{"id":1355,"date":"2026-05-09T18:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T22:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/?p=1355"},"modified":"2026-05-09T19:00:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T23:00:39","slug":"hard-where","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/?p=1355","title":{"rendered":"Hard Where?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I started making a synthesizer project a few months ago (see here)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-will-kolb-039-s-blog wp-block-embed-will-kolb-039-s-blog\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"PRlDpLmHos\"><a href=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/?p=1292\">&#8220;555 burgers, 555 fries, 555 tacos &#8230;&#8221;<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;&#8220;555 burgers, 555 fries, 555 tacos &#8230;&#8221;&#8221; &#8212; Will Kolb&#039;s Blog\" src=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/?p=1292&#038;embed=true#?secret=1CXXNYkRiY#?secret=PRlDpLmHos\" data-secret=\"PRlDpLmHos\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>and I&#8217;ve made a bunch of progress over the past week, majority of my stalling is that I royally messed my soldering iron tips:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-1-768x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1356\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-1-768x1024.png 768w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-1-225x300.png 225w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-1.png 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>(Left is a new tip&#8230;They&#8217;re not supposed to be black and blue).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This happened because I used a bunch of solder that didn&#8217;t have rosin in it and I left the iron on for too long and for too hot (for both of those tips). Then when I figured &#8220;Oh hey I can just swipe a some solder tips from work&#8221; I realized almost all of the tips available to me aren&#8217;t for my crappy $40 weller iron (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.microcenter.com\/product\/659318\/weller-5-to-30-variable-wattage-precision-grip-soldering-iron-station-120v\">https:\/\/www.microcenter.com\/product\/659318\/weller-5-to-30-variable-wattage-precision-grip-soldering-iron-station-120v<\/a>) and are for professional grade irons. So what did I do? I attempted to scrape off oxidation with a screw driver and rubbed down the exposed metal with a one of the non-fitting tips. It ended up working, but only on a small region of one portion could even be tinned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that I was able to actually solder I pulled out some perfboard (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Perfboard\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Perfboard<\/a>) and started soldering just to hit a bunch of walls because: 1.) I was crazy and tried to make things look good 2.) I didn&#8217;t plan at all. However I managed to get through the first board and get it fully tested:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"848\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 464 \/ 848;\" width=\"464\" controls src=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/WillThing.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>(The moving squares means it works&#8230;) You can see the wires on the board, which you really shouldn&#8217;t have to do for most applications if you do it right&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once I hit the first wall I started modifying my eeutils program thing (see <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/wfkolb\/EEUtils\">https:\/\/github.com\/wfkolb\/EEUtils<\/a>) so I can get a good perf board placement plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"713\" src=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-2-1024x713.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1357\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-2-1024x713.png 1024w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-2-300x209.png 300w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-2-768x535.png 768w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-2.png 1193w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Which is all well and good, however I realized why aren&#8217;t I just making a PCB instead of re-creating a crappy pcb editor for one off prototype usage&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah I put it all in kicad <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"667\" src=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-3-1024x667.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1359\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-3-1024x667.png 1024w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-3-300x195.png 300w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-3-768x500.png 768w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-3.png 1316w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"774\" height=\"850\" src=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-5.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1361\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-5.png 774w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-5-273x300.png 273w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-5-768x843.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 774px) 100vw, 774px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>and made a pcb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"612\" src=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-8-1024x612.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1365\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-8-1024x612.png 1024w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-8-300x179.png 300w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-8-768x459.png 768w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-8-1536x918.png 1536w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-8.png 1682w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"886\" src=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-9-1024x886.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1367\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-9-1024x886.png 1024w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-9-300x260.png 300w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-9-768x664.png 768w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-9.png 1208w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>(Those resistors are not supposed to be on the bottom&#8230;)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might be amazing but I think anyone who&#8217;s done this before will most likely be horrified. I went in there like a kid with a paintbrush and started connecting things. No consideration to impedance, ground planes, cost, signal integrity etc. etc&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To be honest I&#8217;m skeptical it would even work if I plugged it in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So in my ambition I went over to microfab to see how much it would cost to build:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-6-820x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1362\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-6-820x1024.png 820w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-6-240x300.png 240w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-6-768x959.png 768w, https:\/\/willkolb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-6.png 1047w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s without me adding parts, doing pick\/place etc&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So maybe I&#8217;ll stick with the perf board for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(banner image from wikipedia Arc flash <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Arc_flash\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Arc_flash<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I started making a synthesizer project a few months ago (see here) and I&#8217;ve made a bunch of progress over the past week, majority of my stalling is that I royally messed my soldering iron tips: (Left is a new tip&#8230;They&#8217;re not supposed to be black and blue). This happened because I used a bunch [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1355"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1368,"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions\/1368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willkolb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}