>>746I started tinning wire and to develop my soldering skills. After that I started to make 8 pin connectors in a 2x4 grid. this allows me to lean how to make great fillets. After that component assembly, soldering on large capacitors to boards, stuff which could be done with wave soldering in larger operations. After that it was programing the microcontrolers with custom made jig's, this was the most insightful as i started to understand how the separate layers of the board were connected by "vias" and really started to tie my understanding of the broader picture together. The Jigs were made in-house with UHMW (Ultra high mol weight) plastics, the idea was to get 6 pins onto the right vias which would connect UART back to the device which contained the ROM for programing the PICs. Fun fact, this is where i got a taste for machining but that is another conversation all together. At this point I had the production area under my thumb and with my background in IT they asked me to start running the pick and place machines. This is where I started to understand some of the fundamentals of the components I was working with, I read data sheets for every component I have ever used. This is where I also developed a keen interest in pneumatic systems as these pick in place systems were all driven by air to some degree. After a while they asked me to start taking care of component purchasing. I still have contacts with Digi-key, Mouser Electronics and Futura as well as a few I have done business with via Alibaba. Towards the end I would work with JF on offering suggestions on new designs to streamline manufacturing. When I reached the saturation point of what I could learn at this Job i moved on, as i always do, to the next thing I wanted to learn. That concept in and of itself, in my eyes, would deserve its own thread, my dearest Arisu.
