Build Your Own Clone Message Board

OK. I went and copied all of what I could find left of Stephen's tips for a better build and made IMG tags with all of the photo URLs. I've got them split into six different categories on six different TEXT files. If anyone wants, I can e-mail them to you. Just PM me. I'll go ahead and post them here so you can click on "Quote" and just copy and paste what you want from here

#1 - Tinning Your Wires

Gridlock wrote:

"...what is tinning the wires though?"

Tinning is soldering the strands of exposed wires together so that they cannot separate from each other.

Here is a piece of wire that has had too much insulation stripped away like I see in a lot of builds.



And more often than not I see this stuck into a solder lug and soldered with strands of the wire going 10 different directions. Most of the time the solder joint is cold. This means the parts were not heated up enough to get good flow of the solder.



Here is a section of wire that has only had about 1/4" of insulation removed. Once the insulation has been cut remove it using a twisting action. This will twist all the strands together and they will ALL go into the lug when you insert it into the lug.



Now heat the wire with your iron for just a second. Then touch the solder to the exposed wire. This is tinning.



Bend the tinned wire end like this.



Insert the tinned end of the wire into the solder lug and lightly crimp it down. This is the mechanical connection I spoke of.



Now that you have a good mechanical connection solder the wire into place. Heat the solder lug and then apply solder to the junction of the lug and the wire. This should only take a second or two. Notice how smoothly the solder has flowed onto the lug and around the wire. If you have a blob of solder you didn't adequately heat the lug before applying the solder.



#2 - Component Soldering

Here's how to solder a component to the board.

Start with a cone tipped soldering iron. I use a 25W Weller pencil iron myself.



Plug it in and let it set for at least 10 minutes so it can get good and hot. If you don't have a soldering station you should at least have a damp paper towel close by to wipe the tip of your iron on. Keeping the tip clean is very important for good heat transfer.

With the iron heated up and the tip clean melt a tiny bit of solder onto the iron's tip. This is tinning the iron. It helps promote good heat transfer to whatever you are soldering.



Take a resistor and bend it so it will fit into it's spot on the circuit board. With the resistor flat against the board spread it's leads out so that it cannot fall out of the board when you flip it over. Spreading the leads also helps to get them out of the way when you solder them. Touch the tip of the tinned iron to the junction of the lead and solder pad. It should only take a second to heat up. Now touch the end of the solder to the junction between the lead and the solder pad. It only takes a little. You don't have to flow solder all the way thru to the other side of the PCB for a good solder joint.



When you're done you should have solder joints that look like tiny Hershey's Kisses.



#3 - Component Desoldering

Here are a few tips on how to de-solder a component. I usually use my de-soldering iron to remove components. This method usually works like a charm but the dual sided BYOC PCBs with plated thru holes can present a problem. Especially when too much solder is used and there is as much solder on the component side of the board as there is on the solder side. In difficult cases like that I'll use an iron and a solder pump.

You'll need either a set of helping hands to do this or have a friend close by that can lend a hand to hold the PCB steady as you remove the solder. Start by heating up the lead on the component side of the board. Try to do this as quickly as you can to keep excess heat transfer to the component and PCB to a minimum.



At the same time press the pump against the board so it forms a seal around the solder joint. This makes sure that the solder pump pulls the solder out of the hole instead of allowing air to leak around the tip of the pump.



Now let's say that you successfully removed the component but one of the holes is still filled with solder like it is here.



To remove the solder hold the iron against the hole and the pump over the hole on the other side. Heat up the solder and hit the button on the pump to suck out the excess solder. Again, you want to try to do this procedure quickly to keep excess heat transfer to the solder pad to a minimum.



Presto! You're done. Another way to clear the hole of solder is to heat it up and then quickly tap the board against your bench top. A third option would be to use a small hand drill (NOT a power drill) and drill bit to remove the solder.



#4 - Component Neatness

Here is what a cleanly assembled circuit board should look like. Notice that there are no components suspended in the air above the board and that there are no globules of solder coming thru any of the lead holes. Except for a little on the 1N4001 diode. It has thicker leads than a resistor and the thru holes are larger so a little excess solder flow here is hard to avoid.



This is what the under side should look like. Notice how the solder joints look like tiny little Hershey kisses. If your solder joints don't look like this you need to take some time to practice. The better you are at soldering the more likely you are to have a successful build when you are done.



#5 - IC Installation

Here are some tips on how to install an IC (Integrated Circuit) chip.

You'll notice that when you look at the chips that the legs are spread out like the chip on the left in this photo and the one on the right in the photo below. These spread out legs make it hard to insert the chips into the sockets because the pins need to be perpendicular and not angled. Having the legs going straight up and down makes them much easier to get into the IC sockets.





What I do is place the chip on it's side and gently press down and roll it against the table top to evenly bend all the pins straight. Be VERY careful when doing this or you could end up bending all the legs over flat. Once you've done one side do the same to the other. You want your chip to look like the ones above with straight up and down legs.



Now comes the tricky part of getting the chips in the sockets. The larger the chip the trickier this can be. What I do is use a straight edge to help me install the chips like this 6" scale I use.



Start by inserting the legs on one side of the chip into the socket. Then rest the straight edge up against the other row of legs and use it to keep all the legs in line so that they slip down into their respective slots in the socket as you push the chip in. This technique comes in really handy especially with larger chips.



#6 - Transistor Installation

Here's a tip for installing transistors into sockets.

I'm always seeing new builders sticking the trannies in the sockets with their full lead lengths. To make matters worse they are leaving these leads exposed where they can easily short circuit. Once you have the build up and working trim off the excess lead from the tranny and bend the leads so that the tranny is lying down and won't get in the way when you put the cover on the enclosure. You might also want to consider color coding the leads as I have done in the photo with insulation stripped off of sections of wire.



I hope this helps us all out with our forums

_________________
Keep 'yer tips tinned, 'yer sponges wet, and TELL THEM KIDS TO SHUT THE HELL UP!!!

These are cool tips and all, but I really don't think they need to be replicated to each and every pedal forum. Updating or appending to them would get to be a pain.

I still think we need a General or Basics section where how-to information like this that applies to virtually any pedal can be posted. We can simply link to it from our respective sections and benefit from any updates that are applied to it.