Newb here. Found this from the Pinwiki site.
Very helpful along with the Elanco kit.
I am replacing a couple of micro switches.
Holy crap is that almost impossible to do alone, and then just as hard when I got my wife to help.
Got lucky on the first one.
Put a bit of solder on the wires and a bit extra on the switch where I already soldered in the diode.
Then heated the blob on the diode end and both wires melded to it.
It works perfectly.
Then did it on switch #2 and no luck.
It's hard as hell to keep those wires together and then stick it to the diode part.
Is there an actual method for this?
I can't find videos or anything and I am just guessing on how to get the wires on there based on what I saw a tech do at the arcade.
Is this where the physical connection comes in? It seems like it would be so hard to get them in there with the diode moving around.
Thanks for any input!

When possible, clean out the joint and and feed the diode through the hole in the switch terminal and loop it tight. You always want a physical connection and not just solder holding it together

In reality most of the time we cheat... But the physical connection makes it easier to solder too. Or use pliers and crimp or hold it together while reheating solder on the wires

Thank you! That will make it a lot easier next time.
It turns out that mine wasn't working because I forgot to plug in the wire to the middle lug.
Now that I realize that I learned a shortcut, I will be doing it the correct way next time and just keep my fingers crossed that this holds for a bit.
But I feel a lot more empowered now that I'm not at someone else's mercy to get my machine fixed for basic things ever again!
Now if I can just get up the courage to do a reflow on the molex connector pins that are causing my lights to go in and out as I wiggle it.
Thanks for making this great thread!
-Phil

Trying to help a friend get his gorgar up and going. Lots of battery damage to the board and possibly some other bad components, should he replace it with a rottondog or is it cost effective or worth fixing this?

Thanks

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Thanks Terry,
I'll make a separate thread to see if I can get some opinions, I'm a total noob to board work so it's not a job I would tackle myself. But it might just become my future practice board

I don't know how I didn't discover this thread sooner. This is a wealth of information!

Terry, thank you for sharing your knowledge with the community in such detail, as always.

-Max

This is one of my favorite threads of all times on pinside. So much incredible information! Thank's again Terry for all the time and effort you put into writing and sharing your knowledge and experience.

First soldering ever, woohoo! Thanks terryb for the guide--it definitely helped me learn this new skill!!

Today a blinking kit, tomorrow the world!!

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I have some bad pads where I removed a Gott Sys 3 flasher mosfet. Could I use foil tape, a la Hobby Lobby, to repair the pads? I can't find anyone near me who does PCB work and it looks like only the source pad has traces on both sides. May just live without the back right flasher, but would like to give a quick fix a go before I do. Thanks for any help.

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id replace the ceramic cap nearby and use the leads on the new one to help rebuild the missing pads.

Terry, is there a specific starter kit you'd recommend? Basically, something with a mix of common pads, traces, and accessories that will be a good starting point for common board repairs? I went through all the links above and quickly realized that I had no idea what would be a good way to start.

Thanks Terry. That helps immensely. Basically, there are two options: tape and manual work, or the stuff that the pros use (or I have to do work in volume). Given that I am usually looking at doing a board here and there, I'll go with the tape and have an excuse to break out my micro-dissection tools (forceps, scissors -- I even have a dissection microscope if needed). One final thing to check. For the tape to which you linked before (http://www.tape-works.com/collections/foil-tapes/products/2mil-copper-foil-with-acrylic-adhesive), I just want to make sure that acrylic adhesive basically means that they are peel and stick.

Is it ok to do soldering in cold weather like in garage or shed where it's 30 degrees or colder?

Wondering if that would make it harder to heat the two pieces being soldered?

Bruce

Good advice, thanks.

Bruce

Double post.

Bruce

Thought this might be useful as a quick reference guide to the beginners.

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Haha, I doubt that. Your contributions are second to none.

What do you use to clean old flux around soldering joints? Can I use the flux brush with 91% rubbing alcohol to clean it then later use the same flux brush to apply flux?

Bruce

Use an old toothbrush (you probably have 20 brand new ones in the hall closet from the dentist).

Diff flux need diff solutions, but alcohol or Naphtha works on many of them.

Thanks Vid1900, will do that. Your advice is always spot-on.

Btw, It's good to see you here and doing well.

Bruce

Are you referring to Celsius or Fahrenheit for those temperatures ?

Celsius, of course. Although there are lots of old residual parts based on inches, bulk of the electronics industry has switched to metric.

The temps quoted from terryb are in Fahrenheit.

I think, this is correct.

361 Fahrenheit is 182,7 Celsius and that is the MELTING point (183-190 Celsius) of Sn60Pb40.

SOLDERING temperatur with Sn60Pb40 could be about 360 Celsius = 680 Fahrenheit.

OK --
Solder melts at ~188C or 370F.
Soldering iron is typically set to the 360C-370C or 680F-700F.
I just saw the "361°" and went straight to the conclusion of tip temperature instead of melting point. My mistake.
But still surprised to see these in °F by Terry...but I guess the audience here more often uses °F.

The important point Terry was making was the 63/37 versus 60/40 content. With the Eutectic solder, there is a far less chance of getting a cold solder joint due to movement while the solder transitions back from liquid to solid. There is virtually no cost difference between the two so always best to go to 63/37.

