One of my teenage nephews likes to play with electronics. Soldering kits, that stuff.

I wonder what to buy him as a gift. He did simple kits like 'FM radio' or those silly tetris-like games which use led matrixes.

But what next? Push him into the world of hand soldered SMD or keep in THT?

And what kind of 'soldering kit' to buy.

Does anyone have suggestions?

#stem #soldering #kit #kid

@hrw SMT is *easier* than THT, that's why it replaced it, no idea why everybody thinks THT is the easier one. The only reason for THT to still be around is mechanical strength.

@deshipu probably due to fans of 0402 or smaller components.

Whenever I see a device which I consider "could be fun" it looks like pcb filled with grains. And requires microscope to solder it.

THT was fun. When element drops you pick it up and solder.

When SMD drops you take another one cause it is easier than looking for dropped one.

@hrw tbh at our age everything requires a microscope to assemble, I use my microscope to read ingredient lists off packages of food

I am unable to select microscope for myself... So even less for someone else.

@deshipu

@hrw I'm happy with my Pinecil for some recent basic projects.

@hrw SMT is a bit more demanding of your equipment. You need a small tip that you can clean properly and a temperature controlled iron. Nice tweezers help too and a flux pen. If all you've got is a $10 hardware store iron you are going to have a really hard time, but, now we can get really nice USB powered irons for not a lot.
Have fun.

@orangutanlibrarian I have '937D' soldering station, some (not used yet) hot air gun, set of tweezers waits for me to find time.

And one of those 'try to learn soldering smt' kits is in a drawer. Magnifying glass was not good enough to handle them with random tweezers and the tip I used for THT.

Next year will be a time to learn SMT.