World's Worst Soldering!

[Cursitor Doom]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2018 11:08:32 +0200, Look165 wrote:

Some professional soldering people do that far worse.

The only problem for me in a possible shortcut between the two
connections of the rectyfier bridge, an insulation pipe should be
welcomed.
It surely is the mains rectyfier, so a high voltage that could spike.

It's actually under 4V AC entering that "hand-crafted" rectifier.



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[Cursitor Doom]

On Sun, 07 Oct 2018 19:44:55 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

There's your problem. 15 watts is far too small for the heavy gauge
wire you're using. The pointed tip is too small to retain enough heat
to solder some of the larger parts in your photos. You also didn't
bother to disclose whether you're using a temperature controlled
soldering iron or a crappy wood burner. I'll guess(tm) a wood burner,
probably with unplated rusted iron tips that can't be cleaned, wetted,
or tinned.

These are just bog-standard soldering irons with no fancy temp control.
But their tips are in much better condition than you imagined above,
thankfully!

I had problems finding can type electrolytics so I used axial leaded
electrolytics as a substitute. They fit inside the old can, so I just
ripped out the guts from the defective capacitor and crammed the axial
caps inside. I used 85C caps which lasted about 6 months. I replace
them with 105C caps and they've been running for about 2 years.

Maybe it was the additional 'jacketing' that caused the issue? You'd be
trapping a layer of warm air in there causing a build up of heat, I'd
guess?

Thanks for the pep-talk btw.



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[Cursitor Doom]

On Sun, 07 Oct 2018 21:26:58 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

> You're fine, you're just using cruddy tools.

That's very nice of you, John, but if you actually saw me in action you
couldn't miss a distinct lack of dexterity on my part!! Anyway, 'tis said
a bad workman always blames his tools....



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[Look165]

OK, but a shortcut mai lead to some amperes.

Cursitor Doom a Êcrit :

On Mon, 08 Oct 2018 11:08:32 +0200, Look165 wrote:

Some professional soldering people do that far worse.

The only problem for me in a possible shortcut between the two
connections of the rectyfier bridge, an insulation pipe should be
welcomed.
It surely is the mains rectyfier, so a high voltage that could spike.

It's actually under 4V AC entering that "hand-crafted" rectifier.

 

[pfjw@aol.com]

37/73. True-eutectic solder where RHoS is not an issue.

Anyone who uses 60/40 solder for other than plumbing and direct chassis connections on vintage radios deserves exactly what they get. Full Stop.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

 

<jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in <u64mrdhilmqlrmrt1me9tug049r9e6tik3@4ax.com>:

My uncle Sheldon had a TV repair shop and used to babysit me, but he
couldn't solder because he always had a beer in one hand and a
cigarette in the other. So I sat in his lap and soldered for him,
starting about the age of 3.

That is nothing, even before I was borm I would stick my hand out of mama's and grap the iron to practice soldering.

 

On Monday, 8 October 2018 03:34:36 UTC+1, John Larkin wrote:

This is pretty bad. The box doesn't work.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cja04ohlswjt1ig/Elenco.zip?dl=0

nor does the website

 

[Ralph Mowery]

In article <5e64a5b5-e112-4777-9e8e-efafd34e5839@googlegroups.com>,
peterwieck33@gmail.com says...

37/73. True-eutectic solder where RHoS is not an issue.

Anyone who uses 60/40 solder for other than plumbing and direct chassis connections on vintage radios deserves exactly what they get. Full Stop.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

You have it exectally backwards. I doubt if you will ever find any
37/73 solder. For two reasons. Number one is you now have a compound
that is 110 % mix. Sort of impossiable to do. I will allow you a typo
and say you ment 37/63. That would be a mix of 37% tin and 63% lead
going by the normal way of stating the tin content first.

The mix is 63 % tin and 37 % lead for the eutectic mix of solder. Over
the years much solder is sold as 60 % tin and 40 % lead. Close enough
for most electronics and very common.

