Jason Whiteman Adding More Capabilities To Lab in Houston, TX

Thursday October 11, 2012 - Jason Whiteman has been steadily investing into equipment and supplies for the electrical PCB debug and rework lab in Houston, TX.  A number of suppliers have been utilized including local stores such as Fry's Electronics and MicroCenter as well as online suppliers.

Items Recently Purchased:

     Kapton tape as a high-temperature insulator and general adhesive.  "Blue wires" can be secured with the tape.  Also, strategically placed tape can prevent shorts in cases where rework is done in dense areas.

Kapton Tape

Jason Whiteman Houston TX Texas Lab Equipment Kapton Tape

      Jason Whiteman uses the Hakkon 808 desoldering gun to remove parts from PCBs or to rework boards that have an issue due to contamination.  The through-hole part with associated contamination can be removed without applying a large amount of heat or otherwise damaging the parts and PCB.

Jason Whiteman Houston TX Texas Lab Equipment Hakko 808 Desoldering Iron

      Jason Whiteman uses Chemtronic's Flux-Off (No Clean Plus) in order to ensure reworked board is free of flux residue.  The flux is corrosive and conductive.  Therefore, the flux can affect circuit behavior unless it is cleaned from the board.

Jason Whiteman Houston TX Texas Lab Equipment Flux Off

It's Time To Break The Underscore Habit

   Previously, Jason Whiteman would name all of my files with underscores as spaces.  This is a carry_over [sic] from the DOS days where underscore ("_") was the only valid character to serve as a space.  However, due to SEO (search engine optimization), Jason is now learning to break that habit and name files with dashes ("-") as spaces instead.  Sure there are a ton of other techniques to SEO.  However, the "_" to "-" seems most fitting of a highlight from a design engineer.

   To find a large volume of SEO tips, there are plenty of other resources out there.  This blog is no place for a comprehensive guide.

Google Apps/Sites DNS Errors Resolved

    Jason Whiteman's webpage error 404 issues have not been resolved yet.  However, a problem with Google apps/sites whereby the fetcher ("fetch as Google") shows a "DNS error" issue has been resolved.  To fix the Google sites DNS error, email your DNS provider and ask them to fix the domain for use with Google.  Jason Whiteman's DNS provider knew what this meant and the issue was resolved within 24 hours of notifying the provider.

    Hopefully this will help others resolve their issue with Google's fetcher.

Jason Whiteman purchases Arduino UNO from MicroCenter

Tuesday, October 9 2012 - Jason Whiteman purchased an Arduino UNO board from MicroCenter in Houston, Texas near the Galleria. 

Arduino UNO Board Jason Whiteman purchased at MicroCenter in Houston, TX

The board will be used to prototype simple designs, to contribute to the open source hardware community, and to test other connected hardware.