Circuitry for teaching soldering and practice circuit board for use therewith

A practice printed circuit board for use with apparatus for teaching a trainee whether the change of a physical quantity at a terminal corresponds to a desired rate of change of the quantity at the terminal, said practice printed circuit board comprising

• a support;
• a plurality of said terminals disposed on said support where said terminals are arranged in a rectangular grid, there being M rows and N columns of the terminals where both M and N have a value of at least one;
• a plurality of sensing means respectively disposed in the vicinities of said plurality of terminals for producing electrical signals representative of said physical quantities in said vicinities of the terminals so that an operation can be performed with a device at one of said terminals which causes said physical quantity to change so that the sensing means associated with said one terminal produces said electrical signal which is representative of the change in said physical quantity at the terminal;
• a plurality of electroconductive means for respectively connecting said plurality of sensing means to at least one side of said support;
• a common connector means for receiving said plurality of electroconductive means at said one side of said support;
• and
• indicating means responsive to said electrical signals for indicating to said trainee whether the change of said physical quantity is such as to correspond to said desired rate of change of said quantity at the terminal to which the trainee has applied said device to thereby provide positive reinforcement for the trainee.

Apparatus comprising

• a planar support having an array of terminals disposed thereon;
• a plurality of temperature sensing means respectively disposed in the vicinities of said terminals for producing electrical signals representative of the temperature in said vicinities of the terminals;
• a plurality of electroconductive means for respectively connecting said plurality of sensing means to at least one side of said planar support;
• a common connector means for receiving said plurality of electroconductive means at said one side of said support;
• and
• indicating means responsive to said electrical signals;
• for indicating to a trainee whether the change of said temperature is such as to correspond to a desired rate of change of the temperature at a terminal to which the trainee has applied a heat source to thereby provide positive reinforcement for the trainee, said indicating means being connected to said common connector means.

A method of teaching a trainee to recognize the rate at which a physical quantity changes at a predetermined location on a workpiece, said method comprising the steps of

• applying a device to said predetermined location to thereby effect said change in said physical quantity, said device being applied by said trainee;
• producing an electrical signal representative of said physical quantity in the vicinity of said predetermined location;
• and
• indicating, in response to said electrical signal, whether the time required for said physical quantity to change from an initial value to a predetermined final value is within a predetermined range corresponding to the desired rate of change of said quantity to thereby provide positive reinforcement to said trainee.

A method of evaluating an operator including the steps of

• applying a device to a predetermined location on a workpiece to effect a change in a physical quantity in the vicinity of said location, said device being applied by said operator to said location;
• producing an electrical signal representative of the physical quantity in the vicinity of said location;
• and
• indicating, in response to said electrical signal, whether the time required for said physical quantity to change from an initial value to a predetermined final value is within a predetermined range corresponding to the desired rate of change of said quantity to thereby provide an indication of the skill of said operator in effecting said change in the physical quantity.