Have to speed things up...

Hello again!

Like the last time, a lot of time passed since previous post... What can I do? How can I explain? And most important- should I care? ;)

Unfortunately there are distractions that appear from the blue, strike you like a lightning and then eat up the remaining small pieces of evenings that you have left for yourself- thank you X-Com and Civilisation :P Worst- there are more to come! Fear the almighty StarCraft Expansion! 

Fortunately my poor laptop can not handle top-notch graphics, and I drop most other "hot" titles (will play Diablo III when I get a machine that does not work with a game only on low-low-low settings...).

To calm you down, I care at least to the point that I told several people that the printer will be working by the end of this year- that includes you. I considered it a reasonable time restriction and want to stick with it. And most importantly- I am a man of my word- its also a safety feature against "The Distractors".

Enough of mumbling- to the pictures and joyful progress!

I finished the electronic board to the point where I have to check the voltages before inserting semiconductors and chipset. First "general soldering overview", then "the top of the board", and "my silly soldering skills" ;) Enjoy!

Since I am a total soldering noob, I found the following quite funny and a bit disturbing. From the last soldering session I observed that something happened to the tip of the iron. In the beginning it was like a tip of a normal screwdriver. After all this soldering I have done- take a look:

I guess that the solder itself, and the cover of a PCB board have some acids etc, that are supposed to "melt" the metals in order to make better bonds. I guess they also work on the iron ;) And other thing- look how much solder I used! :D It was full when I started! I never used a full solder pack. Awesome! (yes, I enjoy strange kind of things) 

Unfortunately I could not check if my work is good or bad. The power supply I bought at the local "electronics repair point" does not work. Or I am being stupid. But since its humans nature to presume that our brain is superior to others, I will have to go to the shop and make a racket (for those offended- I am joking with "the brain" stuff- jeez, relax a bit, read some comics, watch cartoons- it helps to understand this kind of humour :P ).

Finishing, I have to boast a bit and say that my lovely wife got me a great present for "boys day"- a brand new Proxxon power tool for precise drilling, cutting, grinding, polishing- all this cool and useful stuff :D Love you Honey!

Thats it for this post. Since I managed to gather lots of tools, I guess the next one will have to do something with the printer itself. Be patient and wait!

Signing off for now...