Soldering Tips

[Xerogen]

I am going to be getting my DMS3 in a few days and I haven't had a whole lot of experience with soldering. Can you give me some soldering tips so that the install goes well.
Thanks

[KillerSpaz]

Remove all FLEX cabling... be careful with these, as the bend-life of one of these bad boys is roughly 3 times (if bent more, chances of it working again are about .2%... not very high...)
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BE SURE TO USE FLUX.... i can't really stress how important this is...
I'm not sure about the DSM3 chip, but i know the Magic3 is near impossible on the BIOS chips without it... that is, if you don't use it, I hope you don't mind buying a new PS2...
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Tin all the wires.. This means put some solder on the wires.. this is ALL the solder you will need, per wire... To do so, open the FLUX tube, and dip the ends of the wire into the tube... This gel FLUX will allow heat to transfer quicker/more effectively towards the FLUX.. So with the flux on the end, heat up some solder on the tip of your IRON, and touch the drop of solder to the wire... viola, you've tinned it... It may not look like much, but once you see how close and how small these connections/wires are, you'll quickly realize that it might actually be more than you need...
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Also, most tips on soldering irons are not small enough... If you have a dremel or a sanding device, it will definitely be worth your while to shave off some surface area to get the tip nice, small, and sharp... The less amount of jagged edges and the cleaner the shave is, the better heating you'll have, so be clean about it... don't get half assed....
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TAKE YOUR TIME!!!! Regardless of how anxious you are, DO NOT rush yourself... be sure to check every wire's position and continuity before reassembling... trust me, it's a bitch..
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Don't keep your tip on too long... WHat i mean is, half a second should be long enough to melt the solder, and then get it off, cuz you'll burn something... If it's not melting the solder in .5-1 sec, let the soldering iron heat up some more.... If it still doesn't reach desired heat, wing it... But for christ's sake, as soon as it melts, rip it away (make sure you don't have any solder splashes, or solder peaks)
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Too much solder sucks!!! You can easily **** your rig up if you use too much solder.. if you tin every wire, you have more than enough solder.... use a wet sponge and wipe off your soldering-iron tip... don't add any more to the tip, even if you think you need to... trust me.. oh yeah, don't do this over your board.. a solder splash is very difficult to clean up, and detect in most cases...
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Also, it's good to have an extra piece of wire around to help do a few things:
- Apply FLUX to soldering pads/legs.. By this, it works just the opposite of tinning the wires... It's tinning the pads... only there's no need to add any solder at this point... you should have plenty on the wire..
- Removing extra solder... Like i said, what's on the wire is enough, and can be too much sometimes... so using a stranded wire (multiple small wires braided to form 1 wire) with some flux on the tip can easily remove a point of solder... just heat up the wire till it's gone..
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Soldering Braid could be useful, but if you keep it clean, you won't need this..
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When you've effectively soldered all the pads down, take an old tooth brush and some rubbing alcohol, and _____GENTLY_____ clean all soldering points.... Immediately, flux has no side effects, but over time, can deteriorate the board and raise tracks...
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A Magnifying glass could be of use, along with an abundance of LIGHT... yes folks, light does wonders...

Hope all this helps for you...

[NBK19]

Nice tips dood !

[oggebogge]

Another tip for solder the bios pin is to use a razor blade and doug (the stuff you used at kinder garden to put drawings on the wall without a pin) Sorry guys if my english fails me here i'm a swede.
I read this tip in the PDF about installing Messiha2 pro.

you put the razor blade between the legs the one that your soldering to an the one next to it. On this way you can work towards the razorbalde and giving you better room for the iron tip. Change the razor blade often as it tends to stick to the solder and wont come lose.

the Doug is for holding the blade in position

Well i've used this method for a couple of ps2 and it has not yet faild me.

I've aslo use razorblade for the points I H G F D on the DMS 3 chip

If you dont under stand my English Ask again and i Try to Explain more Even to take a pic of it

[KillerSpaz]

I tried doing the DOUG/RAZOR deal, but the razor was too large for me to get my hands in there and properly solder...

i say just be careful

[Xerogen]

Thanks a lot KillerSpaz that really helps me out. I wouldn't have done many of those things. Also thanks oggebogge for that razor technique.

I have one question though. I don't know where to get flux from. It is like flux solder that looks just like regular solder or does it come in a special tube? I checked on RadioShack.com and they only have Clear Flux Solder. Here is a link:

http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...%5Fid=64%2D018

Thanks

[Pokey]

Tip1

I also tried the razor blade trick but the blade was too thick and too pointy. It didn't protect the other pin very well. So I got thinking and bought a cheap set of 'feeler gauges' that you use for sparkplugs/valves on engines. It is basically small strips of metal of various thicknesses (mine has 0.002" 0.051mm, 0.003" 0.076mm, 0.004" .102mm and larger thicknesses). I bought this because the space between the pins on the cd/dvd controller (a TQFP or similar part) is ~0.3mm. So as you can see the thin feeler gauge strips will fit easily between the pins. I haven't used them yet but I plan on cutting small 3-4mm wide strips off and bending the tips 90 degrees to drop in between the pin I want to solder to and its neighbour. I'll let you know how it goes.

Tip needed

On another note I've had problems tinning my 'magnet wire' I started with. I used a lighter to burn off the coating. I then scraped the left over crap off the tips using an xacto. I then dipped it in flux and tried to tin the wire. No matter what I do I can't get solder to thinly tin the tip. Any ideas?

Tip2

Since I couldn't get the magnet wire to work well I used a tip from a friend. He used stranded wire from an old IDE cable to hookup his XBox mod. You take apart the clips and pins from an old cable (I used a floppy cable because they're longer) then peel off a single wire. They're much easier to tin and, for me atleast, had a better bond to the solder points. I'm a little reluctant to use this wire on the cd/dvd controller, the pins are very small and close together.

Pokey

[Xerogen]

Thanks Pokey. What does flux look like. Is it another type of solder. Do you know if RadioShack sells it or another store?

[Bgnome]

my flux looks like a paste. you can also get a flux pen.
radioshack sells it.

[KillerSpaz]

You want ROSIN CORE FLUX _AND_ SOLDER..
I bought mine IN Radio Shack, cost me like 5 bucks total..
They come in different forms, but make sure the one you get is ROSIN CORE compliant, cuz it'll help in the smaller pins... Oh, this stuff gets sticky when it dries... so try not to be messy with it..

BTW, about the magnet core, if you heat it up too much (say with a lighter), then you will end up reversing the polarities... that is, your wire is rejecting the solder... try clipping it, or use an exacto first without heating..