Today I received.....

[dominicbeesley]

What he said but I leave mine at 415 degrees. Adding fresh leaded solder first often helps with stubborn items

[tricky]

Can I ask what temp do you set it to and apart from regularly cleaning the nozzle, how do you maintain max suction pressure?

Same method, 360-380 depending on PCB or mains guage, give it long enough to melt, stuck until after the gun is off the surface and pipe cleaner every 8 or so sucks or at the slightest hint of loss of suction.

I have a different station, but looks like the same gun.
Turns out that the heat proof "rubber" washer in the gun at the hot end of the glass/plastic tube isn't as heat resistant as I thought that it would be and must have been pushed off centre when replacing the tube and the hole in the centre had elongated meaning less suction!
I did a quick bodge with a fierce of think foil, carefully making a washer that was tight to the pipe coming through the middle. This worked really well and as I haven't used it since, haven't had to clean it other than three pipe cleaner thing.
I have a replacement washer, so will swap it next time I clean the tube out.

[RonT]

Thanks Tricky, I set mine to about 280 deg, add flux then place the gun down, wait till I see the solder melt then pull the trigger. I have been trying to remove broken Electron key switches but 70% of the time I end up lifting the pad. It doesn’t seem intuitive to have it hotter but I’ve nothing to lose. I have just noticed that mine appears to have a bit of solder stuck which won’t move with the pipe cleaner thingy. It looks as though a disassemble is in order.

[baz4096]

Thanks Tricky, I set mine to about 280 deg, add flux then place the gun down, wait till I see the solder melt then pull the trigger. I have been trying to remove broken Electron key switches but 70% of the time I end up lifting the pad. It doesn’t seem intuitive to have it hotter but I’ve nothing to lose. I have just noticed that mine appears to have a bit of solder stuck which won’t move with the pipe cleaner thingy. It looks as though a disassemble is in order.

Before disassembling it, try cranking the heat up to maximum for a while. This might be enough to melt the blockage and allow the stiff wires to push through it.

[IanJeffray]

I set mine to about 280 deg, add flux then place the gun down

That temperature is way too low and there's no point in fluxing for desoldering.

[anightin]

Well Saturday actually.

I did hear that the KS2 versions don’t accept other FPGA cores yet, shame I was looking forward to loading a Beeb / Master core

[BeebMaster]

Is that some sort of in-joke in the Speccy font printed on the box?

[Ronin47]

My radio operator's licence!

Image3.gif

That's excellent and something I'd like to do when I find the time

[Ronin47]

I’m very late to this thread. I’ve just bought one of these and I’m having issues. Can I ask what temp do you set it to and apart from regularly cleaning the nozzle, how do you maintain max suction pressure?

Just to add to the other comments, I usually run mine at about 370C, but I ran into a problem recently where I was struggling to melt anything and the problem turned out to be the desoldering gun was not getting hot enough and the end result was I had to replace the gun.

When I have time I will dissect the old one to see if the element had died, but at £23 for a replacement (Mine is a Duratool) it was well worth it.

If there are particularly heavy ground or power planes, then I will crank up higher than that, but it mostly works fine.

280C isn't really hot enough and may be contributing to the blockages. I found my gun that failed was becoming more prone to getting blocked and once I realised the temps were lower than advertised, it all made sense.

[RonT]

Thanks Tricky, I set mine to about 280 deg, add flux then place the gun down, wait till I see the solder melt then pull the trigger. I have been trying to remove broken Electron key switches but 70% of the time I end up lifting the pad. It doesn’t seem intuitive to have it hotter but I’ve nothing to lose. I have just noticed that mine appears to have a bit of solder stuck which won’t move with the pipe cleaner thingy. It looks as though a disassemble is in order.

Before disassembling it, try cranking the heat up to maximum for a while. This might be enough to melt the blockage and allow the stiff wires to push through it.

I’ll give it a go. Thanks

[anightin]

Is that some sort of in-joke in the Speccy font printed on the box?

Yes I think it translates to something like:

Code: Select all

1 PROC OpenBoxWithSharpKnife
RUN
Bad call at line 1
>

[1024MAK]

Is that some sort of in-joke in the Speccy font printed on the box?

As Martina would say... "Next!"

Mark

[1024MAK]

I set mine to about 280 deg

My word man!

I set my normal soldering iron hotter than that! Actually to 340°C and my desoldering station to 380°C.

Mark

[RonT]

As they say in Scotland: ‘That’s me telt’

Seriously though, thanks for the advice, I am obviously treating retro gear with too much reverence.

[1024MAK]

Seriously though, thanks for the advice, I am obviously treating retro gear with too much reverence.

