I wonder what proportion of Arduino hobbyists solder?

Community Bar Sport
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I have always assumed that nearly all Arduino hobbyists soldered to some degree or another, just because I couldn't imagine how you could pursue this hobby without, but I am starting to question that assumption. So I'm wondering idly (which is why it's here in Bar Sport) what proportion of Arduino hobbyists solder proficiently, what proportion solder less than proficiently (but are happy to keep trying and improve their skills), what proportion will solder only grudgingly if there no alternative, and what proportion simply don't at all.

What's got me wondering is that I sell some very easy to solder kits, all through-hole parts (deliberately so) but I still get a fairly persistent stream of enquiries as to whether I can sell pre-assembled kits. I hadn't really expected this. I thought people would generally be happy to whip out the soldering iron and save a few bucks. I wonder if you really are restricting your potential customer base significantly by not offering pre-assembled gear? Any thoughts or insights anyone might be able to offer?

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I often get the impression that there is a certain segment of the Arduino community that expects to be able to build projects in a "plug-n-play" manner:

That they want to treat the Arduino (and sensors and other components) like a slightly more advanced version of the Lego Mindstorms set (well - the electronic/electrical parts at least), and find it difficult to understand why everything takes more effort than (in their minds) it should. In the end, they end up letting lots of "magic smoke" out, and tend to get easily frustrated.

I'm not sure where or how this attitude is fostered; part of it probably stems from kits like Lego and Vex making it seem so "easy" - but they may be lured to the Arduino and such because it seems more inexpensive. What they (possibly) don't understand is that these things are inexpensive because you need to know what you are doing to put things together so that it works correctly without damaging anything. That doesn't mean even experts here don't burn components, but generally they can figure out why (hopefully before it happens!).

I think those people who are expecting such "plug-n-play" systems tend to be those who - in your category system - either don't (or can't) solder, don't want to solder, or will only solder begrudgingly if there isn't another choice.

Yes - there is a definite market for these people, and some companies have stepped in to fill the blanks. For instance, Seeedstudio has the "Grove" line:

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/grove-starter-kit-p-709.html?cPath=84_13

There are also low-cost Chinese plug-n-play kits and shields for the Arduino, that allow simple connections to various sensors, motors, servos, switches, etc; with all the extra electronics and such on various small PCBs and easy quick-connectors to bring it all together.

Some people, I guess, just prefer the programming aspect, and want the hardware to be simpler. Some are more comfortable with the mechanics, but the electronics either doesn't excite them, or they don't understand it well, or they don't have the time to learn (it can be very bewildering at times!). Then there are those who are either too frugal to pay for such pre-assembled items, or they like the challenge of doing it all themselves. Likely, that last category of people are part of a smaller group than the others. So you may very well be "leaving money on the table" by not offering complete pre-assembled solutions.

That said - this goes beyond mere soldering; I am not sure there are many out there who, refusing to solder, still have the knowledge level to know when and how to hook up regular components correctly without causing issues when they apply power or otherwise use the devices. So - you could end up soldering everything for them, but they still "smoke" the components or devices by hooking up the jumpers incorrectly. Which is what the Grove (and other) systems have tried to do to make it easier for such individuals; by reducing everything to a simple "plug it in and go" approach, where you can't hook it up wrong (mostly - better idiots and such).

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I made my first solder joint at the age of eight.
It was using my father's 150W soldering iron he'd used as a sparky in the Fleet Air Arm, maintaining radios on the Fairey Swordfish, and subsequently building home-brew valve audio amplifiers. You could fix roofing lead with that iron.

I don't understand what is hard about soldering :slight_smile:

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AWOL:
I don't understand what is hard about soldering :slight_smile:

Some of my first attempts at soldering were also done with such a beast, when I was 10 or 11 years old. After my dad passed away (in 2005), my mom let me take it home - still works great (and very useful when you need to dump a ton of heat into something, and the butane torch isn't filled)!

5

pico:
What's got me wondering is that I sell some very easy to solder kits, all through-hole parts (deliberately so) but I still get a fairly persistent stream of enquiries as to whether I can sell pre-assembled kits. I hadn't really expected this. I thought people would generally be happy to whip out the soldering iron and save a few bucks. I wonder if you really are restricting your potential customer base significantly by not offering pre-assembled gear? Any thoughts or insights anyone might be able to offer?

