Umm yes, I am aware that if it were an iron from Radio Shack or something
like that that this might be a problem but this is not a hobby iron. It's
grounded and temperature controlled from a well known manufacturer. They're
not that expensive anymore. Alright, by the time I bought the fine tip it
may have been $30. Besides with this kind of soldering it's more about
technique that equipment. If you're only in contact with the component for
a fraction of a second with a pretinned lead then it doesn't matter that
much what the temperature of the iron is. If you're dwelling on it, of
course it does. As I've suggested before when this has come up, use
wire-wrap wire NOT the lacquer insulated stuff that PIX sends with the
board. On the pads of the accelerator board itself you don't to be that
careful. Cut the leads to length. Strip the ends and do those first. Then
mount the board and coat the ends of the wire with solder. They're already
silver plated so this is easy. Then just tack them to the components with
the iron with the wire between the iron and the component. This takes some
practice but you can get a very good joint this way by only touching the
component very briefly. That means, of course, that you have to practice on
something else before you try it on your Newt! I'm not suggesting that this
should be done by the average hobbyist. Experience is important!
Jon.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Kummel [mailto:tech_ed@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2000 3:02 AM
To: jon.shurtleff@munich.netsurf.de
Subject: RE: NTLK The Newton's successor?
Do you realize how dangerous that was? A standard
regular soldering iron that you "just plug into the
wall" may not have the static shielding and voltage
regulation to isolate the wall current from the
Soldering iron tip. Also non professional soldering
irons have a tendancy to have too large a temperature
range. They fluctuate too broadly. I've seen some
supposedly 20watt irons pull the traces off of a board
becuase it was actually more like a 40watt iron.
I would say you were either very lucky when you did
that, or you were not near any sensitive
components...Either way, spending $100 for casual
soldering:
http://www.lashen.com/vendors/CooperTools/Weller_WES50.asp
isn't too much to ask when you realize the alternative
is $180 to fix the Newt!
Ed
web/gadget guru
--- Jon Shurtleff <jon.shurtleff@munich.netsurf.de>
wrote:
> Well OK, I agree about the magnifying lamp and
> steady hand but I did the job
> with no problem with a $25 dollar 20W soldering iron
> with replacable tips.
> I used a very fine tip. Considerable experience
> with soldering is highly
> recommended though.
>
> Jon.
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