Techniques and Strategies for Building Electronic Circuits

Take a deep-dive into smart strategies and methods for building circuit prototypes faster and easier, including a method for making instant surface-mount boards.

[PhillipRhodes]

This video is an absolute gold-mine. Every aspiring or current electronics hobbyist should watch this, probably multiple times. There's a large number of wildly useful ideas and techniques here!

[robindebreuil]

I wish I could like this video as many times as I've watched it. Not just the tips, but to get you in the right mental state for prototyping. I need to become more like this.

[oasntet]

This video is tragically under-viewed. Not only did it open my eyes to a bunch of soldering strategies I hadn't considered and made them look possible even for my hacky soldering skills, you introduced me to QRPme, and that tipped me over the edge into finally getting my Technician's license...

[elliotwilliams]

Everything in this video is gold! I do about 2/3 of this myself, and I'm going to try to work the rest in now.
Bare wire + teflon tube is genius. I can't tell you how much time I waste just stripping wires in these point-to-point projects. (So much that I usually just make a PCB.)
I also really like your cutter. I have an acrylic-scoring blade that I bought for mat knives that's essentially the same thing, but if I didn't, I'd be making one of yours.

[dt]

Why is this channel only get 14K subs ?, this should be more popular . This would save me a lot of time if I watched it during Uni. Amazing content.

[tissuepaper]

Dude, the technique with using the plain copper clad FR4 and cutting it into "islands" just opened up a whole new world for me. I will never use a breadboard again.

[justin.campbell]

I have never seen better tips in any other video. This was absolutely perfect and I love how it included a wide variety of methods that are all easily done. Thank you so much!

[DEtchells]

Wow, *SUPER* useful, thanks! The scratch-n-sniff SMT adapters were a revelation, as well as the recommendation for fine, bare wire + tiny Teflon tubing. I also liked the suggestion to use adhesive copper tape for laying down power and ground planes. Pure gold, thanks again!

[emgab]

most precious collection of tricks and tips i‘ve ever seen - back in my days as HW designer i used quite a few tricks myself and found similarities to some of your tricks, but never used to work with smd‘s in that time, we could stick with THT parts and used wire wrap and solder sockets the most, but the tricks with solder boards scratched connections are absolutely golden - never thought this works so well - Leo. your collection is one of the biggest gem‘s one can find in YT - thanks for sharing them with us - stay safe and healthy - you got a new fan, kind regards from Mannheim, Germany

[maxdelaserna]

This is video is pure gold. Probably purer than a Rolex.

[DavidMullins]

Thanks for reminding me what I did when I was a kid and forgetting it all. Back to basics again and so recycled SMDs are not a problem anymore.

[amithreddy]

I've learn so much from your video. I spent 16 months at an internship and didn't learn even 1/10th of what you taught me in this video. Thank you Leo.

[hullinstruments]

Your channel is incredible. Your knowledge and teaching methods are top notch.

As a professional who runs my own repair lab… It’s wonderful to come across channels like yours. I stream YouTube in my lab all day because it gets lonely… and all the metrology/ recalibration crap makes me want to jump out of a window. Too bad I’m on the bottom floor.😁🔫

But channels like yours are a breath of fresh air! Truly in the top 1%

[paulwomack]

I'm pretty sure that most $$ chasing youtubers would have made a separate video (complete with click baity "save hours and dollars with this one cool trick" headlines) from each of the dozens of tips in this video.

Absolute gold. Thank you.

[shazam]

Excellent, Priceless Info! Why didn't you make this video 60 years ago? I basically developed most of these techniques from the "school of hard knocks" and smoke! Didn't have PCB material or SMT parts back then (transistors were new and hard to get); so I sometimes built semi complex circuits in "air" like a giant spider's web. One of my criteria of success was when it worked two or 3 days later and a week after that. Fifty years ago, I could get surplus Teflon tubing and copper clad board, even with holes in them (but I would have to cut a few more lawns to get the extra money for the holes 😁). All your electronic videos should be MANDATORY for all EE students!

[RobertLenior]

That's a lot years of experience concentrated in less than a quarter of an hour, thank you!

[robertamerson]

Im a retired repair technician. I hated having to dive off into SMT but as it was a professional necessity, I did. But I always hated them. Now that I am several years into my retirement and I spend many an hour riding motorcycles I have found myself with a fresh need of new more efficient methodologies of dealing with SMT. Ive recently decided to take ab personal safety device I have been running on my bike as a POC on towards a DIY product consisting of a few individual modular-mounted boxes designed to enable a typical DIY rider an option of a quick plug and play style installation on his or her motorcycle . Space available makes SMT components an absolute must. Leo's practical approach to some problem areas I'm dealing with is quite insightful and a blessing for an old dog like me. Thanks for sharing Leo.
Reply to Jan Verschueren: I guess we types are a very niche section of the atypical audience here on YouTube. Like David Luther stated below SMT hasn't lent itself to me easily either but with some of these new methods to master, maybe soon!

[greg]

Always good to get advice from an older guy in the field

[evilspawn]

Wow. Never have I been more impressed by a random video that played after something I was watching on YouTube. Subscribed

[vkzay]

I love your xacto knife modification for expedient PCBs! I've been doing the two parallel cut and scrape method by gluing two blades together, the ground blade tool removes the scrape step. I've never used teflon tube, must try that. I use magnet wire with the insulation that tins easily from the ends (but less so in the middle) for interconnects and kapton tape for insulation where required. Definitely into copper tape for bus and ground, drill track breaking on veroboard and isolation on clad matrix board.

CA glue can be handy for larger components that need mechanical support beyond their leads, but sometimes I just tie them down with tinned wire soldered to the plane. Cosmetic nail glue is cheap and comes in disposable project-sized tubes so you never have the open tube solidified by the next project. It can be annoying when it fumes as you solder, but soldering heat also cures it rapidly when you glue a fragment of board to another and then tin it. I don't like the wicking solder under double-sided island method, but it can work too.