Help practising

[patroclus02]

Hello,
I'm practising on a faulty PCB, to get skills to install a MI in a Ps2 V9.
I have experience soldering, but not in such small scale.

I started soldering on a superficial IC legs. I use a 0.5mm tip and I'm not able to heat up the leg and apply solder wire (there's no space!). So, I only manage to tin my tip, and then, with some flux, put a tiny amount of solder by touching it... But just to little solder sticks. Is it enough?
I made a bridge a couple of times.. then removed them with soldering braid (Will this harm the ps2 ??)

Soldering to SMD condenser and resistors went fairy well.
But getting to vias... It got too hard to tin them when they're too small (haven't seen ps2's ones yet). But anyway, I'm not able to heat up and apply the solder wire to it. Only tin my tip, and put a little solder by touching it 2 seconds...

How can I improve my skills?
thank you.

[EspeN]

hi!

This is what I do. Usually i always apply tin to the points i solder EXCEPT the bios legs! I never put solder on there. I put tin on the wire, but it to bios point and solder it.

I destroyed a couple of ps2 before I master it, and now ive done over 100 installs and none faulty (xbox,gamecube,ps2)

V9 can be a tricky board coz of the H,I,B,G points on the other side of the mobo.
U should practice on them. they can be tricky.

[suram884]

I had never soldiered before. I practiced on an old modem board, but the pieces were bigger than the ones on the PS2 board. The PS2 is a whole different experience.

I used masking tape and surrounded the point I wanted to soldier with it. I even did it on the legs of the bios chip. After I had applied soldier I would move the masking tapes down and soldier the next leg. You slide the tape down to the left and the right of the leg to prevent bridging.

I didn't heat the legs of the IC at all. I would take the iron and some solider over the point. Heat up the soldier to get some on the tip, then just take the soldier that you have on the tip and touch the leg with it for half a second. If you need to add more soldier, just repeat the process. There is no need to worry about accidently dropping soldier because there would be masking tape all around the point.

For the VIA pads, you need to scratch off the coating. Get a sharp knife and lightly scrape the pads you want soldiered. DO NOT PRESS HARD. Your hand's weight should be enough to remove it, because of the sharpness of the knife. Scrape it for 10 secs to make sure you have the coating removed.

For every point use masking tape! Isolate the point so that you have no way of missing it.

Make sure you put tape around the SCEX point. You are suppose to soldier a wire to the south end of that piece, so tape up the north end. There is a capacitor right below it, tape it also. I didn't use tape at first and I acciendtly took that capacitor off the board. It got stuck to my iron and it was covered with soldier all over. So keep the tip clean as possible. I had soo much trouble putting it back in place. I AM SERIOUS, USE MASKING TAPE TO SORRUND THE SOILDER POINTS.

Here is an example: http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/4093/ps2pointa5mp.jpg It was taken with my 7 megapixal camera. :p I'll post the pictures of my terrible f***-up later.

[patroclus02]

Thanks guys!

Espen, why do you say that V9 via pads on back side are tricky? Aren't they like any other via on the board? Maybe you say that because they are close together?
And how do you tin the points?? I just can't put the solder wire and the tip over them, because the tip already covers all of it (in vias for example). Maybe yo put some solder on the tip and then touch the points??

So, heating up BIOS legs is dangerous.. I'll take note of that.
Do you tin the DVD controler legs too?? Those legs are tiny and with 0.5mm tip is hard to do.

Suram884, you're trick seems quite good. I might try that. So, to solder vias, you put some solder on the tip, and then touch the via for one second or so. Then you put the wire and heat again?

[suram884]

Yeah thats what I did. I would get some soldier on the iron then just touch the point for a second. If I needed to add more I would add some more soldier to the iron tip and touch the point again.

I did that with all points. Prepping the modchip with soldier is pretty easy since you have more room to soldier.

Tinning wires is easy. Get some wood or a book you don't need. Put masking tape on the wood/book. Then take your iron and soldier, and get a big ball of soldier onto the tip and place it somewhere on the masking tape. Its as if you were applying the soldier to the masking tape. Keep the iron tip there. Take your wires one-by-one and stick the wire into the molten soldier. If you think that the wire needs more tinning stick it in there again. The iron and the molten soldier will not burn the masking tape. (I did it on a newspaper on my dinning table.) Also, the soldier will not stick to the masking tape after you remove the iron, it will just harden then you can use your nails to easily scrape it off.

I tinned the wires so that it had a tiny amout of sodlier, that way the prepped soldier point and the wire would easily stick.

It's pretty fun when you get the hang of it.