/diy/ - Do It Yourself

I mostly just mod and repair video game consoles. I've also made a couple of repro cartridges but I can never hold on to them because people are willing to pay obscene amounts of money for them.

A word to the wise: Don't settle for a cheap pencil iron. A proper temperature controlled soldering station is more than worthwhile.

>nonworkingCK2III.jpg
Feels bad man, considering all I had to do was solder parts to a board. I got a DAC working fine, so I was rather disappointed this one didn't work fine. Replaced the output transistors, but it didn't change anything. I suspect it'll be those TO92 transistors.

The WES51 is a joy to work with however.

>>34299
My soldering iron cost $3.00.
Should I be ashamed?

>>34327
well, keeping the tip cleaned and tinned makes even the crappiest irons work OK.

Big problem is is that its prolly 25 watts, which for me is usually too small.

>>34327

No. You could make do with a butane torch and a steel rod gripped in a pair of pliers if you absolutely had to.

A good station just makes things work a hell of a lot more smoothly.

I mooded my xbox controller, so it rapid fires in CoD.
1/3

>>34339
yeah it's 25 watts, so far it has worked great. I made a lm386 amp and some other stuff and didn't burn up anything.
You would probably cringe if you saw how dirty the tip is, but I really don't have a problem with it. Solder only sticks to one side of it now, but that's enough for me.

2/3 Im currently lookig for the little LEDs in the big button, you guys know where I can find them?

3/3

>>34327
>$3.00 soldering iron
Suddenly this area of DIY interests me.

>>34345
go rot in hell, real men don't need modded controllers to play a game

>>34351

I feel vindicated for saving this image now.

>>34363
You can do it on the cheap, it's just way too easy to get carried away with spending money once you start having fun. But if you need one specific thing made, and you plan your budget and stick to it, you can get it done without spending much at all.

I have a 40 watt Weller pencil iron that fits most of my needs.

>>34369
That one looks brand new compared to mine, I'm not even kidding. maybe Ill get a pic if I can find some batteries for my camera
I still get everything soldered pretty well.

>>34369
lemme tell u bout the time my iron started to roll off the table and stupid unthinking me grabbed it.

didn't have skin on my thumb for a week and no prints for like 3 months.

>>34365
It only works for CoD4 so that ship has kinda sailed. plus it was easy to do and i had all the stuff at home so I was like "why the hell not?"

>>34381
>That one looks brand new compared to mine
>I still get everything soldered pretty well.

I think your definition of "pretty well" may be a little more broad than mine.

I payed $40 for my iron at Harbor Freight, I don't think they carry them anymore, but you can find the exact same model on line for $30 look up 50W variable soldering station. they're not Weller irons but they work great.

keep your iron tip clean and don't buy one of those cheap $3 wood burners from walmart they don't work

>>34369
>not turning down the heat when working on something else, but don't want the iron to go cold
>laughingtemperaturecontrolledmasterrace.jpg
So yeah, a hotter iron will oxidize exponentially faster than a colder one. Thankfully, I haven't ruined any tips yet, although I had some close calls. Mostly it's just dried flux, and it took me a while to figure it out (just drop some more flux on it and rub with sponge).

>>34363
How about a 50 cent iron?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd7nQvZDObU

>>34404
is there any problem "more flux" can't solve

>>34399
i didn't know harbor freight even sold anything near $40 worth.

>>34399
Actually, I bought my $3 iron from harbor freight. I didn't see any more expensive ones there

>>34405
I'll remember that next time I'm in prison

>>34369
>iron tip retained by screw

God damn I hate that design. Metal expands and contracts with temperature -> screw backs itself out -> tip ends up having bad thermal contact with the element or just plain falls the fuck out onto the workpiece.

>>34411

Yeah. Flux residue on your work.

Last thing I soldered together. Not an actual picture of my work, mine looks a bit better actually.

>>34440
>that component placement

>>34425
I've had two cheap 25 watt irons and I haven't had problems with the set strew one, but my weller one used a tip that was a screw itself, and it came loose every time and always fell off.
Anyway, I'm wondering about battery chargers, are they just current limited dc voltage? How do they know when it's done charging?

