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First prototype build

A project log for LiFePO4wered/Solar1

A complete LiFePO4 based solar power supply for IoT devices

patrick-van-oosterwijckPatrick Van Oosterwijck 08/22/2016 at 19:411 Comment

Received some perfect purple PCBs from @oshpark, so it was time to build prototypes!

I decided to build up all three boards at once (I guess I'm an optimist), and use a stencil and solder paste, but place the parts by hand instead of using the Pick-and-Place available here at the Tinkermill. I tried to use the laser cutter to make a kapton stencil. It worked horribly, but after many tries I finally had something usable enough to make these three boards. Here are the PCBs with (fairly messy) paste applied:

I figured the messy paste would be OK in this case since no small pitch components are involved. After spending some time placing the parts, this is how things looked:

Only two boards in the picture because the other one is in the reflow oven. :) The end result after all three boards were reflowed:

Nice, they turned out well! Next, I need to find some time for testing.

Discussions

oshpark wrote 08/23/2016 at 18:47 point

Very exciting!  We look forward to future updates!

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