so many choices...

iron - hakko 888
desolder - hakko 808 / fr300
scope - super simple entry level, rigol 1054z or 1074z.. low bandwidth, good enough for poking things.

I had the Hakko 888 for a bit but eventually sold it because it couldn't heat the ground plane of a motherboard I was trying to work on. I moved to the TS100 iron which seems to work better, just running it off of a used 19v laptop power supply, it seems to heat solder on difficult boards much more easily.

For desoldering, a hobby vice and a big desolder pump are working very nicely for me. Initially I was put off by this thing being over 1ft long, when I bought it, I thought it would be the same size as one of the little cheap ones. This style of desolder tool is cheap but much more reliable for clearing solder than a basic solder sucker, and in my experience, better than a cheap soldering iron / vacuum tool:

IT's also important to consider your health - use a fan to push away solder fumes, since most of this stuff isn't lead-free (something I need to do more frequently)

What is the Best type of solder and flux to use on motherboards ?
50/50 ?

Here is my current work area at home in my garage:

I have a Hakko FX-951 Soldering iron which I love. The quickly swappable different tips are great for soldering and desoldering almost anything:

I have a not too fancy heat gun with digital controls, no specific temperature adjustments but several different fittings for the end to direct heat in certain directions, etc:

I recently bought an Ultrasonic Cleaner and cleaning solution and used it to revive a water damaged iPhone, I've tried it on a few dead board that have had battery leakage and I'm impressed with the results so far.

Nothing too fancy here: leaded solder, Kester flux and copper braid for desoldering. My next investment will likely be some better desoldering pumps.

I use a dremel with dental diamond bits for removing IC's, cleaning holes, anything that requires fine drilling or grinding.

ESD brushes, ESD picks, Stainless dental picks, hot glue guns, pliers, screw drivers of every size and shape, IPA, distilled water, Q-tips

I have a Digital Multi-Meter that I've had for years with an audible sound for continuity testing. I also have a few cheap USB microscopes I've bought off of ebay I use for closer examination.

Allows me to get pictures like this:

Lol, nice setup.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Lol, nice setup.

Thanks! As for solder I usually use Kester 63/37 like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/KESTER-24-6337-0027- … -6337-0027.TRS5

I buy the 1 lb spools and wrap off smaller amount in smaller solder spools I've saved over the years.

As for flux I get Kester 168 No Clean Flux. I generally don't use much so I buy from ebay small 60ml bottles people make from larger volumes.

Your location makes a big difference. A lot of equipment has very regionalized availability and pricing. Hakko gear, for example, is a readily available bargain in the US but overpriced in Europe. Ersa is the other way around.

Those USB microscopes sound like a great idea.
I could really see those coming in handy hooked up to a laptop.
Some are very affordable.

Thermalwrong wrote:

I had the Hakko 888 for a bit but eventually sold it because it couldn't heat the ground plane of a motherboard I was trying to […]
Show full quote

I had the Hakko 888 for a bit but eventually sold it because it couldn't heat the ground plane of a motherboard I was trying to work on. I moved to the TS100 iron which seems to work better, just running it off of a used 19v laptop power supply, it seems to heat solder on difficult boards much more easily.

For desoldering, a hobby vice and a big desolder pump are working very nicely for me. Initially I was put off by this thing being over 1ft long, when I bought it, I thought it would be the same size as one of the little cheap ones. This style of desolder tool is cheap but much more reliable for clearing solder than a basic solder sucker, and in my experience, better than a cheap soldering iron / vacuum tool:

image.png

IT's also important to consider your health - use a fan to push away solder fumes, since most of this stuff isn't lead-free (something I need to do more frequently)

I'm not a big fan of the TS100. I'm not a big fan of controls on the pencil. I've got a more traditional Chinese T12/T15 iron which is slick as a weasel, even better than my FX-888D.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Those USB microscopes sound like a great idea.
I could really see those coming in handy hooked up to a laptop.
Some are very affordable.