 

[John Robertson]

On 2018/10/08 1:08 AM, John Larkin wrote:

On Sun, 7 Oct 2018 22:53:10 -0700, John Robertson <spam@flippers.com
wrote:

On 2018/10/07 7:34 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 7 Oct 2018 21:36:29 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 10/07/2018 12:08 PM, Cursitor Doom wrote:
Hi all,

I just fixed up this classic Tek 466 scope I've been meaning to get
around to sorting out for the last few years. As you can see, my
soldering is atrocious. I've been soldering this type of circuitry for 50
years and never got any better at it in all that time. When it comes to
soldering and part-placement, I suck donkey dick!
Check it out and enjoy at my expense:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128859641@N02/45109856712/in/dateposted-
public/

and...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128859641@N02/44247281105/in/dateposted-
public/


As you can see, the "world's worst" tag was no exaggeration!




Eh. This was the soldering job in a commercially-sold SMPS bench power
supply from an Amazon.com reseller, IIRC, this was how it looked when it
left the mfgr, I took this photo immediately after opening the enclosure
and pulling the PCB (it had stopped working! can you believe it)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/65km6pbq8wzch54/IMG_20171005_104357775.jpg?dl=0

This is pretty bad. The box doesn't work.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cja04ohlswjt1ig/Elenco.zip?dl=0




You bought that NEW? Or was it second/third/fifth hand?

New, from Amazon. It arrived that way. I opened it because it didn't
work right.


It looks like an idiot tried to modify it. I have trouble imagining a
legitimate company letting something that hacked out for sale.

It's Chinese.

Perhaps it was a return from a customer who had a problem, then tried to
fix it - botched it up, then sent it back to Amazon for a refund. The
seller didn't bother to test or it simply was repacked in the Amazon
warehouse for reshipment.

Much like the people who buy clothes for a party then return them
afterwards...

John :-#(#

 

On Monday, 8 October 2018 03:44:54 UTC+1, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

The trick
to soldering is to use decent equipment, a clean tinned tip, and the
correct temperature.

I tried a new soldering iron long ago that had a sawn off nail as a tip. The heating wire was wound onto this tip over an insulating sheet, so it wasn't replaceable. It soldered perfectly. I expect it would not have handled large joints, but I wasn't doing any at the time.

A couple of years ago I tried soldering with nothing but a nail & a flame. Managed to produce good joints on pcbs, but the amount of time the nail stayed hot enough was very short, limiting what it could handle.

Like many things, if you know what you're doing you can get all sorts of crap to work if necessary.


NT

 

[bitrex]

On 10/08/2018 11:26 AM, John Robertson wrote:

New, from Amazon. It arrived that way. I opened it because it didn't
work right.


It looks like an idiot tried to modify it. I have trouble imagining a
legitimate company letting something that hacked out for sale.

It's Chinese.



Perhaps it was a return from a customer who had a problem, then tried to
fix it - botched it up, then sent it back to Amazon for a refund. The
seller didn't bother to test or it simply was repacked in the Amazon
warehouse for reshipment.

Much like the people who buy clothes for a party then return them
afterwards...

John :-#(#

I bought a guitar amp used many years ago where the previous owner had
either accidentally or deliberately left inside the speaker enclosure a
couple photos someone had taken of what appeared to be the previous
owner, a heavy-set jolly-looking African American man eating dinner in
his kitchen with what looked like a plate of ribs sitting on top of the amp.

Sadly that amp was stolen from me a number of years ago along with the
Polaroids that i'd left in it where I found them for some superstitious
reason. Back into the "material continuum"

 

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

My first job when I left school at 15 was on a TV production line. All
the assembly work was done on a conveyer belt in about 30 minutes. I
was at the test stage. Sort of plug it in and see if it works. Any
faults were diagnosed by engineers and passed back to me. I had to
negotiate with about 50 women to get anything fixed. If I picked the
wrong women my survival that day was not guaranteed. It was a great
place to get a girlfriend!

