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You used to be able to hack on the arduino without needing SMD components and a reflow station. Electronics newbies don't have those and arduino was targeted to

by sigkill 13y ago

You used to be able to hack on the arduino without needing SMD components and a reflow station. Electronics newbies don't have those and arduino was targeted towards them. Now, they've become a component supplier, since you can't buy your own chips and hack a board on your own if you don't have an etched PCB or someway to get that. I love the libraries and platform but in the quest for more power (Mega, Due, SMD based arduinos etc.) I don't like the fact that they're shunning newbies.

tdicola 13y ago
I used to think the same thing, but really most SMD soldering isn't that difficult with some practice and a nice fine point soldering iron. Check out Dave Jone's videos at the EEVBlog, he has some great ones on SMD soldering like http://www.eevblog.com/2011/07/18/eevblog-186-soldering-tutorial-part-3-surface-mount/ http://www.eevblog.com/2011/07/18/eevblog-186-soldering-tuto... Also just because an Arduino board is built with SMD or very small components doesn't mean a user has to do the same thing. This board has the same headers for input/output as any other Arduino so you can attach existing shields, put on a protoboard, or just plug wires in directly. I don't see how the Yun does anything to shun newbies.
- sigkill 13y ago
  You may have a good point. But I don't think it's feasible to buy a Atmega2560 and then build a custom pcb. Majority would rather buy an Arduino Mega for their project and be done with it rather than building a custom board. My previous comment tries to convey that you need to leave the Arduino in the project instead of just using it as a prototyping platform once you go SMD. Well sure, that'd increase sales for arduino boards.
Sanddancer 13y ago
The problem is that it's increasingly hard to get interesting chips in through-hole packages. Pretty much the only stuff Atmel sells now in DIP packages are "legacy" AVR chips -- if you want something with USB, you've got to go surface mount. As such, the question becomes do you give up on the new and interesting to stick to your roots, or do you give up on some amount of hackability so you can provide interesting things with a gentle learning curve?

by sigkill 13y ago

tdicola 13y ago

I used to think the same thing, but really most SMD soldering isn't that difficult with some practice and a nice fine point soldering iron. Check out Dave Jone's videos at the EEVBlog, he has some great ones on SMD soldering like http://www.eevblog.com/2011/07/18/eevblog-186-soldering-tutorial-part-3-surface-mount/ http://www.eevblog.com/2011/07/18/eevblog-186-soldering-tuto... Also just because an Arduino board is built with SMD or very small components doesn't mean a user has to do the same thing. This board has the same headers for input/output as any other Arduino so you can attach existing shields, put on a protoboard, or just plug wires in directly. I don't see how the Yun does anything to shun newbies.

sigkill 13y ago
You may have a good point. But I don't think it's feasible to buy a Atmega2560 and then build a custom pcb. Majority would rather buy an Arduino Mega for their project and be done with it rather than building a custom board. My previous comment tries to convey that you need to leave the Arduino in the project instead of just using it as a prototyping platform once you go SMD. Well sure, that'd increase sales for arduino boards.

Sanddancer 13y ago

The problem is that it's increasingly hard to get interesting chips in through-hole packages. Pretty much the only stuff Atmel sells now in DIP packages are "legacy" AVR chips -- if you want something with USB, you've got to go surface mount. As such, the question becomes do you give up on the new and interesting to stick to your roots, or do you give up on some amount of hackability so you can provide interesting things with a gentle learning curve?