cheezmonkey
Member
Greetings fine, assembled Gurus, Genii and gentlefolk. I present for your viewing pleasure my first ever completed electronics project. Assembled from parts in a meagre ten hours, this incredible device will mesmerise you with its blinking lights and, er, blinking lights. Pictures at the end (yes, I'll make you read my cr@p before you get to the good bit.)
I bought this silly little set because, other than a couple of simple Spectrum RF bypasses, I'd not picked up an iron in over 20 years. I wanted something inexpensive and with a lot of points to solder and this kit fit the bill nicely. My question, however, is thus: (and I realise it's a doozy)
What am I doing wrong?! IF you take a real close look, anyone with a clue what they are doing would deem at least half of those joins as "bad" or at least "in need of re-flow" and some of them are downright awful. Though, I am compelled to point out that other than a couple of the LEDS, it worked first try. They were easily fixed in a matter of seconds and we were good. But seriously, I'm obviously doing something wrong - some of those points took a nice "correct" blob of solder in a few seconds, some of them did so after much longer and the ones you can see are really bad, just wouldn't. I know it's me, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I've tried ensuring I heat both the pad and the leg, as well as one and the other independently. My hazy memory tells me you need to do both though, which is what I did in most cases.
Tinning - the tip of my iron, I came to suspect towards the end, may be part of the problem. I can't seem to get the very point of it nice and shiny. Does it need a new one? The rest of the tip comes up nice, but the last couple of mm (ie the part usually in contact with the work) will not. Is this the problem? is there a solution?
I do know I need some better snips, the legs are pretty messy but this was the best I can do with what I had to hand. Seriously, any feedback, tips or suggestions would be appreciated. I'm going to look into buying another project kit for more practice. Does anyone know any simple retro computing kits? Really simple? I'm thinking sinclair joystick interface levels of complexity, max.
Now for the best part...
I bought this silly little set because, other than a couple of simple Spectrum RF bypasses, I'd not picked up an iron in over 20 years. I wanted something inexpensive and with a lot of points to solder and this kit fit the bill nicely. My question, however, is thus: (and I realise it's a doozy)
What am I doing wrong?! IF you take a real close look, anyone with a clue what they are doing would deem at least half of those joins as "bad" or at least "in need of re-flow" and some of them are downright awful. Though, I am compelled to point out that other than a couple of the LEDS, it worked first try. They were easily fixed in a matter of seconds and we were good. But seriously, I'm obviously doing something wrong - some of those points took a nice "correct" blob of solder in a few seconds, some of them did so after much longer and the ones you can see are really bad, just wouldn't. I know it's me, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I've tried ensuring I heat both the pad and the leg, as well as one and the other independently. My hazy memory tells me you need to do both though, which is what I did in most cases.
Tinning - the tip of my iron, I came to suspect towards the end, may be part of the problem. I can't seem to get the very point of it nice and shiny. Does it need a new one? The rest of the tip comes up nice, but the last couple of mm (ie the part usually in contact with the work) will not. Is this the problem? is there a solution?
I do know I need some better snips, the legs are pretty messy but this was the best I can do with what I had to hand. Seriously, any feedback, tips or suggestions would be appreciated. I'm going to look into buying another project kit for more practice. Does anyone know any simple retro computing kits? Really simple? I'm thinking sinclair joystick interface levels of complexity, max.
Now for the best part...
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