Everyone has explained soldering and desoldering very well but I must say that there are different requirements for each soldering as per their assembly. IPC J-STD-001 is the IPC Standard that tells about the Requirements of Soldered Electrical and Electronic Assemblies. Every soldering technician must go through this IPC JSTD-001 Certification course to get familiar with all standards as per IPC document. However, you can also follow the given link below for more details:
https://www.ipctraining.com/j-std-001-specialist/

Great guide terryb, thank you very much! I am dealing with an alkali damaged board and the solder pads here are really difficult to melt/desolder..any advice in that?? I have also seen your acid repair dedicated post but no advice on how to desolder these pads And components! Thank you again

So, I'm feeling pretty proud of myself. Forgive this post in advance, but I wanted to share.

I've been following this thread for a while, wanting to get more into board repair. I can solder switch wires together, but touching anything on a board has always made me nervous. I've just never done it before, and I've read so many instances of people screwing up their boards.

About a month ago, I bought a new Hakko 888 with some Christmas money, just so I would have the right equipment to start learning. I decided to try my first board repair today, a fairly simple job, but one that just a few months ago scared me out of attempting.

The story is that I had a solenoid expander relay board on my Special Force (Bally 6803) pin that no longer functioned. It has been acting up for over a year, working intermittenly. I had suspected the solder joints, but again, I was worried about ruining my only board. I first tried to find a new one. Many months ago, I bought one but it came DOA and the vendor never answered my emails. Annoying, but no big deal, as it was only $25. All other places were out of stock so I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, a couple of months ago, Marco had some in stock. I bought one, but when it arrived, I noticed that it was missing a jumper wire. I contacted Marco, and they took it back and gave me a replacement from another vendor they had. This took another few weeks, but I now finally had a working board, and my pin was back up and running.

So, having a working board made me feel more comfortable experimenting with repairing my old board. If I messed up, who cared. I read many of the posts in this thread and watched several videos -- how to tin a new soldering iron, what temperature to use, how to reflow solder, etc. Today, I finally tried it out.

I'm happy to report that I reflowed the solder on all of the pins on the board, and it completely solved the problem. It was much easier than I expected. I know this will sound simplistic to most of you, but as I said, I've never done this before, so I'm feeling pretty great that it all worked out. I now have a lot more confidence to keep trying board repairs, including more advanced stuff. Thanks, Terry, and Pinside!

Wonderful post! And many, many thanks to Terry for his great work in this thread.

I was super nervous doing my first board repair. Many people advised and encouraged.

You're right, a big relief when it works and you discover there was not a whole lot to be intimidated by in the first place.

Congrats!

After completing my Electronics Workbench with a 6X Mantis elite stereo scope; I thought I'd post some recent rework pictures for a project I'm working on: (Both pictures are approx. 6x magnification)

dead bug style
In this picture; I mounted a smt white LED next to a 603 resistor and "dead bugged" it on top of my microcontroller in this design. Had to do this because I mistakenly attempted to rework a 0202 LED and it's current resistor and eventually burnt the pads off of the board because of all the "attempts" I made.

I soldered the rework wire to the edge of the pad on the DFN package of the UC and secured it with 5minute 2part epoxy.
I2C rework
In this photo; I realized I had swapped the SDA and SCL lines and didn't leave enough space beside the chip to rework on the 6mil traces. So I cut both lines between the vias and the chip (a 4mm DFN) and soldered rework wire to the edge of the pads on the two pins. I soldered in two 10k 603 resistors for pullups as I forgot them as well. The yellow tape is polyimide tape to insulate the whole thing from some pads underneath.
After testing to make sure this rework was good; I secured it with 2part epoxy so the wires wouldn't come off the DFN pads.

I wouldn't recommend attempting these unless you have a SMT rework scope. Luckily; no one should have to do this in Pinball.

I have always struggled with soldering wires to transformer lugs, especially lugs with multiple wires attached. It seems like between the thickness of the transformer lug and the multiple wires (in my current struggle, three thick wires on the same lug) that the mass of it all creates to much of a heat sink. I've been trying to solder this all together with my hakko fx-880d with a 1/4" chisel tip. I've got the hakko cranked up to 630F, but I just can't get the whole shebang heated up enough for anything better than a cold joint which (of course) fails immediately. How do folks usually tackle this type of challenge?

For you i'd say try 750F

For me i'd say get out the weller 200W/300 W solder gun

Reading the instructions for equipment is always a plus. I thought my hakko wouldn't go any higher because I was trying to adjust it incorrectly. Step 1: read instructions. Step 2: crank that sucker up to 800F (why be a monkey when you can be a gorilla?) Step 3: perform previously frustrating task perfectly in less than a minute. Thank you.

Because 800F will quickly melt the insulation off the wires?

Right - I turned it down to 750 after finishing my lugs. Is that still too hot for general playfield work? Seems to work well so far.

Not sure I have a specific recommendation as I use a butane portable iron to solder inside the game (lugs, switches, whatever). Just warning you that if you start melting the insulation on the wire; it's probably too hot. (speak from experience)

I have had good luck at 350C using my TS80 (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ts80-battery-powered-soldering-iron-i-m-in-love), using a wedge tip. Tackles the lugs like butter. I have had no issues with insulation, nor butane exhaust.

Recommended approach to solder multiple wires to a lug? In the WPC power box there is a varistor and two 18 GA wires going to a terminal with a pretty tiny hole. What's the right approach?

This was a very informative topic. Thanks Terry.

For those that have been shying away from soldering work due to the high cost of entry for quality materials, here's one thing that may help:

Hakko offers a Soldering "Hobby Starter Kit" through their hakkousa.com website that includes a 16”x24” Heat Resistant ESD Mat, a pair of dissipative side cutters, 2 types of tweezers, an ESD wrist strap and a roll of polyimide (kapton) tape for $35, which includes free shipping and (at least for me) no tax.

Part number is BT-KIT1/P. They've discontinued it, so I imagine it's while supplies last.