3 general pinball repair questions

woodrailsrus

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i have been trying to learn how to fix my own machines tonite i fixed a few things on 2 of my games but i have been wondering............

1. how do you get solder to stick easily? i tried using flux and it didnt help much, i also tried heating up the parts to be soldered nice and hot. any tips/hints/techniques?

2. when i am testing things with a digital multimeter, what setting should i have it set on most of the time?

3. i am going to make a set of test wires i think they are called.........(a wire with 2 alligators clips, 1 on each end.) but does it matter how thick or thin of wire i use to get the proper results?
 
Hi, Welcome to the world of fixing your own games. The two most valuable assets you will find to assist you in repairing games are Clay's guides at pinballrepair.com and the advice of fellow KLOV members. Dokert and others have repeatedly assisted myself and the rest of the huddled masses in keeping our babies running. To answer your questions: 1) clean the wire/contacts with some 150 or 220 grit sandpaper. You must have clean metal exposed to soldier to. 2) My DMM usually spends the bulk of its time in diode test followed closely by resistance test. 3) Just buy a set from Radio Shack. Their cheap and ready to use. Good luck and remember...be patient, fixing these things can be infuriating at times. --Rich
 
1) Sometimes there is enough oxidation on the parts to prevent a good heat transfer. Try cleaning them with a little wire brush first. Next, use the flux as you have been as it assists two fold; one as a heat transfer medium and the other to wash away oxidation during the soldering process. When applying the iron tip place a small amount of solder on the tip, forming a ball. Then place the tip and solder ball on the pieces to be soldered. The solder ball will help with heat transfer.
After desoldering, if parts were not so good looking, I always add more solder to them and remove it again (process called tinning). Solder goes where solder has been and the fresher the better.

2) Depends upon what you're measuring. When measuring voltage, use the AUTO setting if you have one. If not, use the voltage setting that is higher than what you measure; measuring 50V, set meter on 100V. For measuring resistance (ohms) follow the same procedure. There is one exception; when measuring diodes. In this case, if your meter has one, select the diode setting. This setting changes the internal resistance of the meter to provide a more accurate indication of the resistance of the junction inside the diode.

3) Your "jumper" leads can be made from standard lamp cord (14ga) stranded wire. That will handle most anything you'll need them for, coils and such. However, you may also want something smaller. In that case you can always get some fairly inexpensively at Rat Shack. But if you have the stuff laying around to make them, use either 24ga or 26ga. Keep in mind these smaller "jumper" leads are not meant to carry large current.

Hope this helps.


Half Life
 
1. how do you get solder to stick easily? i tried using flux and it didnt help much, i also tried heating up the parts to be soldered nice and hot. any tips/hints/techniques?

Heat the piece you're soldering to melt the solder. Don't melt the solder with the iron and try to stick it on. That sounds like what you're doing? There should be some great soldering guides on youtube.

Example: If you need to solder a wire to a coil lug heat the wire until it's hot enough to melt the solder by touching it to the wire. Melt some solder to the wire then do the same thing to the coil lug, melt some solder to it then touch the wire to it, wait until all the solder melts together, hold until cool and you're done.

If it's a new coil and fresh wire you could just stick the wire through the hole in the lug, heat the whole thing with the iron and melt in your solder by touching it to the hot wire/lug.

2. when i am testing things with a digital multimeter, what setting should i have it set on most of the time?

Depends on what you're testing. If you have questions about a specific use for a multimeter feel free to ask them here. There's really no way to generalize it. I would expect that there are also some great guides to multimeter use on youtube.

3. i am going to make a set of test wires i think they are called.........(a wire with 2 alligators clips, 1 on each end.) but does it matter how thick or thin of wire i use to get the proper results?

I bought a ton of these in bulk a while back because I end up using a bunch at a time but Half Life's reply was great. If you need long ones lamp cord is a great choice. You can buy them pre-made but if you need long ones (which you surely will) you'll have to make them yourself.
 
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You can buy these small empty PCB test boards for $2-3 bucks and get tons of practice soldering or if you have any old dead VCRs lying around you can practice on those as well.
 
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You can buy these small empty PCB test boards for $2-3 bucks and get tons of practice soldering or if you have any old dead VCRs lying around you can practice on those as well.

My father taught me to solder when I was 11 using paper clips. He made me solder paper clips together to make little paper clip boxes. It really helped because if the paper clip was getting too hot you would know it pretty quickly. It is also good practice because as you can imagine, you almost need a third hand to hold two paper clips together to solder them. Once I mastered paper clip boxes, the RC hobby I was into at that age was a snap... Soldering wires to a motor was really simple in comparison..
 
I've worked with some pretty piss poor solder quality before. No matter how hot you get anything it doesn;t want to leach and grab. Try changing brands.
Also, too much heat can cause trace lifting/damage. The faster you can get solder to leach and grab the better off you are. Back to using quality solder.
If this solder you're using is the coiled up kind that came in a kit throw it away.
 
I am going to share a little story about my first soldering iron. I went to school for jewelry design, so I had plenty of experience in silver solder, flux, etc, but when it came to a soldering iron and no torch I was a newbie. I tried everything to get that solder to melt. As soon as I thought it was going to melt it would turn solid again. This was about to drive me nuts. Turns out that there was a protective coating on the soldering iron tip, looked like black paint. Sanded that off and it works like a charm even if it is a POS soldering iron.

Sand the tip of the iron and let it heat up, then add some solder to the tip or "tin" it to keep it clean. It probably said to do this in the directions, but who need those!

I watched a few videos on soldering on Youtube and it really helped. Practice on stuff that doesn't matter until you get the hang of it. Also get some locking hemostats, makes soldering much easier. After some practice you will be replacing chip socket with the best of them.

Congrats on getting into pinball.
 
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