Soldering

Do that with valve amps as well lol
 
ive got a nicely flashed over rf deck from a K2RIW on my desk, got a moth in the grid compartment

anyway back to topic, I cant get on with the wire scruncy type tip cleaners, I still prefer the sponge, and if really bad tin of frys tip cleaner paste.

as said before be carefull with heat, leave a tip on a pcb track too long and you can lift the track, also make sure your components are clean, amount of times i've had to deoxidise resistors to get a clean joint.
 
As DavidT says.....Ideally we want to apply robust heat for a short duration.

One of my friends has a 12 watt iron...it takes years to get hot enough to do a 'proper job'.
And outside with some wind chill.....decades...

So I bought him a mains powered ( not 24volt ) temperature controlled iron....around 50watts.

He agrees it is better, but still likes his 12 watter

Malcolm
 
Not wasted.....when I'm round at his house, I can specify the temp controlled iron for my use....

We joke that he has to call the power grid people to watch out for the extra load ;)

Malcolm
 
Its funny this thread. I remember our old TV in the 80's . It was colour and inherited from someone to upgrade our black and white one. I remember it was on the blink and Dad saying my uncle was coming and they were going to take it apart and fix it. Which they did. Imagine that on your LED 5mm thick curved 50 " £500 Samsung?

It sticks in my mind when they turned it on to check it while it was apart (the back off) and being told as a small boy, to "stand back" as "if you touch that it'll stop yer heart" it's imprinted in my memory.

My first witness of soldering to fix something, Ross's post made me think of it- and actually still miles better than I can do. I can remember it all now, the flux, etc etc. was like a heart surgery. Uncle coming with some alien component and replacing the one in there....

In my house when a hifi or tv was finally decommissioned I was tasked with reducing it to components (even the screws so no violence) which would all disapear somewhere. Bit odd looking back but taking stuff apart was magical.

It actually was a decent picture on that, LCDs only caught up again with HD.

MORE THREAD DRIFT, "soz" as my ten year old would say....
 
When soldering, concentrate on where the iron is! I remember back when I were a young lad (12 maybe?) I was struggling to get a wire in just the right place to solder, reached back without looking and grabbed the wrong end of the iron! Oooowwwch. It was a thumping great 60 watt-er from Woolies too, not a piddly little Antex! Had the burn marks on my palm for years after.
 
Can I drift the thread a bit more? I am a teacher, and still teach the practical activities such as how to solder, use a chisel and a centre lathe. I have to risk assess the activities, but that doesn't prevent them taking place. Very few of my pupils have had the basic assembly/mechanical experiences I had experienced at their age, such as making an Airfix kit, or taking a bike apart, let alone having a train set or Scalextric. On the plus side, when introduced to practical activities, young people can and do engage with them. But the D&T course content is being changed again, and some further dilution looks inevitable.
 
Tony Walsham said:
CAUTION!! Thread drift.

I always though the decent whack was to get them started.
At least my old "portable" Cathode Ray tube colour TV did. Worked every time. Lasted for more than 21 years.
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Even more thread drift. Zenith advertised, for the longest time, that there TV sets were hand wired, not cheap printed circuit boards. Back in the day they were very good TVs. Just shows to go you how far those cheap printed circuit boards have come!
 
CoggesRailway said:
Its funny this thread. I remember our old TV in the 80's . It was colour and inherited from someone to upgrade our black and white one. I remember it was on the blink and Dad saying my uncle was coming and they were going to take it apart and fix it. Which they did. Imagine that on your LED 5mm thick curved 50 " £500 Samsung?

It sticks in my mind when they turned it on to check it while it was apart (the back off) and being told as a small boy, to "stand back" as "if you touch that it'll stop yer heart" it's imprinted in my memory.

My first witness of soldering to fix something, Ross's post made me think of it- and actually still miles better than I can do. I can remember it all now, the flux, etc etc. was like a heart surgery. Uncle coming with some alien component and replacing the one in there....

In my house when a hifi or tv was finally decommissioned I was tasked with reducing it to components (even the screws so no violence) which would all disapear somewhere. Bit odd looking back but taking stuff apart was magical.

It actually was a decent picture on that, LCDs only caught up again with HD.

MORE THREAD DRIFT, "soz" as my ten year old would say....
Click to expand...


I learned a great deal from taking things apart.
 
Madman said:

I learned a great deal from taking things apart.
Click to expand...

The sense of achievement when they went back together?? ;)

Especially if there were no parts left over!! ::) ;D ;D
 
One of the things I have accumulated over the years is a wide range of very small screws,
Mostly self tapping and threaded left over from the hundreds of battery R/C conversions I have done since 1985.
Unfortunately only one or two small stepped shoulder screws.
 
sparky230 said:
On a slight tangent, this is the list of the praticals for a Intermediate Amateur radio Licence http://www.brats-qth.org/training/ilc/cp2.htm, Most students we get at our club, have never touched a soldering Iron or ever wired a 13amp, who here can do the list
Click to expand...

Any licenced Amateur worthy of the call should find it simple. I used to teach youngsters after school once a week, (last 18 months in junior school), to get through the the RAE and to build equipment of all sorts. Still have the "treacle tin" dummy load built for me by one of the lads. I taught the RAE for nine years until the modern idiocy took over. Both the boss and I are licensed and when younger she used to build prototype boards for a well known research establishment, some of which were used at the time in our so called ultimate deterrent launch systems. So for her building a 70cms transceiver was no real problem.

In this modern world unfortunately we get what we deserve. Visiting the so called "senior" schools with the grandchildren a couple of years ago led me to despair of the whole teaching profession and despise those who have so avidly conspired to destroy so much opportunity for our young people to the detriment of all.
 
If it helps cheer anyone up that we've not gone completely to pot and invoked H&S as a reason for never doing anything then I can tell you that my 13 year old son, and the rest of his class, was soldering at school last year as part of a practical project. Not all the kids PCAs worked when finished, his did. I'll confess I bought a cheap electronic dice kit off the bay for him to practice on at home first, if that helped I don't know.
 
We might be slightly less safe in NZ, last year my then 11 year old daughters class did a project that included soldering a simple circuit. They did sewing too with sharp pointy things and cutting things tools that wouldn't be allowed on planes these day :o
 
JRinTawa said:
We might be slightly less safe in NZ, last year my then 11 year old daughters class did a project that included soldering a simple circuit. They did sewing too with sharp pointy things and cutting things tools that wouldn't be allowed on planes these day :o
Click to expand...
Glad to hear it! One of my favourite lessons this year involved a group of teenagers, joints and blades :o : they were cutting mortice & tenon joints! :D
 
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