Electronics

The electronics bench covers soldering, microcontrollers, and repair work — and it's specced beyond hobby level: between the SMT gear here and the 3D printers next to it, you can prototype an actual product (enclosure + PCB), not just blink LEDs. More equipment is on its way from China.

What's available

• Soldering station with flux and consumables.
• SMT rework gear — microscope, fine tweezers, and friends. Honestly under-used so far; be the person who changes that.
• ESP32 dev boards — several, cheap, used for most projects here.
• NFC reader/writer — PN532 module plus writable tags.
• Component kit boxes — assorted parts including IR transmitter boards, LEDs, transistors, relays.
• Arduino-compatible boards.
• USB gear — hubs, cables, dongles accumulate via the To buy topic.
• Cleaning supplies — ethanol on the shelf; isopropyl alcohol (90%+) is better for encoder/contact cleaning and available at the pharmacy if the bottle's empty.

Project kits — just build one

On the shelf there's a pile of electronics project kits from Taobao: a Bluetooth speaker, a mini fridge, a mini power station, LED displays, and more. They exist to be built — grab one and go ahead. Great first soldering project.

The repair culture

Fixing broken things is a house sport, and the method is consistent:

1. Open it up.
2. Photograph the PCB.
3. Ask Claude/an AI what's wrong and how to fix it.
4. Solder accordingly.

Successful precedents: a walking-pad remote with a cracked PCB (bridged the cut traces — owner now walks above 3 km/h), a mouse with scroll-wheel jitter (clean the rotary encoder with alcohol — fixes it 80% of the time), and various power supplies. Failed-but-fun attempts are also fine; that's the point.

Learning to solder

Start with Dave from EEVblog's soldering tutorial, then ask for hands-on help. Heat-shrink tubing gets shrunk with a lighter (the space owns one, bought specifically for this).