Tricks of the Trade - knowledge for every day life

[Cerebus]

You'll find that SMD part elasticity, and hence how far they will fly, increases in direct proportion to the cost of the part. I've never lost a single MMBT3904 transistor in SOT-23-3 (a few pence worth, if that) but last week an AD5620 DAC (£5 worth) in exactly the same sized SOT-23-6 package managed to fly 6 feet and take 20 minutes to find.

[Ground_Loop]

The hook on the end of a tape measure is intentionally loose. It moves exactly the thickness of the hook to make accurate inside and outside measurements.

Holding down the space bar on an iPhone puts the cursor in mouse mode. No need to back up for corrections.

[KE5FX]

Holding down the space bar on an iPhone puts the cursor in mouse mode. No need to back up for corrections.

Interesting, I'd never noticed that before.  However, tapping anywhere in the text control also relocates the cursor immediately, so I'm not sure what it does for me.  Is there some hidden advantage to 'mouse mode'?

[Berni]

Holding down the space bar on an iPhone puts the cursor in mouse mode. No need to back up for corrections.

Interesting, I'd never noticed that before.  However, tapping anywhere in the text control also relocates the cursor immediately, so I'm not sure what it does for me.  Is there some hidden advantage to 'mouse mode'?

Yes that my fingers are too fat to actually tap in the right place on the screen reliably, so it always ends up off by a character or two.

Its the one advantage that resistive touchscreens had, you could use your fingernail to precisely click where you want.

[Ranayna]

That spacebar thing changed the way i use my iOS devices massivly. I always hated typing on those, because i make really frequent small typoes most of the time.
If i notice immediatly, i just back up, but later corrections where massively annoying. While you can tap to move the cursor, especially on my iPhone 6s i only ever manage to move the cursor to the beginning or end of a word.
Holding space then allows me to move just to that stupid letter i accidentally inserted

I still do not like typing on the touchscreen, but at least it's bearable now for me.

[Psi]

If you accidently get a large blob of hot glue on your skin, immediately rub it with your finger and spread it as thin as possible as quickly as possible.

If you spread it out it will instantly lose all its heat and solidify, if you do nothing it will sit there and burn the small area of skin it's in contact with.

[SilverSolder]

That spacebar thing changed the way i use my iOS devices massivly. I always hated typing on those, because i make really frequent small typoes most of the time.
If i notice immediatly, i just back up, but later corrections where massively annoying. While you can tap to move the cursor, especially on my iPhone 6s i only ever manage to move the cursor to the beginning or end of a word.
Holding space then allows me to move just to that stupid letter i accidentally inserted

I still do not like typing on the touchscreen, but at least it's bearable now for me.

I have a small Bluetooth keyboard in my bag, which I fish out if I need to type more than 5 words. 

[duckduck]

This post is a two-fer:

Thing one: buy some empty nail polish containers (with the ball bearing). Spray your Deoxit in one of them (using the tube, duh). Now you can paint on a wee bit of Deoxit if you just want a drop for the TV remote. This prevents the "press a little.... juuuuust a liiiiiiiitle harder... *&^%*&^%*! *&^!!!" problem. A single can now lasts me over a year (unless I buy something used off of ebay). Actual item photographed. PP3 for scale. Trade trick tip: screw the top back on every time, otherwise you are sure to knock the whole thing on the floor which will make the room smell nice and you all tingly in the head but you won't find that ball bearing until you vacuum.

Thing two: stop #)@(|^@ around with firing up the Fluke, digging in the bucket o' probes until you assemble a matching set (close enough), and then chasing a tiny, round battery 'round the desk with two needles until you can pin down than son of a golden dragon. Buy a battery tester. Hell, buy three of them - briefcase, purse, glove box, boot, basement freezer, shed, anniversary gift - you get the idea. I got one off of AliExpress for USD1.45 delivered to my nest. I paid the extra USD0.36 for the LCD upgrade. Order now and you'll be thanking yourself next January when they arrive. Trade trick tip: grease the track so that the slidey-bit slides smooth. Otherwise the Fluke is less frustrating. Stock photo attached. Typically they don't display a voltage unless a battery is connected. Should I cross post this in the "Stock image fails" thread or in the "over-unity believer shaming" thread?

[DrG]

Not sure that this is a good tip, but.... There was a thread about the 'best' non-metal screwdriver or something like that. I do have a small plastic screwdriver for some things (shown in the pic). Today, I was using a Dremel and also some Q-tips for something and I was about to throw the Q-tips away when, for reasons unknown to me, I thought about that thread. So I made these wooden screwdrivers on the Dremel in about 10 minutes and then sprayed them with lacquer. I have no idea f they will last, but, hey...I got time...and lots of Q-tips

[tpowell1830]

When etching a copper PCB at home using ferric chloride, there are a few helpful steps to do in the process.

