Originally posted by GChilders
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that soldering pump is in fact a de-soldering pump. It contains a cylinder with a piston sliding internally. You load a spring being connected to teh piston and if you fire it it generates a vacuum in order to swallow soldering tin you want to get rid of.
It is a great help if you accidently soldered a bridge between two solder points. Heat the area up to melting tin and fire the preloaded pump. It will suck in much of the excess solder and you got rid of the short.
Another use of the pump is to desolder components. Once again melt the tin, retract soldering iron and imediately set pump on component leg - bottom side - fire the pump. It will suck most of the tin out of the hole. Repeat it for all legs of the specific component.
Unfortunately I am not prepared for making vids. I will assemble the board Cornboy sent to me (THANKS) as soon it arrives and I will supply pics from every section.
My major focus is chcking the circuit in deep and posting results.
@ALL: Please post if your PCB has copper interconnections single sided (bottom) or both sides. Cornboy sent a single sided PCB - if I interpret his pics correctly. If I - hopefully - get double sided later on I will assemble both in order to look for flaws and improvements.
Recently the electronic industry abandoned lead components in solder tin (Code word RoHS - slang expression rosh) . This blend needs to be soldered at higher temperature and is more difficult to solder. If you have the chance to buy solder with lead - get it but please do not inhale those fumes when soldering. Get a simple PC fan or other means being available and blow those fumes away from your breath.
When soldering you need to have a look to the mass of those pins you intend to solder. If they are more massive you need to increase temperature a bit. It is essential to not solder too long on those massive pins in order to prevent excessive heat flowing into the semiconductor. In doubt it is better to solder short and a bit overheated than long and "correct " temperature.
For your own education please solder caps and resistors first with recommended temperature (quite small wire diameters). Then increase temperature by 30 °C and solder 7805 / 7812. If you assemble FETs you will have experience if anotehr slight increase of temperature is necessary.
You will find out by yourself what temperature is OK for you. Too low temperature takes too long time and tin does not flow properly across the pad. Too high temperature draws whiskers if you draw soldering iron away.
I hopt those hints are not too confusing - else discard them.
JS
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