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Tricks of the Trade - knowledge for every day life

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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:

--- Quote from: Ranayna on May 05, 2021, 07:35:18 am ---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.

--- End quote ---

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

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.

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