17-Jul-2022, 08:42 AM
I received a hot air rework station as a birthday gift.
It's a Gordak 8586D- nothing super fancy, Cyclone FPV has them for about $40- but it's more than adequate for my needs.
I'm super excited to be able to learn a new skill. This will significantly up my repair abilities from what I could do with a fine tip soldering iron.
Please don't consider this thread to be a, "how to"- this is more of a record/journal of my journey and frustrations while learning this new skill. I've got just about enough experience with troubleshooting and repair to be dangerous. Those of you that have experience with hot air, I'd love hints, tips, and constructive criticism. I kinda feel like I'm learning how to solder all over again. It's fun.
Anyhow, these are what I think will be useful tools & supplies that I already own from doing non-super tiny repair work:
Headmount magnifying glasses (can't really hold a magnifying glass and solder at the same time.)
Solder wick (i hate this stuff. it works well with ton of flux, but I prefer my desoldering gun- but my desoldering gun is a bit too big for super tiny things)
A variety of flux- MG 836LFNC liquid flux, Kester 186-18 liquid flux, MG 8341 flux paste.
A bunch of fine point tweezers.
Suction pens for the grabbing of components.
A couple different types of solder paste.
A variety of fine point and grabber probes for my multimeter.
A cheap $10 ebay ultrasonic glasses/jewelry cleaner (I fill this with 99% Isopropyl Alcohol to clean boards)
99% Isopropyl Alcohol (see above )
13.8v DC power supply, and 5v/9v buck converters.
A cheap $10 diy LCR/ESR meter (I originally built this to match transistors for audio amplifiers, but it's also super handy for identifying unknown components, checking the value of capacitors in circuit, checking to make sure that antennas don't have any hidden internal damage, doing a quick test to make sure that motor windings all measure within an acceptable range and aren't burnt out, and a whole bunch of other things. next to my multimeter, it's one of my most used devices.)
Small and large PCB holders, bluetak, etc.
Copper foil (to repair/replace damaged pads and traces)
5 minute epoxy (to attach the foil above)
Solder mask (I'm pretty sure this is just glorified UV glue. I should do some tests to see if it is somehow less conductive, or if it is just a pretty green color)
Various small gauges of magnet wire (I have this for fixing speaker coils, but it also works great as jumper wires)
Alright, on to the new tool.
The manual is in Chinese. Cool, I mean, it's a soldering station. Can't be that hard to figure out, right?
We're not going to talk about how long it took me to realize that, "SLP" meant sleep, and the reason it wasn't responding to buttons was because I had to actually pick the thing up from the holder.
I put some solder paste on the first row of resistors on a practice smd board. Placed the resistors.
I honestly have *no* clue what to set my air temp and flow at. I know I can't just blast it like I do with a soldering iron, so I'm starting out with an air temp of 375, airflow at 30%.
Cool! First row of resistors soldered in place. Turns out that this is not as easy as it looks in all of those youtube videos. Looks like I used a bit too much solder paste- things are a bit blobby.
Okay, lets try an IC- dropped the airflow down to 25%. Instead of straight solder paste, I made a mix of about 50/50 solder paste and liquid flux.
Yes! looks good. Gotta watch my airflow though. I was either too close or I had it too high- I had to come at it from a couple angles to get it to work- but once I got the right angle, it just pulled right into place.
I need to do a lot more practicing with the initial hot air soldering, and then a whole bunch of practicing removing those bits and reinstalling them.
I got a little cocky and decided to try repairing an old F3 FC that I had already written off as a parts board... We're not going to talk about that. Practice is important.
It's a Gordak 8586D- nothing super fancy, Cyclone FPV has them for about $40- but it's more than adequate for my needs.
I'm super excited to be able to learn a new skill. This will significantly up my repair abilities from what I could do with a fine tip soldering iron.
Please don't consider this thread to be a, "how to"- this is more of a record/journal of my journey and frustrations while learning this new skill. I've got just about enough experience with troubleshooting and repair to be dangerous. Those of you that have experience with hot air, I'd love hints, tips, and constructive criticism. I kinda feel like I'm learning how to solder all over again. It's fun.
Anyhow, these are what I think will be useful tools & supplies that I already own from doing non-super tiny repair work:
Headmount magnifying glasses (can't really hold a magnifying glass and solder at the same time.)
Solder wick (i hate this stuff. it works well with ton of flux, but I prefer my desoldering gun- but my desoldering gun is a bit too big for super tiny things)
A variety of flux- MG 836LFNC liquid flux, Kester 186-18 liquid flux, MG 8341 flux paste.
A bunch of fine point tweezers.
Suction pens for the grabbing of components.
A couple different types of solder paste.
A variety of fine point and grabber probes for my multimeter.
A cheap $10 ebay ultrasonic glasses/jewelry cleaner (I fill this with 99% Isopropyl Alcohol to clean boards)
99% Isopropyl Alcohol (see above )
13.8v DC power supply, and 5v/9v buck converters.
A cheap $10 diy LCR/ESR meter (I originally built this to match transistors for audio amplifiers, but it's also super handy for identifying unknown components, checking the value of capacitors in circuit, checking to make sure that antennas don't have any hidden internal damage, doing a quick test to make sure that motor windings all measure within an acceptable range and aren't burnt out, and a whole bunch of other things. next to my multimeter, it's one of my most used devices.)
Small and large PCB holders, bluetak, etc.
Copper foil (to repair/replace damaged pads and traces)
5 minute epoxy (to attach the foil above)
Solder mask (I'm pretty sure this is just glorified UV glue. I should do some tests to see if it is somehow less conductive, or if it is just a pretty green color)
Various small gauges of magnet wire (I have this for fixing speaker coils, but it also works great as jumper wires)
Alright, on to the new tool.
The manual is in Chinese. Cool, I mean, it's a soldering station. Can't be that hard to figure out, right?
We're not going to talk about how long it took me to realize that, "SLP" meant sleep, and the reason it wasn't responding to buttons was because I had to actually pick the thing up from the holder.
I put some solder paste on the first row of resistors on a practice smd board. Placed the resistors.
I honestly have *no* clue what to set my air temp and flow at. I know I can't just blast it like I do with a soldering iron, so I'm starting out with an air temp of 375, airflow at 30%.
Cool! First row of resistors soldered in place. Turns out that this is not as easy as it looks in all of those youtube videos. Looks like I used a bit too much solder paste- things are a bit blobby.
Okay, lets try an IC- dropped the airflow down to 25%. Instead of straight solder paste, I made a mix of about 50/50 solder paste and liquid flux.
Yes! looks good. Gotta watch my airflow though. I was either too close or I had it too high- I had to come at it from a couple angles to get it to work- but once I got the right angle, it just pulled right into place.
I need to do a lot more practicing with the initial hot air soldering, and then a whole bunch of practicing removing those bits and reinstalling them.
I got a little cocky and decided to try repairing an old F3 FC that I had already written off as a parts board... We're not going to talk about that. Practice is important.
Dangerous operations.
Disclaimer: I don’t know wtf I’m talking about.
I wish I could get the smell of burnt electronics out of my nose.
Disclaimer: I don’t know wtf I’m talking about.
I wish I could get the smell of burnt electronics out of my nose.