ADXL202 Accelerometer Soldering | ADXL202 Accelerometer soldering tutorial |
| Sunday, 27 March 2005 | |
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OK ,so i finally get my hands on Analog Devices' accelerometer- the ADXL202E. If you need to know more about accelerometers,click here. Opening the box i see the tiny piece.It's small,very small [has too..it's an SMD!] See what i mean! 
However there's this problem, i usually work on PDIP packages and SMDs do give me a scare,not because i've never done soldered 'em,but because i do not the have necessary equipment for it... so i go to my fav search engine..type my query in and behold i get results on how to solder the piece on a PCB![using a reflow oven and stuff which i don't have] So I decide to do my thing , and also take a little inspiration from Spakfun's breakout board. My first step is to find a thinner tip for my soldering iron...it presently has a standard tip,too big to solder the accelerometer.I decide to go shopping for a thinner one..i get the thinnest one available at my local shop. This is what my tip looks like[It's standard,i need a thinner one] 
This is my new tip 
However IF you aren't able to get a thinner one,you can always grind it to your desired liking Since i needed to get wires out from the ADXL202 ,i used very thin ones. You can easy get these by removing the insulation off normal wires you use in breadboarding Now comes the real scary part ...Soldering. First you need to hold your chip in place . With a bit of a little tape,firmly place the accelerometer on the table your working on. 
This will prevent the chip from moving around ,when you solder the wires I first put a little solder on one of the accelerometer's solder points.Then taking a wire ,heated the solder at the soder point and got the wire in. Do the same for the other seven "pins" of the sensor This is how it looked when i had finished.[i know it's gory and ugly,but it's the best i could do] 
here's the top view 
Now to mount the sensor onto a PCB...I chose a simple general purpose PCB[ dot matrix], as it's easy available  That's a 1 Ruppee coin,Indian currency ,the board is next too If you remember I had mentioned earlier that i wanted to make a board similar to the ADXL202e evluation board.. [you can get an idea of it over here So i cut my PCB into half to get a smaller footprint,that will house the ADXL202 and the supporting components This is the finished version of the board...looks ok to me... 
If you notice,there are pins at the bottom of the board.These are for the signal and supply lines.I put them ,so that the board can piggy back on a bigger PCB housing the microcontroller...I also put a berg connector on the top,so that i could debug the signals. Ill be putting up the design,working and interfacing later.. hope you liked this page..You may use the comment box below to ask questions and i you have the time ,pleae sign my guestbook.  {moscomment} |
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