--
http://www.npsnn.com

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 07/10/18 17:08, Cursitor Doom wrote:

Hi all,

I just fixed up this classic Tek 466 scope I've been meaning to get
around to sorting out for the last few years. As you can see, my
soldering is atrocious. I've been soldering this type of circuitry for 50
years and never got any better at it in all that time. When it comes to
soldering and part-placement, I suck donkey dick!
Check it out and enjoy at my expense:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128859641@N02/45109856712/in/dateposted-
public/

and...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128859641@N02/44247281105/in/dateposted-
public/


As you can see, the "world's worst" tag was no exaggeration!

If you want to learn how to do good soldering with "old"
and "unsophisticated" equipment, see the Pace Basic
Soldering Lessons.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837

In contrast to most of the wittering talking heads and
videos of printed pages(!) found on yootuub,
those are excellent videos:
- short, because production and distribution of the
films was expensive
- to the point, because they are short
- good on theory of what needs to be done, and why
- good practical demos of what happens when you
get it right - and wrong

The only major flaw is that it is difficult to suppress
sniggering at the pronunciation of "solder".

Of course CD won't see this message, because he's blocked
me. His loss

 

[pfjw@aol.com]

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 11:25:38 AM UTC-4, Ralph Mowery wrote:

In article <5e64a5b5-e112-4777-9e8e-efafd34e5839@googlegroups.com>,
peterwieck33@gmail.com says...

37/73. True-eutectic solder where RHoS is not an issue.

Anyone who uses 60/40 solder for other than plumbing and direct chassis connections on vintage radios deserves exactly what they get. Full Stop.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA



You have it exectally backwards. I doubt if you will ever find any
37/73 solder. For two reasons. Number one is you now have a compound
that is 110 % mix. Sort of impossiable to do. I will allow you a typo
and say you ment 37/63. That would be a mix of 37% tin and 63% lead
going by the normal way of stating the tin content first.

The mix is 63 % tin and 37 % lead for the eutectic mix of solder. Over
the years much solder is sold as 60 % tin and 40 % lead. Close enough
for most electronics and very common.

Yep - sorry. 37/63 lead-to-tin. Early AM post, and not quite awake.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

 

[Allodoxaphobia]

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 08:26:24 -0700, John Robertson wrote:

Perhaps it was a return from a customer who had a problem, then tried to
fix it - botched it up, then sent it back to Amazon for a refund. The
seller didn't bother to test or it simply was repacked in the Amazon
warehouse for reshipment.

My take? ...and I've seen such crappy "rework" in
never-been-opened-since-the-factory communist chinese
junk before. It's post-test fail rework done in the
factory -- by the lowest skilled folks on the totem pole.
"Get it working just Good Enough to ship it."

Jonesy
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[John Robertson]

On 2018/10/08 10:13 AM, Allodoxaphobia wrote:

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 08:26:24 -0700, John Robertson wrote:

Perhaps it was a return from a customer who had a problem, then tried to
fix it - botched it up, then sent it back to Amazon for a refund. The
seller didn't bother to test or it simply was repacked in the Amazon
warehouse for reshipment.

My take? ...and I've seen such crappy "rework" in
never-been-opened-since-the-factory communist chinese
junk before. It's post-test fail rework done in the
factory -- by the lowest skilled folks on the totem pole.
"Get it working just Good Enough to ship it."

Jonesy

Well, can't say I would argue with you.

Bought a LCD from Amazon, and while the monitor works fine the brick on
a rope was bloody dangerous! The brick has no markings about approvals,
so it went to recycling, and the power cord - that was a piece of work
- a two prong (unapproved of course) plug on a two conductor line cord
(no approval of course) ending with a computer style 3-prong plug for
the brick (...).

The crap they are shipping will kill people.

Back in the late 40s and early 50s TVs in the USA would catch fire
regularly. So the US Gov. gave UL some teeth and that stopped happening.
Here in Canada CSA was already regulating electrical appliances (had
been for years) and as I understand it there were few if any house fires
caused by crappy manufacturing shortcuts.