I have the one in the last photo, the pictures in my post were taken using that, I love it. I also have a similar one to he first, I don’t like it as much.

gbeirn wrote:

Here is my current work area at home in my garage: […]
Show full quote

Here is my current work area at home in my garage:

-snip-
I recently bought an Ultrasonic Cleaner and cleaning solution and used it to revive a water damaged iPhone, I've tried it on a few dead board that have had battery leakage and I'm impressed with the results so far.

That's an impressive setup!

Could you please tell me more about your experiences with the ultrasonic cleaner?

Quite the nice lair, gbeirn!

I have a Celestron 44302 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QF0A1Y as my usb microscope. works fine under linux.

other stuff beyond basics I have in my lab for repairs and hobby if you want ideas;

• Symmetricom NTS-200, this is my tier one GPS time server, serves time to everything on the network. Its a tier 1 stratum clock.
• Rubidium 10mhz atomic clock with PPS outputs from Lucent. This is perfect for getting as close to an exact stable 10mhz source to a lot of equipment I have that require a stable input. This thing will blow my TCXO and even my ovenised OCXO oscillators out of the water. Its like 1011 or 1012. Its not a NIST-F1, that thing is pants changing (it is 3×10-16, it will neither gain nor lose a second in nearly 100 million years)
• Rigol 300mhz 2ch oscilloscope
• Rhode & Schwarz 200mhz 2ch oscilloscope (my main scope)
• GWInstek 5.5digit bench multimeter, dual measurement
• 2 or 3 non-bench multimeters
• A 120v/30A/300W DC load
• Fluke PM6690 (OCXO), 12 digit frequency counter, max freq of 3ghz
• Racal Dana 1992, 9 digit frequency counter (OCXO). Triple channel, up to 1.3ghz
• Rigol AWG, 32mhz dual channel. Good for generating clocks and other signals.
• GWInstek dual channel PSU (5v/3A * 2)
• Fluke PM2812 single channel PSU (30V/10A)
• Fluke PM2812 dual channel PSU (60V/5A, 60V/10A)
• Fluke PM2813 triple channel PSU (60V/5A * 3)
• HP/Agilent 1670G 132 channel logic analyser
• GPIB to Ethernet converter (great for getting older devices onto the network to connect to the server)
• 15khz broadcast CRT for arcade repair work and retro computing (Great for the Amiga)
• Tubs and Tubs full of chips, sockets, and lods pinball parts, chip programmers, ICE, etc.

gbeirn wrote:

Here is my current work area at home in my garage:

I like the BIG RED Vice the best.
I'll have to get one.

Tetrium wrote:

gbeirn wrote:

Here is my current work area at home in my garage: […]
Show full quote

Here is my current work area at home in my garage:

-snip-
I recently bought an Ultrasonic Cleaner and cleaning solution and used it to revive a water damaged iPhone, I've tried it on a few dead board that have had battery leakage and I'm impressed with the results so far.

That's an impressive setup!

Could you please tell me more about your experiences with the ultrasonic cleaner?

Sure! I originally bought it because my nephew dropped his iPhone in a river! when we were camping. Phone shorted out and would't turn back on. Once we got home a few days later I disassembled it and there was water all over the main board along with minor corrosion beginning. I was familiar with the idea of repairing water damage with ultrasonic cleaning so I did some research and bought the cleaner you see in the picture. I also bought the cleaner you see as well since phone repair people said nothing is better.

Once everything came I used the heat gun to remove the metal EMI shielding on the iPhone board and noticed water/ionization stains on the chips. Looking at it under a microscope showed blackened solder points where capacitors were and a fine 'mold like' substance whisking away from components. I assume this is the corrosion between parts due to the electricity flowing through the ions in the water.

The ultrasonic cleaner you see in the photos is 6L - way too big for phones. The company is called Vevor - out of china and they have several different sizes. I might purchase a 0.3L size for phone boards and other small electronics.

