Build Your Own Clone Message Board

amazing thread. i learned a lot of techniques i didnt know before

It shouldn't be the braid leaving residue - it's either left over solder (silver) or if it's the brown stuff it's just cooked rosin flux. That'll scrape right off, and can be cleaned up with some isopropyl alcohol. I haven't had any issues with the boards that have cooked flux on them, but as a personal rule now I like to clean them up before wiring them into an enclosure.

I will admit - braid has become my favorite method of de-soldering. I've tried the braid initially, then the bulb, the pump, and most recently the combination pump/iron (it does the heating for you so you don't have to try and hold onto an iron and operate the pump at the same time). The last one works great. For like one or two de-solders. Then the tip starts to get all plugged up with solder that no matter how many times you blow it out, it won't let go of. So I got fed up and started using the braid again, and with practice it's really (for me) the most effective and easiest method of de-soldering. Unless you're trying to get solder out of a through hole that has no component lead in it - then the heat up and tap on hte table method works wonders.

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First off I'd like to thank you Stephen, for providing a service that is both inspiring and succinct. I was wondering...I got some of the shrink tubing, and was wondering if you applied heat for this particular operation; I picked up a heat gun at Lowes because that's what they suggested. It is the lowest temp one they had, and it has two settings 750 and 1000 degrees. Is this too much? The gun is pictured as being used to burn paint off of houses. I can still return it if it isn't useful, but the more I think of it the more I think it may cause melting in all the wrong places! How about close proximity to a 100 watt light bulb? Matt

This is the only heat gun I've ever used on heat shrink tubing.

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"It’s your soldering."

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Here are a few photos showing one example of poor wire dressing.

I see this a lot. A new builder will hook up some wires to a resistor and leave the leads at full length. Often times the builder will leave it just as you see it in the photo with the leads exposed. This is a short circuit risk and a major no no. I tried to make some cold solder joints for this photo but I just couldn't do it. Oh well... what can you do? LOL


Here's the correct way to do it.

I start by stripping off a small section of the wire's insulation. I only take off 3/16" to 1/4" of insulation. I then twist the bare wire strands together and then tin them so there are no stray strands sticking out anywhere. I then make a bend in the resistor's lead close to the body of the resistor. You don't need to keep the entire lead .


Next I make a good mechanical connection between the wire and the resistor's lead by crimping the wire onto the lead.


The two pieces are now soldered.


Finally, and most importantly, insulate the connection with heat shrink tubing. If you don't have any tubing electrical tape will work too. It just won't look as good.

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"It’s your soldering."

Is it okay to fully cover up the resistor? I have been covering the wires on both sides right up to the resistor, thinking the resistor had to be exposed for heat disappation or something.

It's perfectly OK to cover the resistor. These are not power resistors that dissipate a lot of heat so there's nothing to worry about.

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"It’s your soldering."

Ok. Thanks man! that will make it much easier to do one shrinky dink over the whole thing.

hey, great thread. I've refrenced before almost all of my builds.
I was wondering if anyone has any nice secrets on soldering the legs of an LED to wire?
Mine always look messy and seem very haphazard. I've never actually had a problem, but in my new build I'm going for a good looking neat wiring job, and I'm nervous of the potential uglyness of my led wiring.
thanks alot

I just wanted to post some photos of what the stomp switch's header soldering should look like when you're done. These are very tightly spaced eyelets that require some care when soldering so you don't bridge any of them together.



Here's a shot of the header PCB with the stomp switch added. Notice how the PCB is flat against the stomp switch. To make sure yours comes out like this solder one of the corner eyelets first. Once you've done that inspect the switch and PCB and make sure that they are flat against each other. If they are not allow a few moments for the solder joint to cool before going on. If the PCB and bottom of the switch are not parallel squeeze the two together and re-heat the solder joint. When the solder melts the two pieces will compress together. Allow the solder to cool just a bit before you release the pressure holding the two parts together. Once the PCB and switch are flat against each other solder the opposite corner eyelet to keep the two pieces square. Now solder the remaining eyelets starting in the center and moving outward from there. After you solder one eyelet allow it to cool before soldering the next. Do this same procedure with the two header pieces. This will help to ensure that all the parts are square when you put everything together.

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"It’s your soldering."

Here's what I like to do with pots that have two of it's lugs shorted together. It doesn't really apply to any of the BYOC kits. It's just a technique I use in my own builds. This way you only have 2 wires to run to the PCB instead of 3. It also helps to keep things looking neat. I start by taking a clipped off component lead and bending it to look like this.


