Hello,
before starting my electronics assembly, I have studied the 2 differnt build guides available on the site, and neither of them do the header pin soldering in what I would have thought to be the 'obvious' way. To ensure the pins and headers line up, I would expect to mate the pins and headers together, and then fit them to BOTH boards simultaneously, and then tack-solder a few pins on each to ensure they will finally line up. The instructions as written, don't do this. They solder one board and then the other. Is there any reason why it is not a good idea to solder the pins with both boards mated?
Thanks very much
Replies
We are always soldering boards together with all connectors installed. APM has all males and IMU has female connectors. When starting to make soldered APM set, we first cut all connectors, place males + females together, put males to APM board and then gently push IMU board on top pins assisting them a bit so all pins goes nicely on their holes.
Then antistatic "rubber wrap" around to hold boards together while tagging few pins from both boards. Wraps off and solder all remaining pins. While soldering everyone, solder iron, solderer, soldering table and whole working area is grounded to avoid any static electric that could kill your electronic.
After that it's time for ultrasonic washing bath with suitable solvent to clean all soldering residues, fluxes etc. And it's time for testing board functionalities.
This way they are all nicely aligned and when keeping order of the connectors same, you can even swap boards with your "friends" if there are some needs for testing etc.
I've done it both ways. But soldering while connected together get much better match of the pin alignment. So I recommend that way. Next question is whether to put the pins on APM, with sockets on the Oilpan, or other way around? Pesonally I've done that too both ways.. and recommend if you will be using the APM alone, use sockets on it and put the pins on the Oilpan. I've got two Oilpans and 3 APM's so in keeping them the same, I can move them about for testing purposes, although most might not ever disconnect the two once mated :) as well as next gen of APM will be oilpan pin compatible. Although its really not hugly important, It is advantagous to keep it future proof by planning ahead now.