The electronics bench is the most beginner-friendly corner of the shop and the one visitors can use right away on a Thursday night. Temperature-controlled soldering stations, a hot-air rework tool, a scope, power supplies, and bins of common components cover everything from a first blinking LED to repairing a vintage amplifier or building a custom circuit board.

What people do here: learn to solder, fix broken gadgets (the original reason this place exists), build kits, program microcontrollers, design PCBs, and reverse-engineer things they were curious about.

Classes

Soldering is our most-requested class. We teach hand soldering and reflow/surface-mount techniques a few times a year, with kits to take home. Members with backgrounds in electrical engineering, RF, and hardware security run sessions on topics like Meshtastic radios, RFID, and microcontrollers. See classes.

Using the bench

No formal training required; a member will show you the stations and where things live. Please:

Return components and tools to their bins.
Don’t take the last of anything without noting it on the consumables list.
Use the fume extractor when soldering.
Ask before probing anything mains-powered.