Anyways, I fill it up with distilled (soft) water bought from the grocery store. Carefully measuring the amount of water. I think I used about 4.5L. The cleaning solution is a type of ammonia with various surfactants. The bottle recommends using in a concentration of 3-5%. I believe I used 5%. The ultrasonic machine also has a heater so I heated the unit up to 54C, mixed the cleaner and then was ready to go.

Use caution with the concentrated cleaner, it is super caustic, the MDS lists a pH of like 13 or 14. Quite a strong odor. I used gloves and a large open area when mixing it. It's also not cheap. That bottle ran about $40 shipped since it has to be shipped carefully due to it's caustic and corrosive nature. Since you dilute it %-wise a smaller ultrasonic machine for smaller parts will pay for it's self with saved cleaner and water.

I suspended the iPhone board in the unit, set the timer for 3 minutes and turned it on.

I wish I filmed it. The board looked mostly clean to the naked eye, only seeing the damage under the microscope. When I turned that machine on however - poof. It looks like clouds of dust were coming off the board under the water - all the microscopic corrosion.

I ran it for 3 min, flipped it and ran for 3 again. After it was done I carefully removed it using plastic tweezers and washed it under 91% isopropyl alcohol. Once that was done I ran it under the heat gun until it was dry.

Brought it back inside the house, hooked it up to the iPhone battery and screen, tried turning it on and....

it powered right up! I did a little dance and spent the next hour replacing all the little screws and putting it all back together. Gave it a full charge and it's been working great so far (about 3 weeks now).

So my opinions for using it for something like that - amazing!

I have also tried it for computer parts:

I recently had a shipment of computer scrap that included 3-4 dead 486 motherboards. All had leaked batteries but all had likely other issues as well ( No POST codes, beeps, etc.)

I took 3 of them and cleaned them the same way. Removed the dead CMOS batteries, removed any removable ICs - CPU, cache, BIOS, KB controllers, etc.

I heated up the ultrasonic cleaner, added the solution and cleaned each board for 3min 4 times. I could only submerge about 1/3 of a baby AT board so I ran it for 3min, rotated the board 90 degrees, and repeated until the board was done 4 times.

Now this didn't magically fix the boards like the phone. The phone had been only a week at most, not years and also had been water corrosion not batteries. However the boards are now spotless! The hardest part for cleaning a leaked battery is usually the corrosion under sockets, in slots that kind of stuff. Super clean now. Since we are fully submerging the board and the ultrasonic action is designed to clean hard to clean things I can picture this saving tons of hours not having to de-solder, clean, replace parts.

After running 3 boards through the machine, the water looked cloudy with 'clumps' of the corrosion it cleaned off.

Before I'd recommend running out and buying one, I'd like to try it on a known working board that maybe needs a clean up just to make sure it doesn't damage anything. Hard to tell when my test subjects were already kaput. I'd imagine if a iPhone mainboard survived a 30 year old board that is built way stronger would be fine.

I have some before pictures, when I get some time, I'll take some after to compare.

George

amscope se400-z has been pretty good for me at least even if it is quite cheap..

A while ago, I uploaded my IPC 7711B/7721B Rework manuals. It has everything from basic to advanced board repair. Step by step, illustrated. It also tells you all the tools and supplies you should be using for each type of repair. It should be of great help if you didn't see it already posted here on Vogons.

IPC 7711B/7721B Complete:
https://archive.org/details/IPC7711B7721BComplete

Multimeters - almost everything from UNI-T is very decent for the price. I work in the scientific institute and this brand was recommended to me by tech guys as being very precise even for the scientific purposes. I have UT61E and it's the best multimeter I used so far, although I recommend replacing the original leads with some better silicon ones.

As for the soldering station - since the Christmas 2017 I have W.E.P 853D which is all in one soldering/hot air rework station with additional 5A power supply. Works well.

I know there are knock offs of this station (I guess even the original is a knock off of some kind) so watch out.

For the inspection and soldering I use big looking glass (Conrad Toolcraft). USB microscopes are good for inspection but useless for soldering as they don't give you a depth percepsion. So only a stereoscopic microscope or looking glass is an option here.