Soldering hints

[Eamoe]

Originally Posted by amigasith

Hats off to your endurance!

Thanks for the positive comment!

I would be sincerely happy if only one person found the damn hidden short before stepping into all the trouble I went through. Not to mention the fact that every component-level action implies a risk of other damage to these old (if beautiful) machines.

Happy fixing!

[Eamoe]

Funny how things in life sometimes happen at the same time at the same place. I just received my new side cutters from a local store, they are Knipex, model 78 71 125, and they have a weird steel part attached to the cutting end. Looking for the purpose of this thing, I've found that it's the exact add-on you need to minimize the chance of having the trouble I described:

[ Show youtube player ]

[MoonDragn]

Hi all, I just read through some of the comments in here and there are a lot of good tips etc. I was a sears electronics repair technician for a number of years when I was in college and done a fair bit of soldering myself. At the time, it was mostly through hole components and we almost never worked on surface mounted ones. The reason being the irons used were way too hot for them.

That said, let's talk about what I know, desoldering through hole components. As someone mentioned, the soldering pump can damage the circuit board, but only if the traces are old and the iron is too hot. The pump is usually used to remove large amount of solder or to get the stuff in the hole.

For starters, make sure you clean the surface first with a damp paper towel to remove surface dirt and grime. That stuff acts like an insulator making it that much harder to heat up. This next step is a trick I always use... Heat up the soldering iron first with a bit of solder, then contact that solder on the iron with the largest soldered area and ADD more solder. The reason for this is it allows the old solder to mix with the new solder making it melt easier and burn away some of the residual oxides that are left behind. Solder also has flux in it so it helps the overall spread of heat.

Once that stuff is liquid, use the solder pump to suck directly on top of the lead of the component, directly over the hole. That is the only reason you use the pump, to suck away all that excess solder through the hole. Once the excess solder is out of the way, then you use the wick to absorb the rest. You will find this method makes it very easy to remove components from the board, usually takes less than 60 secs.

Try not to make contact with the traces directly with your iron, that usually risks damaging them. Your heat spreader is your solder, and if you must remove the rest of the solder off the contacts, use a solder wick and contact the solder wick with the iron instead. Keep in mind you don't have to remove every bit of solder, after all you are probably soldering new components after you removed the old ones. So just as long as you can pull the component out, your job is done. If you still see solder on the other side of the board, heat up the lead on the component, not the traces/pads on the board before you pull. It is often not necessary to remove solder on both sides, just the underside. Then you can just pull the component out by the above method of heating the leads.

[itdoesntmatter]

Useful thread and helped me change a capacitor in a Sega 3D Adapter! Shame the person I bought the cap from lied about the size but this thread also gave me the confidence to bend it a little to the side & fit it nicely.

[UKRobbie]

Originally Posted by sarek2k

another one here without any soldering skills sarek + soldering iron = destruction

anyone fancy starting a soldering skool

Hi, I have been soldering for quite sometime now and I’m pretty good at it.
I would recommend getting a soldering station that you can set to different temps. So you don’t burn chips or lift pads!

Good Quality soldering Iron Tips!
Believe me when using the right Tip for the job.
It will make life soooo much easier for you.
Also will make soldering more easier to.

I would recommend for a beginner to practice on a dead PCB bored that you don’t care about or a bread bored.

Make sure to use good Quality flux! Has with out flux you will be lifting up pads.
You can’t solder without flux!!! Flux helps the solder to melt and make a good connection.
The make I use is AMTECH NC-559-ASM.

Always clean the flux off after! Use IPA Alcohol or WD40 electronic contact cleaner with a Foam Swab or a toothbrush! I don’t recommend using Cotton buds to clean the motherboard. I use to use them all the time. Hate the stuff and it can lift solder pads like anything. If not careful. Even leave little bits of Cotton everywhere. I recommend Foam Swabs! So much easy and don’t leave a mess. But make sure to clean the flux after doing any soldering. Over time flux can become conductive and can even do damage to the motherboard. Depending on what flux it is.

Always clean your Iron tip every time when soldering something!
Get a Soldering Tip Iron Cleaner and some Tip cleaner that you put your soldering Iron into.

Make sure to use good Quality solder! You won’t believe what bad rubbish solder can do. It can make it more harder to solder when using rubbish stuff.
You will find the solder will not make a good connection and make solder blobs everywhere.

What I recommend is one that melts at a lower temp around 240c with flux made into it. If you get rubbish stuff that melt at a higher temp you will have problems and it can even do damage to the end of your soldering Iron tip! Won’t come off so easy.

Buy some good Quality solder wick!
Don’t buy rubbish stuff. Has it will make life a living Nightmare when you need to de-solder a component. Solder wick is your best friend when soldering.
Also a de-soldering gun is pretty good. But can be pretty expensive.