First, when pre-soldered you assume it will work out of the box. If you have to solder it, and then it doesn't work, the come-back would be "you did it wrongly".

Second, there is the time issue. For a few more bucks people with cash but not loads of time, might be prepared to shell out to save an evening putting something together. Plus possibly their eyesight might be going and soldering might be more challenging.

Third, with a pre-assembled kit you could save space (eg. use SMD parts) and come up with something small and neat.

Fourth, maybe it is for a gift for some young kid, who you might not be certain should be let loose with a soldering iron (or indeed, even own one).

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Well now, let's see.

I don't recall at what age I took up soldering, but it would have been with a "Scope" so-called "instant heat" iron that you learned to control the heat with the push switch ring, and it would have been on tag-boards (probably on valve radios) rather that PCBs.

As I sit in front of an incredibly messy table, typing in a small clear nook amongst (eBay) packages, wires, tools, instruments, radios, modules, projects, reading glasses and magnifiers, innumerable repair jobs, screws and such, the Weller TCP-1 iron on its third heater element sits sheathed on - but not powered by - a British PU-10 stand to my right hand.

So what have I been soldering? Well, quite a few 8 by 8 MAX7219 LED matrix modules since these seem to be mostly put for auction in the unassembled form and without the five way ribbon connectors. I would prefer them assembled as after the first two, I am "over it" spending fifteen to twenty minutes on each though when I assemble them now, I put the "daisy chain" connector on the back, facing down for neatness when lined up on a breadboard. I would prefer the modules properly designed to chain side-to-side, but the seller of these is one of those who requires you to be "signed up" to PayPal - I presume they pay a lesser transaction fee but I am sufficiently suspicious about letting PayPal work that smoothly. (Am I wrong?)

I did desolder the LCD display from the "DFRobot" shield to correct (in one fashion) the "standard" design foul-up in that, re-soldering the resistor and modifying the PCB using my PCB chisel ground from a broken hacksaw blade, and the same process to repair the design fault in a number of CP2102 USB to TTL modules. This is somewhat lateral slant on soldering to assemble a module of course, if the module had been designed properly it would never be a consideration.

Of course I would never claim to be "typical" or representative. XD

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Paul__B:
I don't recall at what age I took up soldering, but it would have been with a "Scope" so-called "instant heat" iron that you learned to control the heat with the push switch ring, and it would have been on tag-boards (probably on valve radios) rather that PCBs.

I remember the "Scope"! And that was just how it was. Tag boards, valves, etc.

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What are the alterntives?

Firstly there is the group that only needs to "attach" something - like a servo or a few LEDs. (Well really firstly there those that just play with the blink program ... :wink: )

Secondly, as mentioned, there are plug-n-play style systems also called Shields. A motor shield and two sensors and you're good to go building robots. That covers quite a few people. (Ditto relay boards)

Thirdly, one can do most stuff with a breadboard. I've seen finished contraptions (example: a RepRap 3D printer) with the breadboard as the circuit board.

So, the only solder people are those that buy kits or do their own pcb. Defenitly a minority. Maybe 30% possibly less.

NB: I do solder. I do my own pcb on a millling machine. I do burn a few components and occsionally my fingers :slight_smile:

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An arduino is not going to be much fun if all you ever do stick to the breadboard, you're going to need a soldering iron to connect up speakers or connectors/wires (in the real world you need to know how to use) but i think it's a good thing to learn how to solder, it's not that difficult to pull of something that works.

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cjdelphi:
An arduino is not going to be much fun if all you ever do stick to the breadboard

Interesting view point - but I think it is too narrow. Presumably the satsfaction comes from having "tamed the beast", i.e. it does what you wanted it to do - blink the LED(cube), balance the two-wheeled robot. Soldering or breadboarding is just a choice of assembly - the same could be said about having it naked or putting it in a pretty enclosure box.

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Hi, similar story to Paul__B, good old SCOPE iron with 3.3V 30A transformer.
About 12yo , with my dad building model HO railway in a 20foot by 12foot shed.
Homemade transistor controllers, 2N3055's and 21W globes as current limit.
GWR, Gods Wonderful Railway.

