. on the other hand I'm able to solder copper pipe for plumbing and stills and have successfully patched radiators and some some stuff that would count as "small welding" "delegate the soldering" ... do you mean sell an electronic product as a kit? there's probably useful discussions about that you might look at, many people do kit / assembled options for small run manufacture.
Re: Ask HN: Can You Solder?
#7yes but not quite to SMD levels. on the other hand I'm able to solder copper pipe for plumbing and stills and have successfully patched radiators and some some stuff that would count as "small welding" "delegate the soldering" ... do you mean sell an electronic product as a kit? there's probably useful discussions about that you might look at, many people do kit / assembled options for small run manufacture.
Not quite. The person who would do the soldering would not necessarily be the end consumer. They would do it as part of a network of assemblers, for a fee or pro-bono as a community service. I wrote about this in more detail on the project page [1].
[1] https://flyingcarcomputer.com/posts/flying-car-mechanic-netw...
Re: Ask HN: Can You Solder?
#8I have never soldered intentionally. I did once manage to weld a motherboard to its chassis through improper grounding... lots of smoke and terrified screams later, I decided to go into software instead...
As a child of the 90s, I think I just barely missed that awesome era of RadioShaq catalogs and fun DIY electronics kits that I only read about online, yet was born before things like SnapCircuits were invented to reinvigorate that niche. Caught in that dry spell of the 90s/early 2000s, when hardware seemed pretty stagnant while the Web was just getting started.
By the time hardware was cool again, I was too old/busy to seriously look into it. Arduinos, robots, etc. always seemed kinda cool to me, but it seemed like there was no point in learning that when anything I wanted to make could already be bought from China for $5...
If I had more time or money, it would definitely be a cool hobby to pick up. But I don't :)
Re: Ask HN: Can You Solder?
#9yes but not quite to SMD levels. on the other hand I'm able to solder copper pipe for plumbing and stills and have successfully patched radiators and some some stuff that would count as "small welding" "delegate the soldering" ... do you mean sell an electronic product as a kit? there's probably useful discussions about that you might look at, many people do kit / assembled options for small run manufacture.
"Small welding"? Do you mean brazing?
I've stuck 1in angle iron together and had it stay stuck under load. I count that as welding, with some pride.
but then i've seen folks weld together an excavator that broke (in half) halfway up the main arm. and then seen the machine finish the job with their repair. that's real welding, so i can only claim "small".