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[OCF]

While doing the mod I came to the point when I had to solder a wire to the X signal, I done it successfuly, further in to the tutorial it required a splice of the same X signal, I began to solder a wire to the point in the pic below but kinda messed it up, I moved the wire while the solder was hardening and it took the little dot of solder that was previously on the board of.

http://www.xbox-scene.com/imageserver2/lg-dvd2/image034.jpg

now the solder wont take to the point all that there is at the point now is blank board. Is there supposed to be copper under it, im thinking that I burned it of?

do I just need to clean the point for the solder to take or have I ruined it?

I just looked a bit closer at the point and its got a trace going from it to the pin just below it, can I just solder the wire to the pin instead? will the fact that the solder has gone from the point mean it wont function properly.

one more question, what do these points of solder do, are they attached to components on the other side of the PCB, I cant check because the board is hard to get out.

thanks in advance and sorry for the long winded explenation

OCF

[OCF]

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[OCF]

bump heres a realy bad pic of the bad pad, Ive circled where it used to be as you can see it is blank compared to the pads lined up above it, the pad connects to the pins of a data cable shown in the pic.

(IMG:http://img479.imageshack.us/img479/1089/untitledzu2.th.jpg)

[obcd]

Hi,


the way I see it in your first picture, the point that came off as actually a testpoint used for testing the pcb. If it came off, that you can't solder on it anymore (not even after cleaning the pcb on that place) If there was only one trace going away from that point, you might solder your wire directly to the pin the trace was going to. If more than one trace goes away from it, you might have broken the link between those 2 traces. You can repair that with a little wire going from the one trace to the other.

Just make sure not to make any shorts if you solder your wire directly to the pin the trace was going to.

The smaller green points with a hole in it are another story if they peel off. These are so called via's. They connect tracks on one side of the pcb with tracks on the other site, or even connect to tracks that run inside the PCB. I think the PCB is a 4 layer. You can see that as two thin pcb's that are glued on each other. The inner layers usually carry the gnd reference voltage and the 3V3 supply reference voltage. The small hole in a via has it's surface metalised, and forms a connection between two layers that way.

The testpoints are used during production. The PCB is put on a needle bed. The needles are exactly positioned  on the solder dot's of the pcb. That way, most signals of the pcb can be measured.

regards.

[OCF]

thanks a lot,  I have another quick question, Ive been using "bell wire" to wire up all these points in the tut it says

"I used 30 gauge wrapping wire for all connections except the power to the chip. Same wire you should have used while chipping your XBOX."

Im wondering what will be the harm in using the bell wire to wire up the 5v, Its hard enough to wire up three of these wires to one point let alone a thicker wire.

Here's the link to the page with the wire im using on it.

will this be ok to use on the 5v power or will not carry the voltage.

thanks

OCF

[OCF]

Ok I just tryed soldering to the pin that the pad connected to, and I messed it up aswel, by now your thinking im a complete noob (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif), the think is I previously soldered the two wires that should have been soldered to the pad on to the pin but I removed them thinking it was wrong, when I removed the wires it loosened the pin, does this matter, does the pin have to be anchored in the hole with solder, when I try to apply solder to the hole that the pin is in, in an attempt to re anchor it the solder wont take.

also the pin is connected to one of those "vias" you mentioned, are these easily damaged by heat, I kept on trying to apply solder to the pin in various ways and Im worried that I may have ruined the via or trace that connects the pin to the via, I cant clearly see it because the surrounding area is kinda brown I think thats the flux although it may be scorched.

lol I realy think I have messed this up now, oh well it was a free drive (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif), looks like im going to have to buy the new LG-8164 drive and the premade adapter for the xbox.

thanks

This post has been edited by OCF: Apr 23 2007, 05:30 PM

[OCF]

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[OCF]

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[OCF]

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[obcd]

Hi,

The pin should stay connected to the Via. This is the normal signal path of that wire. The via routes the signal to the other site of the Pcb.

The way I hear you are having trouble, I might expect that you are using the wrong tools. For this kind of work you definitly need:

A soldering iron with a fine tip, no more than 30W. The tip of the soldering iron must be clean. If you touch the tip with your solder, it should melt directly, showing a good thermal contact between the tip and the solder, proving that is clean.

Fine solder wire for electronic work. This solder has some fine tubes in it with a product that makes the liquid solder flow better.

If you solder, you shouldn't apply heat to long to the soldering point. The best practice is to first add a bit of solder to the point you want to add a wire. That way, if the original solder point is somewhat oxidated, you add some fresh solder that will hold the wire better.

Do not touch a solder point longer than 3 - 4 seconds. If you didn't succeed to solder what you want within that time. Let the solder point cool down before you reattempt to solder on it. You can blow on it to make the cooling process go faster.

If you heat a pcb to long, the tracks will loose from it. Minor mechanical force is enough to lift the track. Some PCB's are far more sensititive to that than others.

Wire wrapping wire is probably the thinnest isulated mono wire available on the market. I don't consider the wire used to make coils a option. Multi wires are more flexible than mono wires. before you solder a multi wire, you have to add a little solder to the wires to keep them together. After soldering a multiwire, check for any loose wires that are not soldered and might cause a short with other points.