The objective is to treat the PCB gently, yes. But at the same time, you do need to melt the solder quickly and completely, so that when you apply the suction, it's only fully molten solder that is removed.

At too low a temperature, the iron may not fully melt all the solder, or it may take too long. If it takes too long, the bond between the copper PCB track and the substrate may fail. Remember, you are also heating up the PCB pad, PCB tracks, PCB substrate and the component pin/leg/lead and the component...

Even when using a normal iron and manual/hand solder sucker/pump, the same thing applies: get the solder throughout the entire joint (including in the through-hole) fully molten before sucking (also don't let in too much air between the tip and the board).

And never, ever apply force to remove components. Unless the pin is a tight fit (e.g. header/connector with square pins in a tight hole) or has had the end of the pin/leg/lead bent over, they should normally come out easily.

Mark

[RonT]

Good advice thanks

[philpem]

A Tandata TD1100 Viewdata terminal, boxed with manual and poly inserts, complete with a GPO plug to BT plug adapter!

Thanks to Marrold for sharing the ebay link to this gem, somehow my saved search missed it ...

[tricky]

Thanks Tricky, I set mine to about 280 deg, ...

I better check, my memory isn't what it was!

[BobsBoard]

My radio operator's licence!

Congrats !

73
de G0ROG

[jonb]

Can I ask what temp do you set it to and apart from regularly cleaning the nozzle, how do you maintain max suction pressure?

I use about 360C usually. I hated the thing until I honed my technique: Get the iron up to temperature. Carefully and gently but accurately (perfectly perpendicular to the board) apply the nozzle over the joint and apply only very light pressure. WAIT until the solder has melted (not instantly and nominally less than 3 seconds) - then activate the suction, whilst wiggling the gun around the leg. Lift and then stop the suction. Clean out the nozzle every 10 joints or so and also always before powering off.

Too much force and boards are easily damaged. Suck too early and it won’t clean out the joint. No wiggling and only one side of the joint will be cleaned.

^ what he said…

You can reflow a failed joint that hasn’t been sucked out, then try again.

I don’t clean it often. Only when it clogs.

I can’t remember what temperature I run it at (it’s still boxed after last year’s move, like all my stuff), but at least 350C.

When I bought it, I’d looked at a load of youtooobz demoing it. These gave me a good starting point for learning a technique.

Note: there are some old solder joints that cannot be melted whatever temperature you set. I don’t know why this happens. So, you may be very unlucky and have to deal with one or more of these early on in your desoldering career. I never found out how to deal with these.

Cheers
JonB

[IanJeffray]

there are some old solder joints that cannot be melted whatever temperature you set. I don’t know why this happens. So, you may be very unlucky and have to deal with one or more of these early on in your desoldering career. I never found out how to deal with these.

Two scenarios where that can happen:
1) Power planes. They can take a lot of heating up, so you'll have to use a higher temperature / hold longer on the joint.
2) Corroded solder. I see this a lot. Add lots of fresh leaded solder with a regular iron first to "flush out" the rubbish first.

[jonb]

I tried everything with one board. Not power traces either. Nothing worked, and in the end the tracks got damaged. Even then, I could not melt the old solder no matter how hot I set the iron (a Hakko by the way). There must be some sort of chemical change going on with these joints. But no matter, I ended up selling the board.

[RonT]

Thanks all I have had much better success with my gun set to 380 deg. Not lifting pads now.

[MarkMoxon]

I've finally joined the BBC Master club! It's a really lovely example - many thanks to Mark at Retroclinic for his usual excellent service. My Beeb is looking forward to welcoming the new arrival onto the network, once its Econet module arrives. And I guess I've got to work out who gets to use which monitor...

I'm planning to use the Master to develop a few more Elite-related bits and bobs, so watch this space.

Mark

[bob147]

I heartily recommend trying Kieran and friends' Prince of Persia and Stunt Car Racer ports on it. They show what the Master is capable of when really pushed,

[MarkMoxon]

I heartily recommend trying Kieran and friends' Prince of Persia and Stunt Car Racer ports on it. They show what the Master is capable of when really pushed,

I can’t wait to try them! Thanks for the reminder, I really want to see them working on the real thing!

Mark

[Ronin47]

Parts for my OSI 600 Superboard build and a serial card for my Apple IIe

[elk1984]

An XBerry Pi - more details on the XBerry Pi thread.

[Ronin47]

A very nice set of double shot keycaps for my OSI 600 build

[dominicbeesley]

Ooh. Did you get those made? If so, where. I really need to get my act together and get some beeb Cherry mx caps made