>>34448
>dem crooked capacitors.

I've got a fan that says 12V DC 0.10 AMP
Does that mean it's only going to draw 100 mA or do I have to put a current limiting resistor on it?

>>34452

I like the Hakko design; there's basically a collar that goes over the whole tip so you've got tons of threading holding the tip to the iron.

As for battery chargers it depends on the chemistry and whether or not the charger is some horribly unsafe piece of chinese shit.

NiMH is pretty robust compared to Li-Ion so it's not too picky about how you charge it. Constant current, tapering current or pulsed charging all work. Pulsed is probably best since it discourages dendrite formation. The one thing they all have in common is that the charge voltage is 1.4V.

Most "smart" chargers will periodically stop charging and check the battery open circuit voltage to see if it has reached 1.4V, at which point they stop charging.

You could also monitor resistance and look for a sudden spike that would signal the battery's end of charge, but this is a lot more involved and requires a sensitive detector.

>>34496

It means it'll draw 100mA if you hook it up to a 12V power source.

I'm a noob at soldering, I have a couple of questions:

1. When soldering two thin wires together (like audio wires) HOW THE FUCK do you make the solder stay on the cables and not on the tip?
2. I have been told Ethanol can replace flux, is it true?

>>34507

Put some flux on the cable. Then, apply solder to the heated iron. Now, get the cable close to the iron FROM THE UPSIDE. You will see the blob of solder going up to the tip of the cable.

>>34507

1. You don't because you're soldering wrong. You put the solder on the workpiece, not the tip of the iron. The only reason you put solder on the iron tip at all is to tin it, which keeps oxygen from attacking the tip surface and ruining it.

Twist the wires together, touch the tip to them where they're twisted together and then once the tip has had enough time to heat the wire, touch the solder to the wire on the side OPPOSITE where your iron tip is touching.

Molten solder flows TOWARD heat. It will wick across the twisted wires toward the iron, coating them as it goes. Once the joint is sufficiently coated with the solder, remove the tip and let the wires cool without moving them so the solder has time to solidify.

2. Ethanol is highly flammable. That would be a terrible idea.

>>34521
man, are those techni-tool tweezers?
I've got a pair of them I got for free, and I looked them up and found out all of their tweezers or extremely expensive.

>>34521
>1. You don't because you're soldering wrong.
My brother does it like that, he doesn't use flux (he says that people who need flux for soldering audio wires don't know shit about soldering)

>Twist the wires together, touch the tip to them where they're twisted together and then once the tip has had enough time to heat the wire, touch the solder to the wire on the side OPPOSITE where your iron tip is touching.

I tried that, but the wires never heated enough to melt the solder.

>2. Ethanol is highly flammable. That would be a terrible idea.
I tried Ethanol, it just evaporated.

>>34529
isoproyl is good to clean copper before soldering. not ever around your iron of course.

>>34529

No, those are just a pair of cheap tweezers.

Tweezers do get very expensive if you require costly properties like high metal purity though.

>>34535
Your brother is an asshole stubbornly and loudly being wrong out of misguided pride in his total ignorance. Fuck your brother.

>>34538
yeah, the ones I have are stainless steel, yet anti-magnetic. fucking crazy.

>>34535
>he says that people who need flux for soldering audio wires don't know shit about soldering

He's partially right, though I expect he uses rosin-core solder.

>I tried that, but the wires never heated enough to melt the solder.

Your iron's not hot enough or you're not making good enough thermal contact. A set of speaker wires should be sufficiently heated at the tip within two seconds.

>>34547
I'm not the best solder-er and I've had problems like this before, so my solution is to cheat. I either use enough solder to make partial contact between the iron and the wire at first before adding solder, and I also do a thing where I put the solder in the angle between the iron and the part to be soldered.
I think most people take soldering way too seriously. Then again I don't work with smds or anything.

>>34560
>I think most people take soldering way too seriously.

I can't really blame them. Soldering efficiency becomes srs bsns when you have to do a lot of it.

>>34560

That's not cheating.

