For this week, we were given the task of making our own programmer. To make this, we need the main programming chip in which the small electronic components can be placed on. The make sure these components stay on the main chip they had be soldered by a soldering iron. To make a start on this task, we needed the components listed below:

1 x ATiny45

2 x 1KΩ  Resistors

2 x 499Ω  Resistors

2 x 49Ω  Resistors

2 x 3.3v Zener Diodes

1 x Red LED

1 x Green LED

1 x 100nF Capacitor

1 x 2×3 ISP Header

Once all the required components were collected for the task, I then had to collect the soldering iron. Before I could use this tool I needed to make sure it was clean. To do this I acquired a sponge and added a little bit of water to it to make it damp. I then wiped the tip of the soldering iron with the damp sponge, making it clean for use.

When attaching the components to the board, you had to be very careful because not only were the components extremely small (size of a rice grain), but the soldering iron was very hot, could definitely burn your skin. So for safety, I placed the soldering iron holder a fair distance away from me and took great precaution when using the iron. When it came to actually soldering the components to the board, I first used the method of placing the component in place and holding the solder wire in place and then come in with the iron. The showed to be the wrong way to solder because I saw the wire melting into the iron and staying there. To correctly solder, I placed the iron next to the component and then pressed the wire against it, this way the wire would melt onto the side of the component. If a component was soldered slightly wrong, what I did was use iron to slightly melt the solder and replace the component correctly and add a bit more solder so it didn’t move again.

 

Once a component was soldered, I needed to make sure that it would actually work. To check this I used a multi-meter, a multi-meter is an electronics instrument which its main use is to measure the amount of electricity. Using the multi-meter, I placed its two metal rods on both sides of the component, if the display on the multi-meter has a reading then it means the component works and is connected properly. When I tested one of the resistors using the multi-meter, the display read zero, meaning the component wasn’t connected properly. After examining the resistor, the saw that one end of the resistor wasn’t quite touching the place on the board. To fix this, I used the iron to slightly melt the solder and slowly pressed the resistor to the board so that it was touching. Once I did this, I used the multi-meter to test again and this time it did show a reading, meaning it was now working.

 

 

After doing these methods for all of the components I had, I eventually developed a working board.