Step 1: Use a fine steel wool to clean the copper before transferring the mask.
Step 2: Transfer the mask and place the board to be etched and the ferric chloride in a ziplock bag and seal it. Make sure to use enough ferric chloride. Wear gloves.
Step 3: Use aluminum foil to cover the sink area so in case of a few drops of ferric chloride dripping, you can save from cleaning it off the sink
Step 4: Turn on the hot water from the tap/faucet and hold the ziplock bag with contents under the hot water stream. Roll the the bag over and over under stream until etching is complete.
Step 5: Use flat pan or shallow plastic bowl with alcohol to lay board in after removing from bag of ferric chloride. Pour ferric chloride back into reusable container. Throw aluminum foil into garbage or recycle. Cleanup.

Edit: I usually solder a layer to all exposed copper after etching.

[SeanB]

With the small nail varnish bottles, they also are great for keeping silicone oil in, which is used as a screen protector bubble repair, by simply dabbing a bit by the bubble, which will fill the bubble up again.

Yes they are useful, but the nail varnish by itself is useful as well, I use it as marking for cables, where you put a few dots of different colour at both ends to identify multiple cores of the same colour. Also useful to lock screws and nuts, especially small ones, and for plastic threads that are stripped apply a drop to the hole, and place a small piece of PVC strip that fits the hole in, to make it full. Then close up and leave. Does not work on styrene enclosures, but will fix cracks in them well.

Clothes hangers are very useful as well, the plastic type is great for test lead hangers, and the wire type is good to make assorted holders for one off jobs, like holding epoxy in alignment till it cures. Plastic ear buds can also have a second life if you cut the ends off, and use the shaft to fill in a hole where the original self tapping screw has stripped the thread, it is soft enough to deform and fill the hole.

[Psi]

If the only heat-shrink you have is a little too small for what you need.
Get two tiny screwdrivers and insert both shafts through the heat-shrink. You can now force them apart to stretch the heat-shink a bit, 10-50% depending on type.  It tends to return to the original size after a min or two, but long enough to get it over the joint.

[Cerebus]

If the only heatshrink you have is a little too small for what you need.
Get two tiny screwdrivers and insert both shafts through the heat shrink. You can now force them apart to stretch the heatshink a bit, 10-50% depending on type.  It tends to return to the original size after a min or two, but long enough to get it over the joint.

I initially read that as heatsink instead of heatshrink.

"Stretching the heatsink? With screwdrivers! Who is this guy?"

[Berni]

I initially read that as heatsink instead of heatshrink.

"Stretching the heatsink? With screwdrivers! Who is this guy?"

I read the same at first and was just as confused.

But yeah this is a very useful trick, surprising how far heatshrink can be stretched out beforehand. The other way i do this is slipping it over needlenosed pliers and pulling the pliers open. This works particularly well for when you just need to quickly open up one end of it to help with getting it over something.

[Cubdriver]

I initially read that as heatsink instead of heatshrink.

"Stretching the heatsink? With screwdrivers! Who is this guy?"

I read the same at first and was just as confused.

But yeah this is a very useful trick, surprising how far heatshrink can be stretched out beforehand. The other way i do this is slipping it over needlenosed pliers and pulling the pliers open. This works particularly well for when you just need to quickly open up one end of it to help with getting it over something.

Ha - I three read it as 'heatsink'.  At first I was picturing those circular accordion-style ones for things like TO-5 style transistor packages, but then reread the post and realized my mistake. I never thought of using screwdrivers, buy also use the 'expand it with pliers' trick occasionally.  I like the pliers because they seem more controllable to me, but will remember the screwdrivers for use in a pinch going forward.



-Pat

[Psi]

haha,  point taken, i edited post to add a hyphen and make it clearer 

Yeah, pliers work too, but the length you can stretch is limited

[Cerebus]

haha,  point taken, i edited post to add a hyphen and make it clearer 

I think that this is one of the occasions where the readers have to take the blame for mental sloppiness, not the writer for careless presentation. 

[tooki]

haha,  point taken, i edited post to add a hyphen and make it clearer 

Yeah, pliers work too, but the length you can stretch is limited

I agree with Cerebus: your original spelling was totally fine.

[Cubdriver]

haha,  point taken, i edited post to add a hyphen and make it clearer 

Yeah, pliers work too, but the length you can stretch is limited

I agree with Cerebus: your original spelling was totally fine.