THIS is cheating.

This was a while ago, but I wired an aux input (for mp3 players) into my stock Ford head unit.
Green/black wires go from board to cd player and the cat 5 wires splice into that - hooking up a jack that I put in the dash next to the HU.
It's kind of ghetto though.. Basically, you have to switch to cd mode and have a cd in & playing. Then, and only then, will the aux jack work.

Hey guys, I'm new to soldering, does anyone know how to solder headphone wires to jacks? Mine just broke recently and I would like to learn how to do this. Thank you.

>>34585
Depends, some headphone wire is varnished (as insulation) so you'll need to remove that before you can solder. I think you can just burn it off with a match. Some wires also have kevlar fibres in them for strength which can be a real fucking pain when soldering. I usually can't be bothered with headphones like that but ymmv.

>>34585
I'm looking up a diagram for you, but just as a pre-emptive thing (since I came across this pic first), this is a problem you'll likely run into - the coatings they use on the wires.

What I've done is taken a lighter, burned that shit, and then cleaned the residue off - think I used alcohol. It's a pain in the ass though. Anyone know a better way?

as promised, my oxidized iron tip. for 3 bucks though, I can just get another one

>>34585

Pretty much the same as any other connector.

The jack will come apart into a core and jacket, and the core have three solder points or cups on it. One for left, one for right and one for ground.

Set your strain relief before you solder anything. If the jacket has no strain relief clips, you can use a knot instead. You want any pulls on the headphone cable to be pulling on the strain relief and not the solder joints.

Solder each wire to the appropriate point, trim the joints to prevent shorts, crimp the jacket over the core and you're done.


>>34611

Nah, fire's pretty much the de-facto procedure. I use a small butane torch to strip them instantly and then clean with iso.

Do any of you ever worry about the risks of lead?
I read the wikipedia article the other day and it scared the shit out of me.

>>34614
I just scrape the tip of my soldering iron with a knife before I start a project.

>>34622
Don't lick your fingers after soldering and you'll be fine.

>>34622
>Do any of you ever worry about the risks of lead?

Not in relation to soldering. It's all the shooting I do that is worrisome.

>>34622
Do you worry daily about cancer? About what's in your water? About what genetic diseases you may have that haven't surfaced visibly yet and may be incurable once you notice?

Neither do I.

>>34622
What risks? WIkipedia says nothing.

>>34626
They said that the particulates can be absorbed by breathing, and through the eyes. I wear safety goggles while I solder but still, that's scary. I bought lead free solder to be safe.

>>34622
>Do any of you ever worry about the risks of lead?

It's not like you're eating the stuff. Do not eat or drink while working with solder and wash your hands thoroughly afterward. Any incidental lead exposure from soldering is negligible compared to what you take in from fish or vegetables, so no, I don't worry about it.

You could also use lead-free solder, but that stuff sucks to work with.

>>34614

tbh the cost isn't terribly relevant. Even a cheap tip can last practically forever if you're meticulous about keeping it tinned and avoiding thermal shock (use tip cleaning wool, not wet sponges).

>>34585
Here's what the plug will look like. I've used the gold ones from Radio shack and they work fine. Don't get the cheaper black ones though they tend to wiggle around in the jack/lose connectivity.
The 2 small prongs with holes are for left/right. You can look up which is which but that won't tell you which is which for the actual wire. It's easier just to loop the wire though the holes without soldering and try it.
The longest prong is for the ground.
Last tip: make sure the sleeve and spring are on the wire before soldering. You'll know what I mean when/if you mess this up. I seem to do it every time.

>>34631
Actually, I am VERY serious about water. I try to drink distilled, but nothing ever less than RO. The stuff that gets into water accidentally and on purpose is disgusting.

>>34640

That's flux, not lead. It's still bad to breathe in though, so don't.

>>34614
Well there's your problem. Your cladding is almost completely gone. The solder simply has nothing to stick to.

>>34625
This will grind through the cladding before long.

>>34646
The smoke is from flux, but there are some lead particles that do come off into the air that you cannot see. Temperature is an average distribution of the particles.

