Thanks!

Will need to check it out with my lack of skills :p
Thanks!

This is indeed useful! I've been wanting to recap the PSU on an Olivetti M24 that recently failed, but I don't solder that often and I've never done anything like replacing a capacitor before. This information might prove useful in that regard.

I'm still hesitant about performing surgery on a 30-year old vintage machine with a high personal sentimental value, though. I don't want my lack of experience to result in damage that would make it even harder to repair. 🙁 Perhaps it would be better if I performed such soldering work together with someone more skilled in it than I. It's definitely something I'd like to gain more experience with. Being able to easily fix vintage hardware seems like such a fun and wholesome skill to me. 😀

Again, thanks for sharing this!

Glad I could help. Practice some some boards found in the dumpster of low value. 😀

I have been practicing with couple pentium 4 oem boards and there is almost no capacitors left on those boards so I am making some kind of progress.

I looked over those documents and they are incredibly useful. Straight to the point and no bullshit and hearsay instructions.

Thank you very much for sharing.

I've got a soldering manual from NASA of all organizations, but the biggest hurdle in soldering is MONEY. If you don't have good materials and equipment, you won't get excellent results with anything but basic soldering jobs.

Mister Xiado wrote:

I've got a soldering manual from NASA of all organizations, but the biggest hurdle in soldering is MONEY. If you don't have good materials and equipment, you won't get excellent results with anything but basic soldering jobs.

Skill matters too. Someone who is much more skilled than me removed all the capacitor from one of my motherboards very cleanly with just basic soldering iron that doesn't even have temperature control and some desoldering braid. All the holes were clean of solder.

Desoldering braid kinda' sucks unless you have some flux, and then it starts wicking it up like a fat guy on a milkshake. Or maybe it's just my ancient Radio Shack branded braid. Either way, without the right stuff, you're going to have it rough.

Well I feel jealous of those who have the skill to do almost anything with just basic tools.
I on the other hand just spend too much money on tools to make things bit easier that I would at least able to do something. I am not very good at things that require dexterity.

Mister Xiado wrote:

I've got a soldering manual from NASA of all organizations, but the biggest hurdle in soldering is MONEY. If you don't have good materials and equipment, you won't get excellent results with anything but basic soldering jobs.

More expensive equipment (hmm, Metcal) can make it easier to do a great job, although quality consumables are generally a must.

I use a Weller WXR3 along with tens of thousands of dollars of other equipment at work, but I can accomplish the same results with under $200 worth of equipment at my house. Sure it might take a little longer at home due to lacking some of the specialized equipment, but it is entirely possible to do this on a budget. It's really more about the technique and skill IMO.

I can do everything in the IPC guide with the following:
- Xtronic 3020-XTS ($60)
- Hakko Tip Kit ($20)
- Youyue 8858 Hot Air Pencil ($50)
- Tenma Hot Tweezers ($25)
- Velleman 30w Desoldering Pump ($10)
- 300w QST Hot Air Gun ($10) for board underside heating when working with large chips or sockets
- Flux, solder (paste and rosin core), copper wick. ($20)

All this stuff is cheap Chinese stuff, but it works great and I haven't ran into any problems with it.

Word to the wise, if you're buying Chinese tools, be sure to check the voltage of what you're buying, or you're going to have a coffee warming gun instead of a desoldering gun. Most of the cheap desoldering guns I've seen were rated for 200+V, making them about useless in the US.

I bought hakko fr-301 recently and I had real trouble trying to find a 230V version. As far as I know there exists only one site that sells those.

I bought a cheap Chinese desoldering-solder sucker gun and it smokes alot.. then i read reviews and somebody said the gun melted itself haha after reading that I no longer use it with power on but as a hand solder sucker pump.

It actually helped me improve hand solder sucker technique using a soldering iron to heat up the joint then quickly suck it out whole still wet with the gun.
It is also metal vs plastic weller so don't have to worry about touching the tip of the hot soldering iron.

I desoldered a rtc battery module like that in. about 15-20 minutes which for me was a great achievement because earlier this year I really butchered up a motherboard trying to desolder a rtc

but yes moral of the story... Chinese tools you get what you pay for

Sometimes. Those Chinese T15 kits/irons can be fantastic. I have one that's way better than my FX-888.