Kit assembly gone wrong... beyond repair?

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smileydude0
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2011 2:46 pm

Kit assembly gone wrong... beyond repair?

Post by smileydude0 »

Let me start off by saying thanks for giving me a project to learn soldering with.

Now that that's out of the way, i am in a bad way as far as craftsmanship is concerned. I fear I may have been too sloppy...

Attached are relevant pictures with relevant names. Take a look and let me know if I am beyond repair!
Attachments
Up front.jpg
Up front.jpg (982.1 KiB) Viewed 8977 times
What I get on-screen.jpg
What I get on-screen.jpg (750.21 KiB) Viewed 8977 times
In Da Back.jpg
In Da Back.jpg (960.73 KiB) Viewed 8977 times

Fjornir
 
Posts: 58
Joined: Fri Nov 28, 2008 3:14 pm

Re: Kit assembly gone wrong... beyond repair?

Post by Fjornir »

smileydude0 wrote:Let me start off by saying thanks for giving me a project to learn soldering with.

Now that that's out of the way, i am in a bad way as far as craftsmanship is concerned. I fear I may have been too sloppy...

Attached are relevant pictures with relevant names. Take a look and let me know if I am beyond repair!
Nothing looks broken to me, so it is a good first attempt! A couple of the holes you'll use for building expansions have a bit of slag in them, but that's easy enough to clean up another day. The photo of the back of the board is not in good focus so it is a little hard for me to tell but I think you should go back and "reflow" pretty much every weld on the board. If you get the solder up to the right temp on the joint it should end up cooling very smooth making a nice weld between the pin and the pad around it. Check out this site: http://www.aaroncake.net/electronics/solder.htm - scroll down to the section called Cold Solder Joints and look at the pic. That's what I think your joints would look like if the pic was in focus: lumpy, dull instead of shiny, like you tried to "apply solder to iron then drip onto joint".

If that is the case the good news is: this is easy to fix, if I'm right about the problem. Just heat up your iron, and then come on in to each joint and bring your tip in so it touches both the pad and the pin, hold it there until the solder melts and flows, and then come off and move on to the next joint. When you get into the rhythm of it it goes fast and is a lot less tedious than it sounds.

I'm guessing you're soldering with a radio-shack iron or something of equivalent quality - keep that tip cleaned, tinned when not in use, and recognize it's going to be a bit harder for you with that iron than someone with a pro-grade soldering station. Attack it like this: when doing a weld come in with the tip and touch the pad and the pin. Come in with the solder and touch the pad and the pin.If the solder doesn't melt slide it along the pad towards the tip of the iron until the solder starts to melt (it's ok to 'brush' it to get things going) then let the solder flow, come out with the solder, come out with the tip, and move on to the next weld. After you're done inspect with a magnifying glass and determine which ones to reflow and which ones might needs a bit of extra solder.

The display on the screen is right, though!!! When you hook up the ethernet port make sure you are hooking it up to a network that will give it DHCP with the right kind of cable (straight if you're going into a switch or router, crossed if you're connecting it to a PC). Do the lights on the ethernet port blink? Have you tested the cable with a known-good device?

Good luck!

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