I would recommend a heat work station.
You can get them that’s build into soldering stations. They are pretty good when removing chips or doing anything that needs removing with out a soldering iron. Like a video port!

Just loads and loads of practice!
Like I said I have been doing it for years now and got very good at it. I can do mods on game consoles like the Dreamcast HDMi mod and Dreamcast bios piggy back mod, GameCube HDMi mod, N64 HDMi, Sega Saturn Sram mod and bios. PlayStation PSIO mod.

Practice makes perfect and don’t feel bad on yourself if you don’t Master it on the first go or get angry over something that you are doing. When something goes terribly wrong. Everyone makes mistakes and even I sometimes have made bad mistakes. Even from this day! LOL

Just take your time and practice on a dead PCB or a bread bored until you get the confidents to work on a good PCB bored. Buy some resisters to mess with or even one of them build it your self soldering kits on Amazon. I have build two Radios and even a watch, speakers. You can get them on Amazon for tiny do it yourself projects. They are great fun to build and I totally recommend them for anyone that is learning to solder. Getting into electronics!

I hope this helps you.
Take care.

[lyzanxia]

Thanks for all the tips! Learned some good ones. Especially flux saved me some hassle. Long time ago, I lost pads because of not using flux (was before the internet )

[Vstech]

fumes...

soldering makes fumes, and due to the hands holding things, the rising heated air, wafts the fumes to your face.

so, short of not using your hands, you need a fan to disrupt the fume flowing to your face.

a proper air filter station is best of course, but a simple fan blowing across your desk will keep the fumes away.

[Mikerochip]

You want the opposite. A simple 12v fan, with some carbon filters folded up in front of the fan, sucking air away from the solder area.

Cheap, effective. And no fumes anywhere.

Hold the filters in place with the same screws as you would to hold in place in a case.

Power with a 12v psu.

[droopy]

Originally Posted by Eamoe

Funny how things in life sometimes happen at the same time at the same place. I just received my new side cutters from a local store, they are Knipex, model 78 71 125, and they have a weird steel part attached to the cutting end. Looking for the purpose of this thing, I've found that it's the exact add-on you need to minimize the chance of having the trouble I described:

[ Show youtube player ]

If you cut a small pice of the end of an wire. It easely fall down..sometimes at the board you working with.. That little metall piece should hold the cut off piece so it don't fall down. A security thing.. Works well if you don't open the cutter over your workplace. Empty it in your hand or something.


Tiny metall cutoffs are not something you want on the run in your electronic stuff..

[gizmo1990]

Could someone give me some advice for removing stubborn icu's? I'm trying to desolder U12 and U13 from a 500+ and they are proving so difficult.

I've a good solder sucker and it seems to have removed the solder from the underside of the chips. However when I look at the top side there still seems a lot of solder caked around the pins. Which probably explains why the chip still won't budge.

So my question is, how do you remove the solder which is applied to the pins on the top side of the board?

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by gizmo1990

Could someone give me some advice for removing stubborn icu's? I'm trying to desolder U12 and U13 from a 500+ and they are proving so difficult.

I've a good solder sucker and it seems to have removed the solder from the underside of the chips. However when I look at the top side there still seems a lot of solder caked around the pins. Which probably explains why the chip still won't budge.

So my question is, how do you remove the solder which is applied to the pins on the top side of the board?

Normally you cover the parts of plastic and use a heat gun.
If the chip got legs you can cut them if you are going to replace the chip.
Other method without heat gun is to put a lot of solder on both sides of the chip and use 2 soldering irons to heat up both sides or be very fast with one iron + push the chip up with a tool.

[gizmo1990]

Thanks for the reply @nikosidis

I've given in and bought a cheap heat gun. Once I've checked it's wired up ok I'll give it a whizz. Looking around the net, heat guns seem the only way to remove chips reliably. And even then it might not of course.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by gizmo1990

Thanks for the reply @nikosidis

I've given in and bought a cheap heat gun. Once I've checked it's wired up ok I'll give it a whizz. Looking around the net, heat guns seem the only way to remove chips reliably. And even then it might not of course.

Just be careful with the heat and cover plastic parts. Have a look how they do it on youtube. When you solder back the chip remember to have flux. Good luck, hope everything will be fine.

[Leon Besson]

Anyone trying to do their own Sixty Clone mainboard then have a look at this video. Will give you some helpful hints and tips for soldering

[ Show youtube player ]

Part 1 above…

Part 2 to follow..

[george7272]

Do you have any desoldering tips.
I want to remove a plcc 84 pin through and it is more difficult than I initially thought.
I removed the solder on the pads but that socket is still rock solid.
I used a heat gun but I was afraid that I might over do it.
I did covered the rest of the area with kapton tape

[Bifford]

I found watching this video incredibly helpful

[ Show youtube player ]