Rockdudes MegaDrum attempt (Build log)

[jman 31]

Looks to be a good setup Rockdude. You probably won't need a magnifying glass for any of the joints on this board (unless you're blind ), but they are great to see if you have any solder bridges. You should have everything you need to be a techy now!

[rockdude]

Ok, so here's the result of my test soldering on my experiment card. I didn't care about direction when soldering these components, just the soldering. Please tell me if you find anything that might cause problems when soldering the real deal:

Front side

Back side

If you guys give me a heads up, I'll start soldering my MegaDrum this evening

[Firelord]

Some of the joints are good, some could be better (as far as I can tell from the pictures; you might want to improve the lighting and get a close up using a macro setting of your camera). Be sure you follow the principle of soldering with solder tin reel in one hand and the soldering iron in the other (the board should be fixed). Before soldering, put the soldering iron's tip into soldering grease for a moment just so that tin would stick to it, then tin the tip (just a little) and you're ready to go. Repeat this every once in a while (when you notice that tin on the joints starts to form spikes in the direction of your iron upon removal of the latter).

[rockdude]

Thanks for the advice Firelord. Unfortunately I don't have any soldering grease, but the other advices you gave me I can follow.

Some of the joints are good, some could be better

Thanks. I know it's not that easy to spot in the pictures, but what can I improve in the joints that could be better? More tin, less tin? All criticism is welcome. I need to get this right

as far as I can tell from the pictures; you might want to improve the lighting

If you're talking about the light in the picture of my entire workstation it looks to be a bit too dull, but I took that photo without flash and it's actually a lot brighter than it looks in the picture

get a close up using a macro setting of your camera

I can't get any closer with my current camera lens, but I promise to use a more useful focal depth next time.

Anyone else?

[Firelord]

what can I improve in the joints that could be better? More tin, less tin?

Be sure to watch this excellent video on soldering (the link was provided in another thread in this forum). I found it very useful and it improved my own soldering immensely.

[jman 31]

Hey Rockdude, those actually look pretty good if you are just beginning. The amount of solder you used on most of them looks fine. Some of them look a little dull though, which probably means that they didn't get quite hot enough. If you have components that are not heat susceptible, leave your iron on them a touch longer before you apply the solder and you should get nice shiny joints. (components that are heat susceptible are like IC's, diodes, transistors)

You should use a socket for IC's whenever possible then you don't have to apply any heat to the IC itself.

Jman

[Ken Forgettable]

You probably won't need a magnifying glass for any of the joints on this board (unless you're blind ), but they are great to see if you have any solder bridges.

I never m*?+@%$ate excessivly, however I find a loupe is usefull in this respect

[rockdude]

Thanks for all the input!

This evening I have put all resistors on the MegaDrum board and they are now ready for soldering. This is how it looks. I hope I got them in the right place. I didn't use any multimeter. I just looked at Synthex picture provided in his "All In One v3.1 PCB 56i Kit for sale !"-thread here on the forum. Please tell me if you see something weird. Tomorrow I'll solder them.


I'm not sure of the L1 inductor. The one i think is the L1 inductor in my Synthex kit doesn't look like the one in Synthex photo.
Below is a photo of what I think(or hope) is the L1 inductor in my kit and also an extract from Synthex photo to compare with. They don't look alike based on the color of the rings. Is it because the L1 can be 10uH to 1mH(whatever that means) so it looks different depending of it's value?


Today I learned that pliers are very convenient to have when bending the legs of all resistors. A must have!

[rockdude]

Forget my above question. I found a better picture (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=833) of the board that has the same components I received in my kit and my headache disappeared.

The green component, with a SILVER ring, is the inductor (L1)

I should have read the above at Synthex thread too.

I've begun soldering now and everything is all well so far except for one mistake. I managed to solder a component in the wrong place and had to desolder it using a solder wick. I really hope I never have to do that again. I hope I didn't ruin the board. Todays lesson: I suck at desoldering stuff.

I'll be back with more stupid questions later!

[Firelord]

Todays lesson: I suck at desoldering stuff.

Desoldering with a wick is not that easy. But once you get the hang of it, it can be accomplished with no harm to the components and/or board.