True - it was more of a reception issue than a transmitting one, though I generally refer to the tubing as 'heat shrink' and the little metal radiator things as 'heatsinks', so my inclination is to read a long word beginning with 'heats' and ending with 'ink' as heatsink.  In the grand scheme of things, it was amusing.

-Pat

[Cerebus]

haha,  point taken, i edited post to add a hyphen and make it clearer 

Yeah, pliers work too, but the length you can stretch is limited

I agree with Cerebus: your original spelling was totally fine.

True - it was more of a reception issue than a transmitting one, though I generally refer to the tubing as 'heat shrink' and the little metal radiator things as 'heatsinks', so my inclination is to read a long word beginning with 'heats' and ending with 'ink' as heatsink.  In the grand scheme of things, it was amusing.

-Pat

I just tried saying a sentence out loud with "the irradiated polyolefin tubing that contracts when heated" in it, and speaking I say "heatshrink", all one word. It's one of those occasions where I would accept any of "heat shrink", "heat-shrink" or "heatshrink" as legitimate orthography. If I was writing a style guide I'd probably opt for the hyphenated version for clarity, purely based on our experiences here. Still, the original brain-fart gave me a giggle, and that's the best you can ask for, most days.

[IDEngineer]

One of my most important "tricks of the trade":

The correct version of the tool you need is expensive for a reason. Buy it.

[Berni]

One of my most important "tricks of the trade":

The correct version of the tool you need is expensive for a reason. Buy it.

Yeah one always has to learn from personal experience that buying cheep tools can end up more expensive in the end... since that way you end up buying the cheep AND expensive tool before getting the job done.

[Psi]

He's a tip for getting PCB and stencil alignment when applying SMT paste to boards at home.

When doing single PCBs one at a time
Get a non-framed stencil, they often come with cardboard on each side.
Use double sided tape to attach 5 PCBs in the center of the cardboard in a + pattern, do not use tape for the middle one so that is removable, you will paste this one.
You are effectively blocking the center PCB in with a taped down PCB on each side so it cannot move.
Now align the stencil and tape that down along the top edge.

Now you can paste a PCB, hinge the stencil up, remove the pcb and place a new one in its place. If you're careful the alignment will stay the same.


When doing an entire panel of boards
It's easier to just put some 3mm alignment holes on both the PCB panel waste area and the stencil.
Then you can put some wood underneath and drill two holes into the wood using the PCB holes to get them in the right place.
Then you can use some drill bits as alignment pins through the stencil, pcb and wood. That will hold it all alignment while pasting.

[Kasper]

One of my most important "tricks of the trade":

The correct version of the tool you need is expensive for a reason. Buy it.

I'm slowly getting to the point where my time has enough value to be worth spending more on tools if they save me time but generally I'm cheap and it seems ok.  Most of my tool purchases though are for woodworking and other home reno type stuff.

Concrete drills however are worth extra money.  My $200 dewalt POS could not get through some old concrete.  My neighbor recognized the sound of the crappy drill and brought me his.  That went through easily.

Soldering iron also seems worth an extra bit of money to get a good one.  I've had my iron and its 1 tip for almost 20 years and quality makes a big difference.

Ironically my soldering oven was as cheap as can be: $20 IR toaster oven bought used and it seems fine.

[IDEngineer]

You have to be careful with tools. I go cheap for tools with few or zero moving parts. Harbor Freight is a great source for hammers, open end wrenches, pry bars, screwdrivers, etc. But a HF torque wrench actually damaged something once so I don't buy anything considered "precision" there.

The one exception is gas engines and engine-powered tools. The Chinese have reached incredible reliability with their gas engines. I have a HF power washer with a 4-stroke engine that we bought ~15 years ago. It gets used once per year for a specific application for a few hours. Otherwise, it's stored drained of fuel in both tank and carb. Every year that sucker starts on the very first pull after I fill its tank with gas. Remarkable.

I also have one of their 2KW inverter generators. Runs flawlessly for 75% less than the near-identical Honda model.

And you can't beat HF's el-cheapo DMM's. Every home should have one, if only so when your friend calls you for advice you can save yourself a trip by letting them be your remote eyes and hands. "Now put the red probe here, and the black probe there... what does it read?" I collect those things using their "Free with any purchase" coupons and give them away to friends like candy.

Otherwise, I generally lean toward the better end of the quality spectrum. It just seems to pay off. Stuff just "feels right" and "works right" and you get the job done faster so you can get back to real work.