So... I thought that I knew how to solder but my solder quit melting and so I pressed harder. In doing so I slipped and broke off the components circled in the picture.
  Broken component circled in green.zip (Size: 940.34 KB / Downloads: 30) The board is a GEPRC F411 AIO 35A. Could someone tell me what components these are and are they vital to the functionality of the board? I plugged in a battery with a short saver and nothing seemed wrong. Nothing wrong with anything else: usb, vtx, rx. I was swapping to a new frame and therefore had my motors unsoldered, so I haven't tested the esc's.

Don't know what they are, but that level of micro soldering is quite hard. Unless you are 100% sure you can do it, I would get another FC and put that one to one side for a rainy day. Also turn up the heat on your soldering iron to at least 350C and maybe more, just spend not much time on each pad. Also get the best flux you can afford. The solder should melt instantly when you touch the tip to it. I tend to run currently 350C for most pads and 450C for power leads. I also use TBS flux (comes in a syringe) and TBS solder. If you aren't good with soldering, buy a practice board and watch some videos on YT.

Another thing, you don't need to zip a jpg. A jpg is already pretty much maximum compression so putting it in a zip file is irrelevant. You can attach a jpg directly to a post on here and if it doesn't like the .jpeg extension, rename it to .jpg and it will work.

Ya I don’t think that I will be trying to fix this one. I think I will be swapping to the Speedybee F405 Mini stack. Do you know if there are any cons? Thanks for the advice on soldering!

I figured that there would be a way to attach an image but it said the file was too large so I just compressed it and it worked. I don’t work with pictures a lot.

(10-Apr-2024, 03:28 AM)MTBR-0807 Wrote: Ya I don’t think that I will be trying to fix this one. I think I will be swapping to the Speedybee F405 Mini stack. Do you know if there are any cons? Thanks for the advice on soldering!

I figured that there would be a way to attach an image but it said the file was too large so I just compressed it and it worked. I don’t work with pictures a lot.

My only question for you is the fit of the mounting holes for your build. I have some GEPRC FC and they have funky mounting hole pattern. The one you mentioned has a 25.5mm X 25.5mm hole spacing. The Speedbee F405 mini has 20mm by 20mm spacing. So make sure that will fit your build.

I have the SpeedyBee F722 mini stack. I was skeptical at first but I do like that I can see and adjust the parameters via BlueTooth from my iPhone. I have been flying the F722 and I did some basic PID tuning but that was not really necessary. I am happy with the way the FC flies even with basic BetaFlight tune.

(09-Apr-2024, 05:28 AM)MTBR-0807 Wrote: So... I thought that I knew how to solder but my solder quit melting and so I pressed harder. In doing so I slipped and broke off the components circled in the picture. The board is a GEPRC F411 AIO 35A. Could someone tell me what components these are and are they vital to the functionality of the board? I plugged in a battery with a short saver and nothing seemed wrong. Nothing wrong with anything else: usb, vtx, rx. I was swapping to a new frame and therefore had my motors unsoldered, so I haven't tested the esc's.

the larger component on the left hand circle is most likely a transistor of some sort, and possibly needed for the LED pad to the left hand side close by.

the smaller component on the right hand side is a resistor or capacitor, more likely a capacitor.

There are all estimates however, if you have a schematic for this board then it would be easier to know for sure.

As far as functionality, it could be OK, but I'm not sure if I'd trust it myself.

It may be worth emailing the manuafacturer and seeing if they know, they may say it's only needed for the LED pad for example and the board will be OK to use if you don't use the LED pad.

(10-Apr-2024, 03:28 AM)MTBR-0807 Wrote: Ya I don’t think that I will be trying to fix this one. I think I will be swapping to the Speedybee F405 Mini stack. Do you know if there are any cons? Thanks for the advice on soldering!

I figured that there would be a way to attach an image but it said the file was too large so I just compressed it and it worked. I don’t work with pictures a lot.

File size wise aim for about 450kb (max is 500kb).  i usually take stuff on my phone, import to GIMP, scale to 1280x1024 or near enough, then export as jpg and 80% quality.  It usually gives me an image of around 450kb.  If you are on Windows, XnView is free and powerful enough to do a similar job.  Don't know for Mac's.  But as long as your file size is under 500kb you will be fine.

