Quote:
Originally Posted by Robertb
Dear Kacir:
ALL of us remember the days when things were readily changeable. I had a friend down the street whose entire bedroom was workbenches for electronics.
The problem is hand soldering costs a fortune now and everything is drag solder and wave solder and newer. What use to take an hour to solder takes about 4 seconds in a solder wave machine. This has allowed less cold solder joints, pinpoint soldering, small PCB, and smaller devices.
Also, if you decide to even try to resolder one loose wire on a new device it very well MAY void your warranty! Also, you open the door for sabatage, lawsuits, and a thousand other maladies of our electronic age.
While I do hear you and know your intent is good and fair... our electronic lifestyle is spinning us all along with it!
Robert B
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Dear Robert.
I know a thing or two about manufacturing process of modern electronics. (The tin wave, the oven for baking in the finished PCBs (and the incredibly low threshold between temperature that is not high enough to melt the European Union mandated lead-free soldiering paste and the temperature that damages the electronic parts), the assembling robots, ...) I was using the solder-pads on the old soviet calculator only as an example of a design that allows users and third parties to enhance the product. By the way, those "solder pads" had a notch around and had a hole in the center so you did not need to solder, you could attach the wire mechanically, and IF you did decide to use soldering iron, it was very safe and you did not need to connect your wires to some integrated circuit "leg" or somewhere where you can damage the device easily.
I was thinking that perhaps you could add a connector at the bottom of the device that would allow us to connect buttons parallel (in electrical meaning) to the controls on the device. The important step is to use a standard generic connector we can purchase in a shop with electronic parts. Many modern mobiles have connectors that are designed to keep everybody (except for a manufacturer, of course) out and the only way to purchase an accessory for a mobile phone (even such a common thing as headphones or a charger!) is to pay super exorbitant prices to a mobile phone manufacturer.
The point in providing us with a connector is that we would NOT need to think about taking a soldering iron to our precious device.
The same goes for a threaded hole in each corner of the device for attaching any cover we (the geeks, the hobbyists, the users, the accessory manufacturers) can securely attach anything we fancy.