Soldering advice

So I"d like to apply the VGA mod to my DC. Unfortunately I have zero experience soldering and I'm kind of scared to harm the DC by doing something wrong.

Is there any advice you could give me? Any way to practice soldering?

Also I doubt the soldering iron at home is apt for that task. It's got a fairly big tip.
Any recommendation for a halfway decent soldering iron that doesn't cost too much would be greatly appreciated!

 

I bought a soldering iron a few weeks back to correct the solder work on a Sega Saturn I bought and was able to do it with this iron:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/30w-soldering-iron-45545

Though there is a better iron which I've just noticed now:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/12w-miniature-soldering-iron-type-m-4048

You can see the thread here:
http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33040

^ That was the first time I'd been near an iron in 10-13 years and using common sense it's relatively straight forward. It's always a good idea to practise on an old PCB de-soldering components and re-attaching them.

When working with smaller components it's never a good idea to hold the iron against them for very long, just take your time. When attaching wires, tin the end first by holding the wire and solder together against the tip of the iron briefly (I have an iron stand where the tip faces upwards), you should then be able to solder the wire to whatever fairly quickly by touching the wire to the pad (board/component) with the iron quickly, then adding any strengthening solder afterwards.

I'm by no means an expert, but the best advice I had was take your time, watch some YouTube vids and you'll learn the rest as you go along. Remember to have some de-soldering braid at the ready just in case and you shouldn't go far wrong.

I'm going to be performing the SD card mod and adding a new power LED and running a line from the GD rom for an access LED which should show different colours depending on whether the DC is reading from the SD card or GD rom.

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33443

This is because I'm a lot more confident with an iron after repairing the Saturn by way of what seemed like microsurgery on the smallest chip. Once you've done it a couple of times you'll sink into it no probs I think, I've just got to remember not to get cocky and take my time still lest there be a fatal mistake - same advice I give you.

 

Those irons are terrible (ive used both and recently thrown them away after I replaced them years ago).

I know this is alittle more expensive, but they are honestly very good irons for the money:

http://www.circuitspecialists.eu/bl...ering-station-digital-displ-bk2000-p-208.html


This is what I still use and I solder pretty much anything.


Regards to learning skills - only way is do it, i recommend finding some old motherboards and practice removing and refitting components.

 

take your time and dont get pissed off at it. it takes a while to get the nack of it ive been soldering (not soddering as americans seem to say it) for about 5 years. just be patient also dont buy a cheap iron makes life so much harder on your self.

flux is always good to make the joins good.
thin solder so you dont put to much on.

add the solder onto the joint once it has heated up and do it slowly so you dont put to much on.

be careful where u put the soldering iron so u dont short out multiple points.

watch some tutorials on youtube might help you

hope this helps

 

It works perfectly fine for me, no complaints whatsoever.

Sauder - I've even seen people write it as that online (Under YouTube vids mainly) obviously because that's the way it's pronounced over there. OH:

lol

 

Its "acceptable" for basic soldering. Once you get a decent iron, you can do much more difficult jobs - but also easy jobs much better and with ease.

Honestly, I hand solder TSOP48, 150+ pin TQFP I can assure you, those irons are not very good.

 

Thanks for all the advice!

@Bad_Ad84: That one looks good, will probably buy it
But which tip should I choose? I figure something small like 0.8mm?

 

I use 0.8mm Bevel for pretty much everything.

You can get compatible tips on ebay too for around £3 each too.

 

Fair enough, if I had a job I'd probably invest in one of those then. Just not got the funds at hand at the moment.

 

Yeah - I own that soldering iron, hot air rework station and a IR BGA rework station.

But all of those are only because they have made me money to justify it. It would be much more difficult if they were "pure hobby" rather than "hobby that makes me money"

 

Here here. I too use a 0.8mm iron tip, IIRC its the Weller ST7 and man I love the thing. The average month I don't make much money now as my volume is rather low and I prefer to keep my asking prices low (unless someone wants something big done as a custom job).

Been tempted some time to get a hot air rework station and an EPROM burner but I haven't been able to get the funds together all at once. The EPROM burner would be considerably useful for the PICs and EPROMs I wish to burn.

If this was purely a hobby I couldn't justify the cost of anything more than a basic soldering iron. But since its a hobby that I'm working towards turning into a MS in Electrical Engineering it is more an "investment into my future". Or so I tell friends and family.

 

mcumall.com

The Willem GQ-4X is the first "decent" programmer I bought (after the dog slow para willem).

I recently sold it with $300 worth of adapters for $180. Shame I wasnt posting here then - it would likely have covered your needs.

But if you dont want to spend huge amounts, I would recommend the above. My current one was more like $1500 but that was after the GQ-4X making enough to cover its own cost and contributing to the new one. I had to upgrade because the GQ-4X doesnt support NAND and I started getting lots of Wii's to unbrick (lift tsop, reflash bootmii into bootblocks, refit and then boot from sd card to repair). Which again has covered the cost of this programmer.

Its a gradual process, buy whats good enough/you can afford once its made you some money, upgrade and sell the old. It also helps people who are starting up buy tools cheaper (like the guy who bought mine).

 

You have lots of irons to chose from.
I personally use only GOOT Irons
I have GOOT RX-760AS and GOOT PX-201
Plus you have a range of iron Tips to chose from.

 

From the picture, it looks like the PX-201 uses the same tips as the one I posted.


To be fair, they are all hakko clones or at the least use the same tips

 

x

 

And I thought it was just me who thought they said it wrong :nod: I'm not taking the piss or anything but I've found speaking to my American friends that the "T" and "L" are often lost. I have a Japanese mate called Yuta but every American friend call him Yuda

Anyway, as for the soldering, the best advice I can give is to take your time and always add a bit of solder to the tip of the wire (if you are using them) before applying it to the board. basically what others have said.

Yakumo

 

i am american i say soldering.



america rules

 

Then you can say it right. Just listen to how Ben Heck says it. Sounds awful. At fist I thought he was using some type of new Solder with a different name.

 

I use cheap 30w pencil tipped soldering irons off ebay, cost about £4-£5 each including postage. They are good enough and I use them all the time in my modding, although get through a few in a year.

 

Alright, I've already watched some tutorials and it doesn't seem that hard. Now I'm gonna wait until some money comes in (still a poor student ), then buy the iron.

May I post back here, if any further questions should arise?