Results!: Modding the Dorcy 1AAA and SMT techniques tutorial project

[Doug S]

This is a thread in which to post your results if you are participating in the Modding the Dorcy 1AAA and SMT techniques tutorial project. Anything you care to post. No need to limit it to successes. If the solder flux fumes made you sneeze blowing the tiny components into your shag carpet, made you cross, had fight with wife, I ruined your day, you may as well post here since I never bother to visit the Jeers forum.

 

[Bimmerboy]

If the solder flux fumes made you sneeze blowing the tiny components into your shag carpet, made you cross, had fight with wife, I ruined your day, you may as well post here since I never bother to visit the Jeers forum.

Darn that Doug S! I stepped on a resistor and SMT'd my foot! I'm now chip implanted YEARS in advance of legislation requiring us to do so!!!

J/K... About to make my first use of the paste this weekend, so I'll post back. If things go really well, there might even be use for the 30 gauge wire.

 

[Bimmerboy]

Here are the results of my first SMT practice attempt. Got me a 15 watt fine-tip iron (conical) at Rat Shack, and it was time to dig in.

This is using the 222 resistor. Haven't tried the even more miniscule 150 yet... at least I think that's what it says... it's just a wee bit too small to read without a magnifying glass. I really cooked the crap out of this thing. A couple of times I managed to get it stuck to the iron, and it didn't want to shake off. However, using a toothpick and fingertips (ouch!), I was able to get it across two contacts on the pcb.

Doing this was a lot of fun, and a big learning experience. Trial and error quickly provided some observations, and revealed a few do's and don'ts. One thing I thought was neat, was that after the first attempt didn't come out well, I took the resistor back off to try again, and noticed that the little contacts on the bottom were now perfectly tinned! The solder apparently cannot stick to the material in between (ceramic?... silicon?), and actually seems to flow away from it! Cool discovery for a SMT soldering noob. Also got to use a solder wick for the first time.

With a little more practice, some helpful tools like tweezers, magnifying glass, etc., I'll be ready to try those half a gnat turd size items.

Thanks again, Doug! Really appreciate your GB for this stuff, and wound up using the paste on one of my mods (attaching leads to a bFlex driver). It worked great!

 

[Robban]

I'm not part of this project, in fact I have no idea what it's about but reading the thread I remembered a tip I got from somewhere I can't remember. It's a simple method of helping to keep the parts in place while soldering and freeing up one of your hands. The following image isn't exactly what it looked like but it's the closest I could find on google.