hotbar soldering

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chrisw957
 
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hotbar soldering

Post by chrisw957 »

I would be interested to know how adafruit is handling the hotbar soldering of the tft lcd panels to pcb of the microtouch. I did a little googling on hotbar, and it looks like its pretty complicated. I assume you didn't buy one of the specialized machines... Any problem with the flex cable tearing off the pads on the pcb?

thanks.

adafruit
 
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Re: hotbar soldering

Post by adafruit »

very carefully :mrgreen: we'll try to do a video soon, very hectic week

chrisw957
 
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Re: hotbar soldering

Post by chrisw957 »

I look forward to your video...

I think the TFT LCD connector is something like 37 pins at 1mm spacing? Did you try to find a connector that would fit it? It looked like digikey and mouser had one that might, but it wasn't a stocked part. I think I would gladly pay another buck or two for a connector rather than try to mess with the hotbar.

Also, I think on the chat the other night, someone asked if the TFT LCD was transflective. This means that it can be illuminated from behind with the backlight (transmissive), or in bright light, the backing reflects the light so that you can still read it. If you want to have a sunlight readable lcd, then you want one that is transflective. It has nothing to do with the "TFT" designation. I think it's pretty hard to find cheap ones that are transflective, so I would assume the one you sourced is not... But still a great deal at $15 to $18 bucks.

-chris

adafruit
 
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Re: hotbar soldering

Post by adafruit »

there are no connectors for these models of LCD. there are some that use 0.5mm but thats very fine pitch and we decided that these are easier to work with than soldering 0.5mm

mikeselectricstuff
 
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Re: hotbar soldering

Post by mikeselectricstuff »

You don't generally (?ever?) see transflective colour displays, as so much light is lost through the colour filters twice that reflective operation isn't really practical. If you turn off the backlight on a TFT you have to blast a pretty bright light at it to see anything at all.

chrisw957
 
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Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2007 1:19 am

Re: hotbar soldering

Post by chrisw957 »

Here is a transflective tft lcd in similar size/resolution as the microtouch lcd... $105 ouch-- I mean each.

http://www.futureelectronics.com/en/tec ... 7DH06.aspx

mikeselectricstuff
 
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Re: hotbar soldering

Post by mikeselectricstuff »

chrisw957 wrote:Here is a transflective tft lcd in similar size/resolution as the microtouch lcd... $105 ouch-- I mean each.

http://www.futureelectronics.com/en/tec ... 7DH06.aspx
But look at the datasheet & you wonder why they bother - in transflective mode, contrast ratio is 3:1 and it only reflects 4% of the incident light. Can't see it being very useful

chrisw957
 
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Re: hotbar soldering

Post by chrisw957 »

Yeah, I don't know how the specs of the small sharp unit compare, but there are several youtube videos which do show transflective tft lcds looking pretty effective in daylight. So, I wouldn't totally throw out the idea of transflective tft lcds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqnb1AQ_nvs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-MxjeuSJk0

Gussy
 
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Re: hotbar soldering

Post by Gussy »

Any updates on this?

I am curious to know whether the hotbar soldering of the 2.8" TFT LCDs is done with a DIY hotbar or simply with a normal iron.

adafruit
 
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Re: hotbar soldering

Post by adafruit »

we do it with a metcal iron and a wide tip
see
http://www.ladyada.net/library/smt/metcaliron.html

mhenstell
 
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Joined: Thu Dec 25, 2008 5:00 pm

Re: hotbar soldering

Post by mhenstell »

Hi Adafruit,

Just curious if you've upgraded your hotbar soldering equipment, or if you're still soldering each FFC item by hand with the Metcal. I'm looking at doing 900-1800 FFC connections and I'm trying to figure out my options. Thanks!

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