Presale: The Ben Boost

Moh, would you be willing to split the boards up at all?

I might want to grab one or two, in case I try making my own...I'd like to practice SMT soldering, that and I can't justify 100 boards.

I'll definitely buy a panel and attempt these. I haven't been caught up with these thread in some time but... is all the info provided on the DIY thread on where to solder the surface mounts as well as where to get them from?

*EDIT*: hah, I just read the thread and found the info. Awesome.

Ryan,

For the love of god, buy your LM3410s from FutureElectronics instead of Digikey. $1.50 instead of $3.00 is a no brainer.

I might also discourage anyone from literally making one-thousand of these upfront. There are other boost drivers out there in baked, semi-baked, and batter stages.

In terms of reflowing these particularly drivers, really the only thing that prevents you from absolutely speeding through them like nothing at all, are the ICs. But if you're intelligent about it, you'll realize that there are some basic realities that let you speed through even the ICs a bit quicker:

1) Four of the MOSFET pins are continuous. So who cares if you get the solder paste on those four pads perfectly insulated from each other. You don't need to. Put the solder paste on the four pins, and stop worrying.

2) Another of the MOSFET pins goes to ground (above and to the left of the logo). So put some solder paste on that pad, but don't worry if it overflows onto the right / down a bit - you've just got lots more ground for a long way.

3) The final MOSFET pin is right next to a via, but it's the via that the pin itself connects to. If you end up bridging over to the via with solder past, again, who cares.

So that's the MOSFET, and you can zoom right through it. Now for the LM3410.

1) The top two pads flow directly to the resistor pads. Those resistors (and the cap on the left) will "soak" up quite a bit of excess solder if you give it to them. So you really don't need to be perfectly precise with the top two LM3410 pads. It's next to impossible to screw those up.

2) The bottom three pads are the tricky ones. The fastest approach? Put a thin line of solder paste horizontally across all three pins. Then take a toothpick, and "slice" the line into three, by running the toothpick down the ridge between pads. Viola, three pads with a little tad of solder paste on each.

Final note: Place the ICs last, or potentialy right before the set resistors. The ICs will have the least natural grip (smallest pins). The diode does too, but it's so light weight that jiggling the board won't move it. But the ICs move even when stuck in some paste, so do them last.

If you follow this approach, you can seriously get through them at nearly 1 per minute.

damnit, so for the moment it is back to the flexdrive again?

greetings,,

What the hell, why not. I'll give 'em a go.

Buying a hundred.

Ghostchrome said:

What the hell, why not. I'll give 'em a go.

Buying a hundred.

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Are you going to sell them?

if yes AWESOME :beer:

greetings,,

offroadfreak8582 said:

Are you going to sell them?

if yes AWESOME :beer:

greetings,,

Click to expand...

These are just the boards with no components. You want to solder the pieces together ?

^^ Yeah, I'll try putting a few together and see how it goes. It'll take a while to get going though. I don't have a ton of money to spend on components and stuff. I'm also starting a new job today with a pretty long commute so free time is going to be scarce for a bit.

This is kind of a trial.

Mohrenberg said:

Added the panels.
Ben Boost Panel - 100 boards - $35.00 : Mohgasm!, Because it feels so good.

It's set for free shipping so those who have orders pending, i'll just combine them.

They are 10x10 panels, but to make them fit into my 4x8 bubble mailers i'll probably have to break them into two pieces.

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Definitely want one of these, partly to help you recoup your cost and partly to play around.

Couple of questions. Do you have any of the parts to go with them?

I'd love to get whole sets of parts + board instead of having to order the parts list from somewhere else.

Also, have you considered just packaging up board + parts + resistor of your choice for current needed and selling them as DIY instead of you doing the work?

For you it is a huge time drain, but for someone building a few lasers, they might enjoy the DIY aspect of soldering a few boards. That way you could sell off some of your inventory as kits.

Just thinking aloud.

Let me know if you have parts too. If not I will just order a hundred boards and get the parts. I probably (definitely) won't make 100 drivers, but maybe I can help out le quack and some folks who can't do 100 right now.

That's a decent idea.

As long as you included a tiny bit of lead-free solder paste in a tiny baggie, there's no reason that people can't DIY this themselves in a regular oven.

All of the parts have exposed pads. If you can see the inside of your oven through a window, then you can see when the reflow is complete. You really don't even need a toaster oven.

Heck, I was going to try and solder them in small personal quantities. Is that doable or is this too small for anything but reflow.

I just threw away a perfectly good (except you had to unplug it to get it to turn off for sure) toaster oven a couple of months ago.

They can be put together by a solder iron with a fine tip. For low quantity it is do-able.

How do you bake such small boards without touching the grills or falling through? Or using something w/o heatsinking the board too much that it doesn't reflow.

I bought a board, will be making, and potentially selling, around 100.

RyanElectro said:

How do you bake such small boards without touching the grills or falling through? Or using something w/o heatsinking the board too much that it doesn't reflow.

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my toaster oven has a flat cooking sheet instead of a grill

rhd said:

That's a decent idea.

As long as you included a tiny bit of lead-free solder paste in a tiny baggie, there's no reason that people can't DIY this themselves in a regular oven.

All of the parts have exposed pads. If you can see the inside of your oven through a window, then you can see when the reflow is complete. You really don't even need a toaster oven.

Click to expand...

I have like.....2 or 3 pounds of kester solder paste in the refrigerator