Soldering Success!!!!! Big deal (for me)

Silverunicorn

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In the past, soldering has not gone well for me at all. I have made more of a problem than fixed issues many times. So I bought a Hakko 888 digital soldering station, and a Hakko 808 desoldering gun, and started watching tutorials.

Turns out the right tools can make all the difference.

Anyway, I needed to remove and replace pins on an original Pinscore display. Long story, but it had been sitting for over a year because I did not want to mess it up. Well, after watching tutorials, and practicing on some scrap boards, I did it, and it WORKS!!!!

I am kinda proud of myself, and hope this leads me into many more of my own repairs.

Half done:

8528055070_07ebefa28f.jpg


Both done:

8528055174_f5605cdcbe.jpg


Solder joints (need to get some flux remover):

8528054542_1b6954cf73.jpg


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Here's the deal on the board as I explained on Pinside as well:
First of all, the board was fine. I bought it used from someone on RGP. Said it was new, etc. I paid $160 for it. Good deal. When I got it, I found it was not for the Black Knight 2000 machine I had gotten it for, but rather a Fire! era machine, with the seperate 7 Digit display boards.

So I wrote a thread about the board because it looked as though the display parts could be removed. Got a reply back from Brett at X-Pin, and it turns out this was a VERY early, almost prototype board. The date stamp on the board is 2007. At that point, The displays were removable and interchangable. So after some e-mails back and forth, he was able to sell me some 16 digit displays that would fit into the sockets. Should be an easy removal and plug in the new ones.

However; between when my main board was produced, and the 16 digit display modules were produced, there was a change to the pins they used on the display modules. The pins on the ones I got were too small and did not make contact.

Brett sent me new header pins for the 16 digit displays at no charge. This is what I had to de-solder and re-solder today.

Brett was amazing in his helping me to get the parts I needed to fix this. He could have blew me off since I bought the board second hand, but he did not. He was incredible in the help and knowlede he gave me to get this corrected. Again, something he did not need to do.

This all happened over a year ago with the purchase and replacements and stuff. I think I posted a thread at the time, but can't find it now - Having gotten the Hakko equipment, I finally had the cajones to try to fix it.

But all in all, there was NOTHING wrong with the product itself, I need to make that known. Just revisions that necessitated small changes because I bought something older (and second hand). For the record, if you cross reference the part # on my main Pinscore board, it DOES indicate for the later model System 11 with the 16 digit displays. There were some part # changes early on too apparently, which really added to the confusion.

I can't say enough about Brett and his entheusiasm for pinball and willingness to go the extra mile to make a customer, who bought a second hand part, happy.

Hope that clears it up

Chris



Chris
 
In the past, soldering has not gone well for me at all. I have made more of a problem than fixed issues many times. So I bought a Hakko 888 digital soldering station, and a Hakko 808 desoldering gun, and started watching tutorials.

Turns out the right tools can make all the difference.

I did ok but didn't really grasp the concept until i got a real iron myself. I actually have a Hakko 926 with a 907 iron mated to it. LOVE it! I keep getting better and better at soldering every time i use it and things have begun to work as well as look good :D

they definitely can!


nice job on the repair as well.
 
nice work... I swear most beginners have trouble with soldering only because they're using cheap non-adjustable irons.

usually for desoldering I'll use one of these: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062731 and then if I need the board really clean I'll use a desoldering wick. It'd be nice to have a delsoldering station but for me it's hard to justify the cost when that iron I linked to is so cheap and works so well.
 
I've made some voodoo happen with the cheap shack and weller irons over the years. when I got extra cash to throw around I'll probably upgrade. I'd love to learn how to do surface mount work. one day though. :D

congrats OP
 
The 808 is indeed awesome. It is pricey, but worth every penny versus trying to desolder with a bulb or solder pump.

Easy flux remover: 50/50 mix of acetone and isopropyl. Works like a charm, and is cheap to make.
 
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