Wait for help. If you cant wait it is easy to do and if you are competent you can get this done. Take apart an old vcr and practice. Good Luck

-Chris Rock

or radio shack sells a practice kit.

If it makes you feel more confident, the first thing I ever soldered was a board. Just do your research, get a good soldering station and give something a go. Its not too scary

I applaud your concerns. Quick story. Years ago I tried to alter/mod [cough] my son's PS2 that I bought him for Christmas. I bought the chip on the net for like $65. Bought the tools including a pro grade magnifying glass with lighting. I read for weeks on how to do it. Knew in advance that it was a 4-8 hour job depending on your skills. I stayed up all night drinking coffee trying to do this task....an all nighter...while my son was sleeping. Lol. When I was done at 6am I tried it and it smoked and sparked...I pulled the plug out of the wall as quick as I could and ended up eating the cost of the unit. I messed that one up pretty bad I bought another for him and learned a lesson Know your limitations...lol..I can laugh now but back then I was really sad because I wasted the money and time only to find out I rushed into something I should not have and for the wrong reasons I learned after that even static electricity from your body can fry these circuit boards!!! Why did I not know that before attempting what I did? Because I was careless

I just used the internet to learn the basic stuff I would need & the technique, check out a few youtube vids. Really not that complicated but good tools help & just having something to practice on a bit. Really the hardest part isn't soldering, it is desoldering. Removing that old transistor is the dangerous part as you don't want to lift up any board traces going to it or the solder pads, which definitely can happen if you use a crap desoldering braid & fail to get off all the solder then try to force it off.

I never had a ton of luck with cheap solder suckers either. Desoldering really didn't get "easy" until I ponied up a little extra cash for a proper soldering station with a vaccuum gun. I see no reason for you to use cheap generic tools like some of us started out with, since as an eye doc you probably make more $ as I type this than I'll make all day

Better yet, get someone to skype/facetime with you to talk you through it.

You might try changing the post title to "Need assistance in Knoxville" or something like that. I'm sure someone out there will be glad to lend a hand.

I also applaud you for recognizing the limitations of your knowledge/expertise.

Here are some pinball oriented soldering tutorials.

http://pinballrehab.com/1-articles/solid-state-repair/tutorials/167-soldering-tutorials

How close is Knoxville to Nolensville?

Steve knows soldering...

http://stevekulpa.net/pinrepair/housecall.htm

The equipment you have is fine for doing a transistor. If you ever get into IC's you would want a temperature controlled soldering station and the Hakko desolderer.

Cut the transistor leads and then heat up each joint and pull out the remaining part of the lead. Then use your solder sucker (and/or a tooth pick) to clean up the hole. Solder in the new transistor.

If you read through the articles I previously posted you can do this job easily. I'm not one of those people who urges beginners to solder boards, but a transistor is one of the easier tasks to complete.

On the other hand, you can trust johnwartjr's opinion so you might want to call Steve Kulpa.

On Youtube, Pace Worldwide put all their old 1980 era solder training films up for viewing. They may be a bit old in regards to fashion, but most of the info is just as good today as it was back then.
One of their employees, Marc Siegel, did his own series of soldering instruction videos too. More modern, and more casual, also worth watching.

-Hans

http://www.youtube.com/user/paceworldwide

http://www.youtube.com/user/MrMarcSiegel