As SeismicCWave said, you need to make sure your frame will take a 20x20 stack.  Not all will.  If the frame is designed for 25x25 AIO's not all have the 20x20 mounting holes.  If you see 4 holes in a square pattern inside the 4 holes that the AIO FC mounts to, you are ok.  For example as in the picture below.  Notice the 4 holes inside the diagonal 4 holes.  You can measure them with a ruler or tape measure.

(10-Apr-2024, 11:32 PM)Pathfinder075 Wrote:

Is that an AlfaRC frame? Which model is that, haven't seen it before.

So I am switching from the GEPRC ST35 frame to the AOS RC 3.5 V5 and yes it does have 20 x 20 mounting. I would get 30 x 30 but the new frame doesn’t have it.

Not familiar with forums, how do you select and reply to something someone else posted?

Thanks for an explanation on the components, HypnoToad!

Thanks for the file tips, Pathfinder075. I will be looking into that.

(11-Apr-2024, 12:57 AM)mstc Wrote: Is that an AlfaRC frame? Which model is that, haven't seen it before.

Venom 114.

https://www.xt-xinte.com/AlfaRC-Venom-11...14369.html

Ordered two of them from Xinte a couple of days back.  Wanted something like a Bassline, but in a 3" format, so will see what they look like when they arrive.  Added to the growing number of frames i've bought from Xinte (via ebay).

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@MTBR-0807, to reply to something someone posted, click the reply button.  To reply to many, use the quote button.

(09-Apr-2024, 05:28 AM)MTBR-0807 Wrote: So... I thought that I knew how to solder but my solder quit melting and so I pressed harder. In doing so I slipped and broke off the components circled in the picture.

Modern FC boards, esp AIO boards, have ground tracks that hugely sink heat away, hence why your solder "quit melting".

Even tiny Whoop AIO's and Whoop HD VTX's exhibit this tendency!

I'm assuming you were soldering the ground power track?

Your iron must have sufficient heat reserve to deal with this sink.  This is why I have seven irons of differing power/size of bit. On that type of board the power conns would DEF need a larger higher power iron than the other pads. Think "lots of heat and short time", to avoid heat transfer where not wanted.  Its usual to need to use more than one iron size on any board.

Getting more transfer might be solved by more solder on the iron to increase the reserve of heat (but risks it going where not wanted!), or by holding it there longer (risking heat transfer over that time out across the board into more sensitive components). The proper answer is an iron with sufficient heat retention.

One "Classic" from years ago was the branded Betaflight F3 board. which had such huge sink that (belatedly when lots of people had issues) they suggested heating the whole board in an oven before iron soldering the ground or power positive pads/tracks. (At which point if you went too far/long, easy done, a lot of the smaller connections would move or even fall off!)

(11-Apr-2024, 08:03 AM)BadRaven Wrote: Modern FC boards, esp AIO boards, have ground tracks that hugely sink heat away, hence why your solder "quit melting".

Even tiny Whoop AIO's and Whoop HD VTX's exhibit this tendency!

I'm assuming you were soldering the ground power track?

Your iron must have sufficient heat reserve to deal with this sink.  This is why I have seven irons of differing power/size of bit. On that type of board the power conns would DEF need a larger higher power iron than the other pads. Think "lots of heat and short time", to avoid heat transfer where not wanted.  Its usual to need to use more than one iron size on any board.

Getting more transfer might be solved by more solder on the iron to increase the reserve of heat (but risks it going where not wanted!), or by holding it there longer (risking heat transfer over that time out across the board into more sensitive components). The proper answer is an iron with sufficient heat retention.

One "Classic" from years ago was the branded Betaflight F3 board. which had such huge sink that (belatedly when lots of people had issues) they suggested heating the whole board in an oven before iron soldering the ground or power positive pads/tracks. (At which point if you went too far/long, easy done, a lot of the smaller connections would move or even fall off!)

Yes I was soldering to the ground pad. It seamed like even the tiny ground pad for the vtx wiring was acting up in the same way. I wondered if that was the problem but it didn't make sense to me. Thanks for the explanation.
           
@Pathfinder075, Thanks for guiding me.

Yeah power cable soldering is a pain unless you crank the heat up, totally smother the pads/holes in flux and accept that you are going to spend a bit more time on the ground wire pad than you would like. For most pads I use 350C (which might not be 350C, it's a cheap soldering iron). For power wires I turn it up to 450C or you need a good 2-3 seconds on pad which is too long IMO. But once you get it down, it's like in and out in a second. but when i use 450C on smaller pads i've taken the copper pads off before now, so I turn it down and I haven't had that happen on 350C.