>>34651

You get that kind of exposure just walking down a street. If that's deadly then it's already too late for all of us.

>>34640
The solder doesn't actually boil or sublimate - that would take incredibly high temperatures. It can however atomize to an extent. Basically atoms of the Sn/Pb can be carried up by the fumes. This is to a VERY VERY small extent though. I've read that it takes years of soldering all the time (i.e. that is your job) to develop any of the associated health problems.

>>34622
Yah, lead is nasty. I went lead-free on my bench this year. Despite what everyone tells you about lead-free solder needing more heat, it actually wants a cooler iron. A hot iron boils off all the flux really fast, and lead-free solder needs LOTS of flux activity.

The Hakko is like $80USD shipped. Best investment I've made, ever. It even comes with a good tip, standard.

>>34653
Yeah, that's true. Like I said I was careful with it, I'd say wash hands afterward, do it outside, wear goggles, use a fan to move the smoke. The smoke isn't lead but it's still not good to breathe.
Actually, the part that worried me most about reading wikipedia was the part about lead pipe soldering.

>>34635
>No safe threshold for lead exposure has been discovered—that is, there is no known amount of lead that is too small to cause the body harm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning
Although I do like to take wikipedia with a grain of salt.

>>34661
>Despite what everyone tells you about lead-free solder needing more heat

I don't hear people trying to make that point. I mean, it does require a slightly higher temperature to wet... the reason people hate on it is not just because of this wetting temperature, but also:

>A hot iron boils off all the flux really fast, and lead-free solder needs LOTS of flux activity.

It's the combination of these factors that make it harder to work with.

>>34661
Only 1 tip? What about the sponge/wool or whatever, is that gonna cut it or would I still need to buy one of those cleaning things with the metal curls in it? I wouldn't want to spend 80 bucks and get one tip and then fuck it up like I did in >>34614
I've been cleaning that with a copper pot scrubber, so that might be why

:V

>>34676

Tip cleaning wool IS the metal curl stuff. It works great and doesn't thermally shock your tip since there's no water involved. You sort of just stab the iron into it with a slight twisting motion and the tip will come out with just a light tinning of solder on it.

Look for a Hakko 936 if you want to save some money. It's almost as good as the FX-888 that replaced it and goes for under $50 since it's discontinued. And don't let that fact discourage you, since Hakko is awesome about product support. They'll continue to make repair parts and the the FX-888 tips are backwards-compatible with the 936.

>>34682

>>34696
yeah but that doesn't look like metal curls, that looks like sponge
is it just deceiving? and how much does that standalone wool thing cost?

>>34709

The 936 doesn't come with wool, just a sponge. You can get a standalone wool cleaner from ebay or a chinese wholesaler for around $6. The wools are replaceable if you manage to foul one up and sell for like $2. Though one should last you damn near forever if you don't solder daily.

>>34721

pic related

One advantage of a soldering station over a pencil iron that people tend to overlook is the fact that a station's iron is far lighter than the pencil because the power electronics don't have to be fitted into the handle.

>>34699
>420 4 lyfe.jpg
oh u
>not a ganged pot
son am disappoint

>>34276
stacking of 0603 smd resistors and soldering a 64-Pin QFP i a bit of a bitch with a old weller iron

It is a TAS5630 Class D amplifier.

>>34753
>64-Pin QFP

Pin by pin or swipe method?

>>34766
At first pin by pin, but i had to make 5 so it quickly turned to swipe, but some of the audio output pins and supply had a lot of copper, so these had to be soldered separately..

>>34753
them's some fancy capacitors ain't they?

>>34802

The tops look like butts.

>>34807
...

>>34802
Not really, just low ESR electrolytic with 125celcius rating..

the tas5630 pin out compared with 0.5 graphite for pencils.

The smallest chip I've ever soldered was a TSSOP. I used a pretty lame iron. Had no idea what I was doing. The circuit ended up not working anyways for various reasons (I had to spend like 2 hours with a pin scratching between a lot of pads because it was home-etched).

>>34299
>video game consoles

How the fuck do you solder anything to the stupid lead free solder on a 360 motherboard?