Tom..... :slight_smile:

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TomGeorge:
Hi, similar story to Paul__B, good old SCOPE iron with 3.3V 30A transformer.

That's the one. "Intermittent" duty of course, though when using it for plumbing ...

TomGeorge:
About 12yo , with my dad building model HO railway in a 20foot by 12foot shed.

Hornby Dublo. Worth a fortune now in VGC.

TomGeorge:
Home-made transistor controllers, 2N3055's and 21W globes as current limit.

Not so sure about the 2N3055, it was a stud-mount thyristor which could make the engine creep ever so slowly - albeit with a quite loud buzzing noise. And indeed it was a 12V 21W globe.

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I'm one of the group of people that is bad at soldering. In fact, I've just broken an Adafruit neopixel ring that I attempted to de-solder. I had originally soldered the wires on it, and I was trying to de-solder it because I didn't get the connections right the first time. Oh well, that's $10 down the drain. I find I just don't have the patience to do the fine level of detail that is involved in soldering.

I have no problem doing stuff at the breadboard level, crimping custom wires, etc. It is just trying to get to that next level to solder components on the board that I find frustrating. So, if I have a choice in buying something, and one option is pre-soldered with header pins attached, and the other is not soldered, I will go for the first item, depending on the cost. However, I likely would never contact you about pre-soldering the components if you don't list it as an option, I would just look for a different supplier. So you might be missing out on sales that never contacted you. Obviously, if it is a hassle packaging pre-soldered items so they survive the postal experience, maybe it is worth not getting those sales.

In addition, I'm 55 right now, and I'm starting to have trouble to see the typical through-hole components with my normal bi-focals. I suspect when I'm 65 or 75, it will be even harder. And I can't even imagine trying to solder if I had a slight hand tremor.

I've thought about trying to get my 11 year old nephew involved with circuits, but he lives a 1,000 miles away, and my sister who is his mother, is rather protective and probably wouldn't allow me to give him a gift that involves soldering. So, that kind of limits me to things like snap-circuits (which I'm actually thinking of).

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I do have a soldering iron but I mainly use it to burn my fingers.

Presumably the satsfaction comes from having "tamed the beast", i.e. it does what you wanted it to do.... Soldering or breadboarding is just a choice of assembly

That is it for me. I don't have electronics knowledge or skills but I get a kick out of writing a program that has a physical effect. Plugging components into a breadboard satisfies my requirements, though if I have to I'll burn my fingers, the components and the table.

You have not said what your kits are for Pico. If they are "learner" kits of some sort and I wanted one then I would have a go at self assembly. I would get some satisfaction from that but it would be fairly limited as I would probably not understand the electronics - it would be like painting by numbers.

If the kits provide a function (such as motor shield) then I would probably want to buy the board ready made.

I suspect you will get extra customers if you include pre-assembled as an option.

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MichaelMeissner:
In addition, I'm 55 right now, and I'm starting to have trouble to see the typical through-hole components with my normal bi-focals.

Hah! only 55?

I (now) use a head-mounted binocular magnifier. XD

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Like the OP, when I see comments from people that don't do soldering, I think "then what do you do?" Not to be elitist, just that I can't imagine progressing in a hobby like this without picking up an iron. It seems that integral. Who wants to be limited to prebuilt shields?? Heck, I only bought a second Uno because 1) I needed something that day, my breadboards were full, and I didn't have a PCB made that would fit the purpose; and 2) because I wanted to thank Arduino for their contributions, and Radio Shack for dipping their toes back into DIY.

Otherwise, it's breadboarded designs that, once proven, turn into PCBs and bare nekkid components and solder fumes.

I guess, for me, the moment of truth came when I joined a local maker group. Someone asked, "how many of you have Arduinos?" Nearly everyone raised their hands. "Have you done anything with them?" My hand goes up. Everyone else? "No." "Not yet." "Huh uh." "I ran the blink sketch once..." :astonished:

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I was demonstrating the Arduino to some school kids. I tried to keep it as brief as possible, explaining you could do all sorts of things. Their eyes glazed over with a polite smile. Then I produced from behind the desk my remote-controlled car:

Then the Wii remote to control it:

Then I started driving the car around the classroom by pushing on the Wii nunchuk. Their interest picked up damn quickly. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the contributions, everyone. Some thoughtful comments here. I was particularly interested to read cr0sh's comments about the Mindstorms, Vex, Groves stuff, and the crossover to Arduino. I was dimly aware of the Grove stuff at seeed, but never paid it much mind -- I thought it was designed for classroom environments and that sort of thing, rather than for hobbyists. It hadn't occurred to me that these would actually provide a general alternative to soldering.

