Anyone else do electronics repair?

Just soldered 25 surface mount aluminum capacitors. Not the smallest I’ve ever done but 3mm is still a royal pain, especially when a couple are wedged in between tall components that can’t be removed and have to come straight in from the top. These are supposed to be done by very precise machines applying an exact temperature for an exact number of seconds (often ramping up the temperature in a few steps).

All tested good (10uf all within 2% which is impressive, they only guarantee 20%) pre-install but at least one is bad. Probably wasn’t quite up to the soldering heat spec and is partially internally shorted.

The only way to test is to remove them, and you cant remove them intact without damaging the traces, so basically you have to throw them away and try new ones one at a time.

So time to start over. This is no small feat when you don’t have steady hands. I remember watching guys I worked with soldering tiny SMT resistors under a microscope. I’ve managed to do it once or twice but that was when I was younger and more steady.

But for now, beer time, and need to order some more flux.

Still less frustrating than my real job (on vacation this week).

Had the manufacturer spent about 50 cents more, they would have lasted forever. The ones they used were way under spec for the application.

Oh, and @habib, FYI, it is pronounced “SOTTER” :rofl:

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All this time I thought it was pronounced “Sodder”. Must be a north/south thing.

Do they still use 63/37? I miss saying Eutectic. It doesn’t come up in conversation much. Unless you work with solder nerds.

Same thing as I was referring to (some use a hard “T” and some a soft one, I’m more on the soft side so more the way you spelled it).

But in the great white north and the UK the call it “sold-er”. I always ask who they sold her to and how much they got for her.

I have 63/37 on the thin stuff and 60/40 on the thick stuff.

Also have a small stash of 40/60 leaded solder for really picky joints or when really low temp is needed.

Actually in new england and especially around the Boston area we call it soddah

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My senior year high school shop project was to build a 50 watt stereo amplifier from scratch. I had to make my chassis from sheet metal, etch every circuit board and solder every wire and component. Our instructor gave us the plans. I got my amp to work before I graduated but it did have some hum. This was a great learning experience.

This is why I love Wyze forum threads about taking a camera apart and doing some soldering.

@dave27, got any pictures of your soldering project?

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No, not in my neck of the woods :rofl:

That is proper English my friend, ask Google if you don’t believe me :rofl:

I wish I could solder (sodder/sotter) electronics, but my expertise goes as far as soldering plumbing pipes :rofl:

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I do that too, the torch does make it more fun. And at least down here they’ve finally started making real MAPP gas again, not that MAP+ junk they had for a while.

Years ago a leak developed at a sweated connection in the basement. We were supposed to go to a family function a few hours away but I had to fix the leak. My family came home several hours later and I had 5 leaks. I had never sweated before and was getting the connections too hot. Then I had to drain the water in the house and shove bread in the pipe to keep the water away. That didn’t work so I switched to plastic pipe with the predecessor of the Shark Bite. The connections are visible and show no sign of leakage after 25 years.

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Yeah, the trick to wait until the flux starts bubbling and then you touch the joint with the solder, if it pulls you hold it until it gets all drawn in. Don’t forget to wipe excess flux.

I love Shark Bite but I would never use them inside a wall cavity.

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I was hoping you would tell us that solder is French with a silent ‘l’.

I always enjoys the differences in UK and US English.

I find it funny be cause they pronounce the ‘h’ in herb and don’t pronounce the ‘h’ in hospital. Just a couple of the many.

I couldn’t as I don’t speak French :slight_smile:

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I only can count to ten in French and order a croissant in a bakery. Maybe I know one or two sentences. Usually if the word ends in a consonant, it is silent.

French tips for today.

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I know how to ask a woman if she would like to take a nap with me :rofl:

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Please DM me.

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I only know how to pronounce it, have no idea how to spell it :rofl:

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I don’t trust shark bite at all. Not even a fan of pro press. But if I did have to use either one, 100% agree, not inside a wall, attic, etc.

I do like PEX if done right though. I’d rather have a solid run of that from basement to 2nd floor than sweated copper connections in the wall.

Your issue was likely that you had water in the pipe. You have to drain it and dry and clean the mating points. There is really no repairing a sweated connection, you need to disassemble it and start over.

Once someone shows you once, it is extremely easy and pretty bulletproof once you get the hang of it. Obviously there are tricks you learn over the years to make it cleaner or deal with pipe that is old and rough, etc, but it is pretty straightforward most of the time.

But then there are always things you can really screw up if you don’t know what you’re doing, one that comes to mind is trying to sweat the connection at the top of the water heater without unscrewing it first. Time for a new water heater (and yes the big box stores know to check that if you try to exchange it). No matter how many warnings they put on them, people still do it.

We all know that song :slight_smile:

Nor English :rofl:

I have them in a few places, easy to see and easy to access. They’ve been there since 2007, haven’t had an issue yet. The trick with Shark Bite is to debur the pipe and once connected not to disconnect it again unless you put a new one. Also no pressure as in bends or curves.

My entire cottage is done in PEX, but no connections inside walls. All solid runs.

:wave: bin-there-done-that. I was lucky as I bought it at the first Home Depot store that opened in Canada. Back then they used to take everything back, even stuff that they weren’t selling. My wife used to work for them and was telling me that people used to return used tires and they would take them, just to please the customer. Not anymore. Now, there is a Home Depot around every corner and they don’t need to establish themselves.

That’s the whole reason I like it. Non-stop home runs to a nice barbed manifold and any splits that need to be done are under a sink or somewhere accessible. Same for the yellow natural gas tubing, don’t want any of those unreliable black iron couplers in a wall (not to mention it is a pain in the butt to run 10 foot sections of black iron pipe vertically in 8 foot walls, unless you want to drill a hole in the roof and patch it after).

I’ve yet to see a pex connection fail. Hell it’s hard enough to get it off when you want it to come off.

The old timer plumbers around here like to say that copper is a natural antibacterial, which it is, and that PEX will grow bacteria (may or may not be true, seems unlikely), but we have chlorinated city water, enough with your BS already. Tradespeople have some funny things they just won’t let go of. Kinda like old timer mechanics that still use “tricks” that worked on 1970s cars in a modern computerized car then wonder why it throws errors and goes into limp mode. Hell the tricks didn’t even work back then, it was some guy who thought it fixed something and then passed along that bad info to everyone else. Yeah, I can’t see why it was ever a good idea to add a little transmission fluid to your engine oil.

It’s like the old guy “tips” network is the predecessor to Facebook. Spreading misinformation that others take as irrefutable truth.

Though I must admit the Wago electrical connectors, I’m not a fan. I’ll use wire nuts until they’re against code. And well like I said, I don’t like Sharkbite or Pro Press either. So I guess I have my own funny things.