✧✦Catherine✦✧Jul 10, 2023
does anyone know a technological solution to "hands are too shakey for SMD soldering"? I am thinking of some sort of device you can place your hand on that dampens the tremors
(please RT, would really love for my gf to be able to solder fine pitch SMD stuff)
Show threadThinkcomputersJul 10, 2023

@whitequark

I would recommend trying a binocular microscope, 10x or 20x if you can find one handy.

Anecdotal story here. I have a good friend with Parkinson's disease. We conducted an experiment, and I wish I had recorded it.

I had my friend with me as I was assembling a bunch of boards with SMD and through hole bits. I had him hold one of my super sharp probes and point to one of the SMD components. Quite obviously he was unable to keep his hand tremors under control and was shaking quite a bit.

He then looked at the component under microscopy. It was amazing, the amount of movement that the tremors were without the microscope, translated to what his eyes saw in the microscope. To me, I was not looking under the scope, it looked like his hand had stopped trembling. We both couldn't believe it and we still talk about it.

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧
@thinkcomputers holy shit! this makes me reconsider some of my existing beliefs re: tremors
Jul 10, 2023 at 4:11amWeb
Show threadMatthew SorensenJul 10, 2023
@whitequark @thinkcomputers I've seen this happen with someone with fairly bad essential tremor as well
Show threadckfiniteJul 10, 2023
@whitequark I've also noticed that I'm less shaky under a microscope. It begets sort of an interesting hypothesis about tremors; I wonder if it's a sort of underdamped visual-mechanical feedback loop?
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Jul 10, 2023
@ckfinite sure does!
Show threadMartin WhitakerJul 10, 2023
@ckfinite @whitequark if only people came with an engineering menu that allowed settings to be tweaked.... Stuff like this is a fascinating inside into how the mind works though.
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧Jul 10, 2023
@martin @ckfinite it's called "plurality" tbh