Since wire wrapping wire is rather flexible, it doesn't apply a lot of mechanical pressure to the soldering point

I don't wan't to spell your lesson, but he way you describe your work, I think you violated at least one of the points I described.

If you desolder a wire, just melt the point it is soldered to. The wire should come off without any mechanical force. If you need force, it means that the melting isn't good.

Don't use a direct heat soldering iron. They are heavy, and so more difficult to handle precisely, and they don't have a constant tip temperature, making it difficult to know when to start soldering.

If your Pcb has a brown substantion on it after soldering, try cleaning it off with some desinfection alcohol. If it doesn't come off, it is the pcb that started carbonising, definitly meaning that you applied to much heat on it.

regards.

[OCF]

im using a 18w minature soldering iron, as for the solder im using its this, says its 1mm in width, is rosin core solder what you are referring to? what is the diameter of the fine solder your talking about.

the point that will no longer take solder is in this picture, its the pin directly under the pad that is being pointed to. Ive tried cleaning it with acetone and water using a qtip. I dont know why you think I used any mechanical force to remove the wire, when I melted the solder that was holding the wires to the point and moved them to get them away from the point the solder that was rooting the pin in the hole was pulled up, because solder always flows to the hottest part of the joint.
Now when I place a piece of solder on one side of the the joint and heated the other side with the tinned soldering iron the solder that Im applying to the opposite side of the join does not melt, even when I tin the tip with a large blob and place it on the pin or at the hole it just stays on the tip when before it used to flow immediatley to the base of the pin.

I dont think the iron im using is a direct heat one its an Antex CS18

will cleaning the area with a flux pen guarantee that the solder will take, these soldering accessories here are quite expensive and I cant afford to buy anything that wont work.




thank

This post has been edited by OCF: Apr 26 2007, 10:04 AM

[obcd]

Hi again,

the problem might be the solder you are using. I can see on the tube that it is lead free solder. Somewhere in June or July 2006 the RoHS specification became a fact and forbid the use of Lead in solder. That Lead was replaced by other metals like Silver. These metals have a higher melting point than lead. I don't know how well it works if you use the new solder on older boards wich will probably be soldered with the old lead thin solder. I do know that people assembling pcb's are having troubles with the new stuff.

The leads of components are also tinned (to prevent oxidation and allow easy soldering) In my experience, components tinned with the new solder (silver based) can be soldered with the old stuff (lead based). I have no experience if the opposite also works.

There exists 0.6 mm solder wire. This is usefull if you need to solder SMD components. For the normal work, 1mm should work fine.

Don't add a blob of solder to your iron tip, and transfer it to the PCB. Tip the pcb with the point of the solder iron, and feed som solder from the other site of the wire you want to solder. If it doesn't melt, than either your thermal contact isn't good or, maybe, yor solder iron tip temperature is just a bit too low for the new solder based on tin and silver. You sometimes experience the same behavour if you have to solder a component to a large cupper plain on the PCB (like a ground plain.) The cupper takes so much heat away, that the solder hardly melts, or only melts if you apply heat a bit longer.

Besides, who am I to doubt your solder skills. I am just trying to help you, and hopefully others who read these articles. That's why I wrote this little soldering tutorial. I once baught a fragging Xbox. It had two pcb traces which were no longer connected due to traces coming loose. So, believe me, some people can use a tutorial. The xbox PCB is not exactly the perfect beginners choice.

regards.




Hi again,

the problem might be the solder you are using. I can see on the tube that it is lead free solder. Somewhere in June or July 2006 the RoHS specification became a fact and forbid the use of Lead in solder. That Lead was replaced by other metals like Silver. These metals have a higher melting point than lead. I don't know how well it works if you use the new solder on older boards wich will probably be soldered with the old lead thin solder. I do know that people assembling pcb's are having troubles with the new stuff.

The leads of components are also tinned (to prevent oxidation and allow easy soldering) In my experience, components tinned with the new solder (silver based) can be soldered with the old stuff (lead based). I have no experience if the opposite also works.

There exists 0.6 mm solder wire. This is usefull if you need to solder SMD components. For the normal work, 1mm should work fine.

Don't add a blob of solder to your iron tip, and transfer it to the PCB. Tip the pcb with the point of the solder iron, and feed som solder from the other site of the wire you want to solder. If it doesn't melt, than either your thermal contact isn't good or, maybe, yor solder iron tip temperature is just a bit too low for the new solder based on tin and silver. You sometimes experience the same behavour if you have to solder a component to a large cupper plain on the PCB (like a ground plain.) The cupper takes so much heat away, that the solder hardly melts, or only melts if you apply heat a bit longer.

Besides, who am I to doubt your solder skills. I am just trying to help you, and hopefully others who read these articles. That's why I wrote this little soldering tutorial. I once baught a fragging Xbox. It had two pcb traces which were no longer connected due to traces coming loose. So, believe me, some people can use a tutorial. The xbox PCB is not exactly the perfect beginners choice.

regards.

[OCF]

ok thanks a lot, im sure its not an issue with different types of solder because the solder was taking to the pin fine at first its just after I had soldered/desoldered the wire a few times that the solder no longer took, im sure its oxidation of the pin/hole that the pin is in, ill try cleaning the area then attempt to resolder the wires.


thanks