Two Methods for Soldering Surface Mount Components by Hand

When you are prototyping, repairing, or hacking PCB boards you will most definitely find yourself in situations where you need to solder surface mount components / devices (SMD) by hand. In this video we look at two easy methods to solder SMD by hand with a basic solder station.

Building an Arduino Shield and Proto Board for the nRF24L01 Transceiver

The nRF24L01+ Transceiver is a great low cost way to add wireless capability to any project. But the down side of the nRF24L01+ is it can be a hassle to prototype with. In this video we look at how to build an Arduino shield and a mini proto board for the nRF24L01+. You can also purchase the shield and mini proto board covered in the video at forcetronics.com.

To Access the Eagle PCB files:

• Shield: https://github.com/ForceTronics/nRF24L01-Shield
• Mini Proto Board:https://github.com/ForceTronics/nRF24L01-Proto-Board

//*****************************Arduino Code for Transmitter***********************

//This sketch is from a tutorial video on the ForceTronics YouTube Channel. The tutorial discusses how to build a 

//shield and a prototyping board for the nRF24L01 Transceiver Module.

//the code was leverage from Ping pair example at http://tmrh20.github.io/RF24/pingpair_ack_8ino-example.html

//This sketch is free to the public to use and modify at your own risk

#include <SPI.h> //Call SPI library so you can communicate with the nRF24L01+

#include <nRF24L01.h> //nRF2401 libarary found at https://github.com/tmrh20/RF24/

#include <RF24.h> //nRF2401 libarary found at https://github.com/tmrh20/RF24/

const int pinCE = 9; //This pin is used to set the nRF24 to standby (0) or active mode (1)

const int pinCSN = 10; //This pin is used to tell the nRF24 whether the SPI communication is a command or message to send out

RF24 wirelessSPI(pinCE, pinCSN); // Create your nRF24 object or wireless SPI connection

const uint64_t pAddress = 0xB00B1E5000LL;   // Radio pipe addresses for the 2 nodes to communicate.

void setup()  

{

  Serial.begin(57600);   //start serial to communicate process

  wirelessSPI.begin();            //Start the nRF24 module

  wirelessSPI.setAutoAck(1);                    // Ensure autoACK is enabled so rec sends ack packet to let you know it got the transmit packet payload

  wirelessSPI.setRetries(5,15);                 // Sets up retries and timing for packets that were not ack'd, current settings: smallest time between retries, max no. of retries

  wirelessSPI.openWritingPipe(pAddress);        // pipe address that we will communicate over, must be the same for each nRF24 module

  wirelessSPI.stopListening();

}

void loop()  

{

   byte t = analogRead(0);//note that we can cast the ADC value to a byte because we know the temp sensor is not going to return a value higher than 255

   if (!wirelessSPI.write(&t, 1 )){  //if the send fails let the user know over serial monitor

       Serial.println("packet delivery failed");      

   }

    delay(1000);

}

//*****************************Arduino Code for Receiver***********************

//This sketch is from a tutorial video on the ForceTronics YouTube Channel. The tutorial discusses how to build a 

//shield and a prototyping board for the nRF24L01 Transceiver Module.

//the code was leverage from Ping pair example at http://tmrh20.github.io/RF24/pingpair_ack_8ino-example.html

//This sketch is free to the public to use and modify at your own risk

#include <SPI.h> //Call SPI library so you can communicate with the nRF24L01+

#include <nRF24L01.h> //nRF2401 libarary found at https://github.com/tmrh20/RF24/

#include <RF24.h> //nRF2401 libarary found at https://github.com/tmrh20/RF24/

const int pinCE = 9; //This pin is used to set the nRF24 to standby (0) or active mode (1)

const int pinCSN = 10; //This pin is used to tell the nRF24 whether the SPI communication is a command or message to send out

byte bVal; //used to store ADC value payload from transmit module, the ADC value will be < 256 so it will fit in a byte

RF24 wirelessSPI(pinCE, pinCSN); // Declare object from nRF24 library (Create your wireless SPI) 

const uint64_t pAddress = 0xB00B1E5000LL;  //Create a pipe addresses for the 2 nodes to communicate over, the "LL" is for LongLong type

void setup()   

{

  Serial.begin(57600);  //start serial to communicate process

  wirelessSPI.begin();  //Start the nRF24 module

  wirelessSPI.setAutoAck(1);                    // Ensure autoACK is enabled, this means rec send acknowledge packet to tell xmit that it got the packet with no problems

  wirelessSPI.openReadingPipe(1,pAddress);      //open pipe o for recieving meassages with pipe address

  wirelessSPI.startListening();                 // Start listening for messages

}

void loop()  

{   

   //loop until all of the payload data is recieved, for this example loop should only run once

    while(wirelessSPI.available()){ 

     wirelessSPI.read( &bVal, 1 ); //read one byte of data and store it in bVal variable

     Serial.print("Temperature at transmitter is "); 

     Serial.print(calculateTempF(calculateArduinoVolt(bVal))); //convert the ADC value to a voltage value and than to a temperature value in F

     Serial.println(" F");

    }

 

  delay(200);    

}

//this function calculates temp in F from TMP36 temp sensor

float calculateTempF(float v1) { 

 float temp = 0;

 //calculate temp in C, .75 volts is 25 C. 10mV per degree

 if (v1 < .75) { temp = 25 - ((.75-v1)/.01); } //if below 25 C

 else if (v1 == .75) {temp = 25; }

 else { temp = 25 + ((v1 -.75)/.01); } //if above 25

 //convert to F

 temp =((temp*9)/5) + 32;

 return temp;

}

//This function takes an Arduino analog pin reading and converts it to a voltage value

float calculateArduinoVolt(int val) {

 float volt = (float)val * (5.0 / 1023.0); //convert ADC value to voltage

 return volt;

}