Clarification on Parts


 
What iron are you using? Also, sometimes you need to add solder to the connection to suck the rest of it out. It's counter-intuitive, but works. The larger surface area of the extra solder allows more heat into the joint.Once you bring it up to temp you can then quickly add the braid and suck the solder out. Also, don't hold the braid with anything - it will act as a heat sink which will work against you.

Please don't break down and buy an el-cheapo radioshack iron.

Something like this will make your life infinitely easier.

If you want some other recommendations I'm sure people will let you know what they're using.

Dave C uses a Hakko. It's pretty sweet.

Personally I have an Aoyue 2900, but I need a new wand soon.

http://sra-solder.com/product.php/6981/22/tesla_soldering_station looks like a decent iron for the price

Whatever you get (if you decide to upgrade), make sure that you can easily change the tips, and more importantly that the tips are readily available and reasonably priced.
 
I believe that my problem is that already am using a cheapo Radio Shack iron. I'm not sure that I can justify spending any more money on another soldering iron. I might use a soldering iron once every 3 - 5 yrs or so to make a quick repair. Mine is 30 watts. If I hold it directly on the Pi solder, it won't even melt it, well barely a tiny bit sometimes. I could go back and be sure to add a bit of solder to my iron. But, as much effort as I gave, I just have little faith my iron is up to the task. I have been holding the braided copper with wooden popcicle sticks. I figured that wouldn't act as much of a heat sink. I love getting cool new tools. If I thought I'd be doing little projects here or there, I'd be willing to invest in a nicer iron. But, I just don't know enough about hardware to justify it.

I think my best bet is to see if I can find someone around here with a better iron that I can borrow or who can remove it for me. Or, I'll just snip the leads and wait on the backordered part to come in. That will slow me down. But, I don't want to ruin my pi with my cheap iron. There's a chance that I snip the leads that I can still get the jack onto the HM board.

Thanks for the links. Those do look like nice irons at reasonable prices. I just doubt I'll be using it in the future enough. BTW, my iron was melting my Radio Shack solder fine. It just won't melt the Pi solder.

Thanks for sticking with me on this.
 
Success!!

I stopped by HD on my way home and picked up a new iron (Weller SP40L at Mouser). They had a 40W iron on sale for $14. I figured I had nothing to lose because if it didn't work, I could take it back. Well, it gets *way* hotter than my POS Radio Shack iron. When I touched the solder, it started melting right away. It was actually pretty easy to remove the jack once I had a hot iron.

After handling my Pi so much, I was afraid that I may have killed it in the process. I plugged it in and it booted up fine to the OpenWRT console. All looks good there. The only casualty in the process was that the front pin on the jack broke off a little. I think it will be fine though.

I have to go somewhere tonight. I'm not sure if I'll be home early enough to work on it anymore tonight or not. But, I'm pretty close to getting it complete. So, there's light at the end of the tunnel now.

Thanks all for your help.
 
Darren, it's not just you with heat issues.

I just got done taking the RCA jack off my rPi. I have a Weller WESD51 I keep @ 600degrees. I put the iron on the ROHS solder and it wouldn't melt more than what was directly touching the tip. I cranked the iron up to its max, 850degrees, and went back at it. The solder would stay molten for 2 seconds after the heat was removed and would resolidify. I have an old desolder pump that I used a dozen times to get the majority of the solder off and the I resorted solder wick which durn near nothing so heat 'n pull it was to get that thing off.
 
Last edited:
Even I have a ***** of a time with getting them off. They're heatsinked to the board so well that the heat dissipates really well. If you go at it for too long you might melt the plastic jack or maybe even loosen a surface mount component. After doing something like 4 of them, I just started clipping them off. If you ever want to stop using HeaterMeter but need composite video, you can always just buy a new RCA jack for 84 cents and install it. The leads are much easier to get out after you've clipped the rest of the jack away.

In fact this is probably going to be the standard build procedure for the v4.1 boards because I've pretty much decided on using that space for components.
 
Yeah that would be a helpful procedure to mention. This rPi is dedicated for Heatermeter for me. I am currently working on making it waterproof as much as possible using a different case and cannon plugs for all connections. I plan on doing a full post on here once completed.
 
After I got my new iron, still a cheep-o, it wasn't difficult. I used the wick and it sucked the solder right off. I would have never gotten it with my first iron. The package that my iron came in said that it would heat to 900F.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top