The kits I sell, by the way, are for an Uno-class Arduino clone (think "Diavolino" with nRF24L01+ connectors built in), and for an nRF24L01+ shield. I get asked about pre-assembly for the shields, rather than the dev board kits, presumably because there are a lot of pre-assembled options for an Arduino clone, but not so many for a nRF24L01+ shield.

One of the reasons I've resisted moving to sell them pre-assembled is because of what it would do to the prices; I'd be a bit embarrassed to charge that much. Even the shipping goes up significantly, because as a kit they are thin enough to be posted at letter rate, but once you've got headers mounted, not. And my belief is that people who like the nRF24L01+ radios are kind of looking for bang for buck anyway. A cheap radio module with a (relatively) expensive shield kind of defeats the object of the exercise, I would have thought!

But there are other reasons as well. One is that I designed the shield to be flexible in terms of configuration for various modes of deployment: e.g, it's got provision for two set of shield headers, one for the Ardunio shield layout, another for protoboard/breadboard compatibility. It's got a prototyping area on it that you can custom mount things as needed -- I've got a Teensy 3.0 talking through a nRF24L01+ mounted on one of these, for example. Provision for a dedicated 3v3 voltage regulator, or not. Choice of hardware SPI or software SPI (bit banging) connections for the radio module. For HW SPI, choice of using D11-13 for Uno etc., or ICSP header SPI pins (for Mega, Leo, Due, etc.)

So it's not like there is one assembled version. I figure either I'd have to stock all those permutations of configuration, offer just a subset, or offer custom configuration ordering (!). TBH, since I put quite a bit of thought into make it as easy as possible to to assemble with only basic soldering skills (the regulator is the big-ass TO-220 package, for example), I just assumed that just about anyone who was into the hobby would find DIY assembly a no-brainer.

Finally, my thinking was that "makers" would generally prefer tools and components to build their own solutions, rather than buy someone else's pre-packaged solution, if offered the choice. So it never even crossed my mind that many people would be faintly interested in "pre-assembled". But obviously I was projecting my own personal attitudes far too generally. Live and learn! But the whole thing has got me wondering what the composition of the "Arduino hobbyist" demographic really is like. Evidently, not quite as I imagined it... maybe not even close.

Anyway, thanks all once again for the insights. All food for thought.

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SirNickity:
Like the OP, when I see comments from people that don't do soldering, I think "then what do you do?" Not to be elitist, just that I can't imagine progressing in a hobby like this without picking up an iron. It seems that integral. Who wants to be limited to prebuilt shields??

It depends on the shields. Back when I used Arduino more than Teensy, I really like the prototype shield with a mini-breadboard. I could do all of the stuff on the breadboard, and add the wires. Shields that can be mounted allow you to let the shield do the one thing it is designed for, and then you can use the other pins for other parts of the design.

If I wanted to do something else, or experiment while keeping the the original design, I could just pop off the shield, and mount another one.

As I mentioned previously with the Teensy, everything is done on the breadboard. Sure, eventually I may decide a design is finished, and then solder it on to a perf-board, but generally, everything is always in a state of evolution.

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Paul__B:

MichaelMeissner:
In addition, I'm 55 right now, and I'm starting to have trouble to see the typical through-hole components with my normal bi-focals.

Hah! only 55?

I (now) use a head-mounted binocular magnifier. XD

I use one of those, and I'm not even 55 yet!

My mother-in-law bought them for me as a gift last Xmas. They're great (if not for making a fashion statement.) She really went overboard and bought me a nice professional quality set, much better quality than if I'd bought a set for myself, very comfortable.

Sometimes I pick them up if they are lying around and if I can't find my reading glasses. I can typically never find my reading glasses when needed, but I can always find my head-mounted binocular magnifier.