Just wanted to drop a quick note thanking Padre, Brian and the rest of the Know How crew

[G+_Donald Burr]

Just wanted to drop a quick note thanking Padre, Brian and the rest of the Know How crew.  Thanks to Know How and Project Quadcopter, I was able to significantly level-up my soldering skills. In the past I've tried soldering kits from places such as Adafruit, but have never been able to get them to work - probably due to bad solder joints or short circuits (bridging) or some such.  However, in the past week  I have successfully completed two solder projects, and they actually work!  The first was a SIM card reader kit from Adafruit that I bought some time ago to learn how to solder.  The second was a voltage reducing circuit for my quadcopter - I am adding an FPV camera to it and as it turns out, the 12.4-some-odd volts of a fully-charged 3S LiPo is a bit too much voltage for the camera (which tops out at 12v.) This latter one was especially tricky since I didn't even have a circuit diagram to work off of (just a textual description of the components required and how to put them together) and I didn't have a PCB either - I had to hand solder everything on a protoboard. (Before you ask, yes I will be heat-shrinking this before mounting it to my quad - I'm not done yet, still need to cut and crimp cables to the appropriate lengths.) My solder joints are still pretty amateurish/crappy looking and would probably make a professional engineer run screaming for the hills. But, these two devices actually work - unlike my attempts until now,  which would have either not worked or (more likely) exploded and/or burst into flames.  So.. progress! :)

[G+_Gilbert Knarr]

Congratulations on getting a project soldered and working! Good soldering takes A LOT of practice.

[G+_Donald Burr]

Yup.  If Yoda were here, he'd probably say something like "Much training you still need!"