Then I insert the bent lead into the eyelets that will be shorted together. Start by placing the short bend in the center eyelet. Make sure that the short bend isn't so long that it sticks thru the other side. You don't want it to make contact with the pot's casing. It only needs to make contact with the eyelet.


Once you have the lead positioned solder it in place and clip off the long bend.


Make sure that the jumper and the solder joint keep a low profile. You don't want either to short out against the enclosure's wall when you install them.

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"It’s your soldering."

Stephen,

Thanks for putting this up. I must look at this thread at least twice a month to remind myself how I should be doing things!

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Once you've soldered a resistor to the circuit board, what can use use to cut off the remaining component leads on the backside?

You do really nice work, Stephen. I'd like to see some gut shots of complete builds, if you have any. I love seeing neet electronics.

This is a photo of the soldered jumper from lug 3 to lug 6 of a 3PDT stomp switch. I noticed a lot of people using a wire that's an inch or longer for this connection. If you use a small piece of clipped component lead you can make your build look a lot neater. The same goes for the jumper from lug 4 to lug 9. Note the amount of solder used and how it has an almost liquid look to it. If yours looks dull and like a blob you're using too much solder and are probably getting poor heat transfer from the iron to the lug/jumper. This results in cold solder joints that either don't work at all or have intermittent continuity that will eventually fail all together.

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"It’s your soldering."

how do you apply those heat shrink tubes around the wires?

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And in my impatience I have fallen into folly.

Are you referring to the insulator around the jumper in the stomp switch photo above? If so that isn't heat shrink tubing. It's a piece of component lead inside a small section of wire insulation.

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"It’s your soldering."

Thanks for the tips. I had a lot of trouble with the wiring on my first pedal. Now I'm on to the second. I hope this will make it easier.

I see so many builds here on the forum where people have wires 2 or 3 inches long to connect the jacks and stomp switch to the PCB. IMO this mass of spaghetti looks terrible. What I do to make much cleaner looking connections is solder much shorter wires on the top side of the PCB. I install the jacks and stomp switch and the fully assembled PCB into the enclosure. Then I use solid core wire I get from Rat Shack to make the connections. I cut them close to length and thru a little trial and error I trim them down so that maybe 1/8" of the bare wire protrudes thru to the other side of the PCB ensuring that they cannot create a short circuit beneath the PCB anywhere. Since the BYOC PCBs have plated thru holes you can do the soldering on either side of the PCB. As you can see in the top photo I even use this method to make connections to the adapter jack.

If you are an inexperienced builder I would recommend checking to make sure your build works prior to making these final connections. Otherwise it's gonna be a PITA to un-do them so you can remove the PCB to do any trouble shooting.

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"It’s your soldering."

Here's a tip for those of you that are new to using a DMM. When measuring the value of a resistor do not allow your finger tips to be in contact with the ends of the probes. What ends up happening is that you measure the resistor in parallel with the resistance of your body.

Here's my DMM connected to a 1M resistor. The display shows that it measures 995K ohms.


Here's the same resistor with me holding onto the probe ends. The same 1M resistor now only measures 556K ohms.


Lower value resistors don't change much because they have a lower resistance than your body. The higher the resistance the more likely it is you will get a false reading if your body is in contact with the probes. Experiment with different value resistors to see what I mean.

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"It’s your soldering."

Hi Stephen, great thread. I'm just working on my first build, a Leeds Fuzz, and I have a couple questions out of the gate. I feel like I've read conflicting answers on this board. Probably I'm not looking at the right thread, and it's all covered somewhere. Anyway, here goes:

Some people advocate populating the entire circuit board and testing it (unsoldered) before soldering anything. I imagine having a ton of loose, long component leads waving everywhere would cause enough shorts to make this an unreliable method of troubleshooting. Is this really the best way to go, or should I solder as I go, or do something in between?

Should I solder before or after trimming the component leads? Some say trimming a soldered lead could lead to cracking.

Thanks!

On the first, I would imagine what you're seeing people talking about is populating the entire board with all the components (including soldering them in place) and testing it for continuity before soldering in the wiring. When we refer to a 'populated' board it means all components soldered in place.

On the second, no matter what you do, you'll have to trim after soldering (unless you have great foresight and know exactly how short to trim a lead so that you'll be left with the hershey kiss shape when it's soldered...). To avoid cracking - trim down to the joint, and don't trim the joint itself. You should see the nice little hershey kiss shape when it's done.

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thanks for clarifying, tone.