yezzerNov 19, 2022
Some weekend reading. Programming : fine. Circuits : no idea what I’m doing. #RaspberryPiPico
Show threadSean McBeth

@yezzer good luck! Electronics is a lot of fun.

Invest in a good soldering iron, like a Hakko with a digital temperature display. I spent way too long with a $10 Radio Shack iron and it was the single largest source of my problems with soldering.

Also, you don't want to make a habit of breathing solder flux fumes. Set up a small fan.

Nov 19, 2022 at 12:55pmWeb
Show threadSean McBethNov 19, 2022
@yezzer Finally, breadboards are nice to throw things together really quickly, but they are kind of fragile (the springs inside can wear it and you'll start to fail to get good connections) and can add a lot of parasitic capacitance to a circuit (which will make anything with a timing crystal just not work right). So the breadboard can be a source of some frustrating problems that are difficult to troubleshoot.
Show threadyezzerNov 19, 2022

@seanmcbeth already have a lot of kit, have a TS80P flashed with custom firmware which is so much better than the £10 ones I used previously.

I mainly use i2c and SPI with either breadboards or #pimoroni breakout garden, so don’t get into any circuit building. Like what even is a diode etc. I did do an electronics course ~25 years ago, but don’t remember much.