Ian, this looks like a Hakko 900m style soldering iron. Get yourself a BCM tip. You will not regret it. A BCM is a BC tip where the chisel side is a concave surface, which acts as a solder well, a space where a drop of solder really likes to live. SMD hand soldering is all about surface tension, and the well really wants to have some solder in it. But the solder will flow between the well and the parts you want to solder until the surface tension evens out between them. So If you keep some solder in the well, the solder will wick to where you need it to, and a magically perfect amount is often deposited between pad and pin: the surface tension does the work for you. And this will work for more than one pin, as long as there is some "free" solder in the well. Similarly, if you clean off your tip on the brass sponge, emptying the well, then the tip will wick solder bridges away, especially with the pitch size you are working with there. Yes, you have the same effect with other tips, and you need to use it with smd soldering, but a BCM tip is especially designed to pronounce this effect and will really boost the results of casual solderers like you and I. BCM tips is why i have not gone for those "open source" battery powered soldering irons yet (like a ts-100). As long as no bcm tips are available for them, they have limited use for me. Also, get yourself the amtec nc-559 flux, it smells awful when heated, and needs cleaning, but the hype is real.

Doing this mod once was an adventure. Nicely done on doing four consoles. I'd love to see your not safe for KZread bonus footage 🙂P.S. Nice to see you finally shaved your mustache. The 1970s adult movie star look needed to go 😛

@TalesofWeirdStuff

8 ай бұрын

I mostly just edited out some spicy words from the 10x speed part of doing all the installs. There were a couple places where I trimmed audio and video because... well... you could tell exactly what I was saying. :)

As for the solder bridge, you need to clean your tip and remove the free solder from it. Also apply some flux, you want the solder to flow. Then you need to touch the bridged pins with the unloaded tip, and let the surface tension do the work. Tweezers will not be helpful here and will only damage things.

Get rid of the sponge on the FX-888* iron holder. Solder tips and water are not a good match. Use the brass "sponge" only.

Isn't it easier to place the thermal pads on the chips rather than on the heatsink?

@geekwithsocialskills

8 ай бұрын

The heatsink has markings for where the thermal pads need to go, so that makes it really nice and easy, especially if you need to trim them to fit.

@TalesofWeirdStuff

8 ай бұрын

It's probably about even either way. For me, it was a little easier to peel of the plastic coating when they were all together on the heatsink. It probably doesn't make that much difference, though.

Wow, you look younger without facial hair. Yeah, I know, so does everyone.

@TalesofWeirdStuff

8 ай бұрын

Ha! Yeah, I do. The stache may return some day. :)