Temps, solder ratios? Help a brother out.

>>35366
Lots of flux and a hot iron.

my station, cheap hakko chinese clone works great i love it
makes upgrading the ram on my router so much easyer

Lemme see, my list would be a couple of cables too many. I can't remember.
includes, XLR(s), midi, 1/4" TRS/ TS, RCA, 3.5mm TRS, banana plugs, coaxial, VGA. USB.

Which reminds me anyone knows where to get the apple IPOD, IPAD, IPHONE 30 pin connector head? (Male).

Circuits? I/r remote control, 48v phantom power supply, radio remote control. etc.

bamp

>>34354

They don't look like regular LEDs. They're tiny little white squares right under where the "windows" they light up are. If you Google Image search I'm sure you'll find a picture of what they look like.

>>35366

I usually do reflow work on 360 boards, actually. This is because their solder work is shit (seems to me they don't do a proper pre-heat during reflow) and the contacts under the BGAs always crack.

>>35550

Oddly enough there are cheap Chinese Hakko "clones" that actually contain Hakko internals, like the Komec 936.

There's usually some other downside to them though, like the iron's plug & socket not being Hakko-compatible. eg: The Komec's plug is female to male while the Hakko's is male to female.

>>34576
lol

Why do people use the shitty pointed tips?

Chisel tips are superior. Better heat transfer and easier to load the tip with solder before applying.

Bits and pieces for an 8-bit relay computer.

>>38981
fuark

you call this quite thing a bad soldering iron? look at the fuck i have to solder with every day.

i like it, when shit like this, soldered together from 22pm to 1am, works without exploding and somikng when turning on....

>>39020
they should have laws prohibiting this

>>39031
You're gonna make this guy explode! >>34448

i have a 3 by 1 inch solar panel.
wat do?

does anybody know the HAM RADIO flea market? (its in ze germany). there ary DIY guys everwhere and you can get every shit for a bit of $.

Last thing I soldered?

>>39031
What the fuck is that?!

You know, I bought a soldering iron awhile ago because I had some sort of fantastical dream of creating little metal sculptures, but when I got it, I realized I had no idea what I was doing.

Are there any tips or tutorials anyone can offer for a very beginning beginner?

You know, I bought a soldering iron awhile ago because I had some sort of fantastical dream of creating little metal sculptures, but when I got it, I realized I had no idea what I was doing.

Are there any tips or tutorials anyone can offer for a very beginning beginner?

Even just basic Dos and Don'ts would be helpful

>>39031
a power supply making 1,4Volts, 600Volts, 6 Volts, and 105Volts foir a AN/GRC9. Wihtout transformer of course (only the 6Volts are from transformer, the rest directly from our great 230V-AC).

>>39110
stealing this... will begin experimenting with the idea in Uni workshop on Monday...

I swear 4chan gives me (I steal) so many ideas for my art course

>>39150
>I had some sort of fantastical dream of creating little metal sculptures
While solder can be used for joining metal, metal working solder is different from electronics solder (greater strength and hardness, usually higher melting point, may be acid core). Both can usually be melted by a soldering iron, but I wouldn't consider a soldering iron to be a very useful tool when working completely in metal.

Soldering irons are generally intended to produce just enough heat at a concentrated point so as not to damage electronic components, and if you are working with a solid piece of metal, even a fairly small piece, it will not be able to produce enough heat fast enough.
Stuff like >>39110
is possible because the wires for the components are small and won't dissipate heat too fast like a small metal sheet or solid piece of metal would.

A pencil torch is what I use for small things that require more heat. I have one very similar to the one in the picture - paid less than $15 for it and it works well.

Anyway, could you be more specific about what type of metal sculpture you are interested in?

>>39167
I posted the bugs a few days ago, showed how I made them on instructables

>>37684

I use chisel tips almost exclusively for better thermal contact, but this:

>load the tip with solder before applying.

...is bad soldering. The only situation where this is even remotely appropriate is pin swiping, in which case you should be using lots of flux and a hoof tip with a small underside reservoir.