Quite possibly the worst soldering job for the overhead compass display fix ever

Pretty much this. Good tweezers to position them and enough flux to allow for proper wetting of the solder. Unless you cleaned the board before taking the picture, I can't see an flux residue, which means you probably didn't have enough.

 

Flux! What really concerns me is you did this in 107degree heat! You would have caught me drinking a beer in a AC conditioned bar hahaha.

 

Everything mentioned here would work as long as it is lead based solder. IF leadless solder is used good luck without the proper tools and the necessary iron to get to the right temperature. Many companies are using leadless now in order to get the enviro nuts off their backs.

If it is working leave it alone.

 

The soldering job isn't the best, but those tiny resistors suck ass to solder. The soldering iron is always too damn big

 

Didn't read the full thread. Yea, that's pretty bad. But if it's working it's fine. I repair some boards at work and sometimes it ain't pretty. But it works.

If it works you are fine. If not, have it redone. Just get solder, nothing fancy, some wicking wire, flux, and a soldering iron that can go to 550f. No worries.

After the board is cleaned up, put the component back on with the teeniest bit of superglue to hold the component down and solder it. I don't bother super gluing anymore, the first bit of solder keeps it down, it's not perfect straight but it's good enuff.

I have done smaller ones many times, just takes practice.

 

Everything I do at work is lead-free. Unless I am working on a military or aerospace product which is only about 1% of anything I do. I solder at 700F for lead-free. I wish I could use leaded solder more, it feels like cheating when I get to use it. What the OP has looks at first glance like lead-free with the dull and grainy appearance, but it was probably heated for so long and disturbed that it could be either.

 

Did you go by the old theory " The bigger the blob the better the job "?

Don't quit your day job.

Good it works. I wouldn't place any bets on longevity however. Serious.

 

That is pretty bad lol. As mentioned above I wouldn't bank on that lasting, a good solder job will be very smooth and the amount of solder there is excessive. That said you got it working And some good tips throughout the thread.

 

That's actually not true. These components are being hand soldered by technicians all the time. It's SMT (surface mount technology). From the picture, it looks like much bigger resistor package...anywhere between 1210 to 2512 size resistor. In other words...it's fairly easy to solder them... You shouldn't use a soldering iron tip that is meant to solder 0 gauge wire for example. Just need a finer tip. Anything smaller than 0402 is super difficult for those not accustom to soldering.

While flux helps with soldering...it's not required. The solder wire generally have flux built into the material...so as you solder some flux will get onto the PCB pad and resistor and on your soldering tip.

I doubt that the OP had a bad soldering joint...it just looks horrific. There is a chance that the PCB wasn't heated well and the solder itself was just melted and never had good adhesion so the contact would last for many years.

 

Good enough for government work

 

That's what mine looked like when I fixed it about a month ago; previous owner must've tried to fix it - huge gob of solder like that on both sides. I just removed the solder and redid the soldering with a lot less solder. But god damn did you use a lot of solder haha!

 

Welcome to Arizona where 107* is considered a "cold front" moving in.

 

107°......welcome to Texas.

 

Wow, OP. You are definitely not hired.


I can tell from the results what is going on there, and frankly, its almost a surprise that the components didn't die a horrible death during the process. Obviously, big blob of solder and the component stuck to the iron. Continual application of heat heated right through to the other side of the component, and melted that side too, which causes it to separate and all hell to break loose.

Possible use of the wrong kind of solder also. That looks a lot like what happens when you use plumbing solder on electronics.

Here is the thing with electronics soldering; the hotter the iron, the faster you have to work. A good electronics iron will have interchangeable tips and variable temperature. You need to change the temperature with the tips because different tips conduct heat differently. A thinner longer tip will need the iron set at a higher temperature because it won't be as effective at conducting heat to the tip. Also when you are soldering enormous wires together, because the wire itself will conduct heat away.

So new procedure;
1) get a better soldering iron. In the very least, spend more than $50. Preferably, spend more than $200.

2) get a natural sponge, wet. You use this for cleaning your tip whenever it gets crusty or gunked up. Soon as it is clean, re-tin it with some decent electronics solder, just enough to coat the tip evenly. The tip should look nice and shiny.

3) Get some desoldering braid / wick. This is basically fine copper wire braided together and coated with flux. You use that to clean up any excess crud on the board. The cleaning process leaves the trace perfectly tinned and slightly fluxed for application of the new component. You generally don't need this when soldering *new* components to *new* boards, unless you make a mistake that you need to clean up. To use; apply the wick over the pad you need to clean, press the soldering iron down against the wick. The heat from the soldering iron will melt the flux out of the wick and make everything conduct nicely. As the temperature of the solder rises enough to melt, it will get sucked up by the wick.

4) Place the component on the PCB.
4b) clean and re-tin the soldering iron tip.

5) Apply the tip perpendicular to the edge of the component (i.e., smallest surface possible against the component to prevent it from sticking to the tip), but against the trace on the PCB. You don't apply heat to the component. You apply heat to the trace.

6) Apply solder to the junction between the tip and the trace. As you apply the solder, it will flow over the pad until it reaches the component.

7) When there is enough solder between the component and the trace, retract the iron tip directly back.

If your hand is steady, and especially with enormous components like that resistor (yeah, that is a huge resistor...) then it should not be necessary to hold the component in place while soldering it. If you still have a problem with it moving around, consider using a heavy object to hold it in place, or even a piece of masking tape. You should definitely not be applying heat to it for long enough to melt the glue on the tape.

 

If it looks stupid but it works, then it ain't stupid

 

I can't agree with that. There are varying degrees of "works".
It could have the outward appearance of functioning, but but be shorted out, or close to shorted out, and ready to fail. Possibly bringing other components along for the ride.

For instance, given the heat that has been applied to those resistors, they could very well no longer be "resisting", which could mean that some other component is getting a whole lot more current dumped in than it is able to take over a long term.

The component is also overlapping the ground plane very significantly. Is it in contact with the epoxy surface? (the green "paint" surface) How intact is that epoxy surface now? -- it could be getting ready to short to ground. Imagine what could happen then -- depending on the rest of that circuit, it could conduct significantly, and generate a lot of heat. Maybe not though, since it does depend on the circuit.

Imagine standing under a piano that is being lifted by a rope. That rope could be a nice solid one that could hold 20 pianos, or maybe this one is an old and frayed rope with a capacity limit of half the weight of that piano. Looks like its working, until it isn't.

 

Damn dude it's a joke.

 

It can be difficult to tell from just text unless there are obvious markers added, like

 

I did this fix last week with a $4 iron from harbor freight. Took a while to get hot enough but it worked fine with some Flux. I was able to lay a very small beads that looks good and works good. I can't see spending 50 or 200 on an iron unless you use it all the time. The $4 one worked ok for this fix

 

these little butane powered bitches work GREAT