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1950's Printed circuit design
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SeanB:


A movie about PCB design from the 1950's, a step forward from hand to hand wiring, and a slow beginning to the modern PCB.  None of the methods show there, aside from the potted assembly, are used currently, but you can see how the modern PCB came from this beginning research, even if it all is now totally obsolete to a great part.
VK3DRB:
Fascinating. The days of manual resist tape weren't so bad after all. Incredibly manual and tedious work by the looks. I liked the manufacture of the integrated circuit by potting. IBM was making integrated circuits as far back as the 1930's, where resistors were integrated into valves (vacuum tubes). These were used in punch card processing business machines, like the IBM 557, 548 and 514. The valves were use as one-bit memory, like using a flip-flops.
EPAIII:
Transistors? Transistors?? We don't need no stinking transistors, we got valves!
EPAIII:
Did I see surface mounted, ceramic capacitors being soldered with a Weller soldering GUN?

OK, they were a bit bigger than today's, but still .....
RoGeorge:
A soldering gun works great even for the nowadays small sized SMDs.  For the smaller ones, wire a piece of thin copper on the otherwise thicker tip of the soldering gun (I use copper thin wire from stripped CAT5 LAN cable leftovers).  Let half a cm or so LAN wire in the air, that will become the new soldering tip.  For best results, solder under an optical microscope.  Works great for casual soldering/desoldering/replacing a SMD component, but not a very productive method for assembling a full PCB.

The funny thing is that if you left loose both ends of the thin wire, and bend them apart just the right distance, that can be used like a desoldering tweezers.  Or make a small loop with the thin wire, so to heat all pins at once and desolder small SMDs of 3-6 pins.  :)
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