The only real solution is international co-operation and standards that
has to come to bear on all products as the general public has no idea
about electrical/fire/food safety. I suspect a lot of children and
adults have to die first though...

John ;-#(#

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[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 08:33:43 -0700 (PDT), tabbypurr@gmail.com wrote:

Like many things, if you know what you're doing you can get all
sorts of crap to work if necessary.
NT

When I was maybe 10-12 years old, I learned to solder making sewing
machine attachments in my fathers petticoat factory. The attachments
were necessary to make the elaborate folds and stiches found in all
garments. Most were made from nickel-silver[1] sheet metal, which
solders easily. The weapon of choice was a large block of copper
attached to an iron rod and a wooden handle. Heat was provided by a
natural gas burner:
<https://www.slateroofwarehouse.com/Johnson_Bench_Furnace.html>
Getting the temperature right was done by watching how the solder
flowed when touched to the tip. Tip cleaner was a block of sal
ammoniac. Flux was cocktail of various acids. We used different
solders, but mostly very expensive silver solder because of the
strength.

In late Jr High Skool, I was introduced to electronic soldering. Of
course, I tried to handle a soldering pencil as if it was a block of
copper on a stick, and destroyed everything I touched. It took a
while to adjust to a smaller soldering iron. My parents bought me an
Ungar soldering pencil, which was the best soldering iron of the day.
No temp control, no thermostat, but good enough for what I was doing.
I eventually collected an assortment of wood burners, real soldering
irons, and home made contrivances on the assumption that if I needed a
specific temperature, I would also need a different soldering iron.

One of my home made irons used a 16 penny nail as a soldering tip. The
solder wouldn't stick to the tip, so I nickel plated most of the tip.
That worked. I eventually discovered that mild steel did not burn up
as quickly as high carbon drill rods. Iron would have worked better,
but I didn't think of trying it.

During the late 1960's, I was a regular visitor to the various
electronic surplus stores in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Among my
purchases was a large box of broken Weller WTCPT bases, irons, cords,
etc. Something like these:
<https://www.google.com/search?q=weller+wtcpt&tbm=isch>
Over the years, I've repaired or rebuilt 20-30 such soldering
stations, some of which I still use today. Eventually, I'll run out
of repair parts and will need to buy something better.


[1] 60% copper, 20% nickel, 20% zinc and no silver.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_silver>
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[jfeng@my-deja.com]

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 9:27:00 AM UTC-7, pf...@aol.com wrote:

Yep - sorry. 37/63 lead-to-tin. Early AM post, and not quite awake.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA
Maybe you had the 2N3773 on your mind, which is almost equivalent to the 2N3772.

 

[Ralph Mowery]

In article <1i6nrdti83ho84792e08pf893p6ghvrpgn@4ax.com>,
jeffl@cruzio.com says...

During the late 1960's, I was a regular visitor to the various
electronic surplus stores in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Among my
purchases was a large box of broken Weller WTCPT bases, irons, cords,
etc. Something like these:
https://www.google.com/search?q=weller+wtcpt&tbm=isch
Over the years, I've repaired or rebuilt 20-30 such soldering
stations, some of which I still use today. Eventually, I'll run out
of repair parts and will need to buy something better.

I have one similar to those. It is an adjustable temperature. The
temperature seems to be stable,but the readout is blank. Have not been
able to find a schematic for that particular one on the internet. Found
some similar,but not the one I have.

I seldom use it any more. I have one of the inexpensive China $ 70 hot
air and iron stations. It heats up very fast and is good enough for my
hobby work. I doubt it would hold up for daily use. I would buy the
much higher dollar unit if I was in the repair business.

 

[pfjw@aol.com]

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 3:34:05 PM UTC-4, jf...@my-deja.com wrote:

> Maybe you had the 2N3773 on your mind, which is almost equivalent to the 2N3772.

They are pretty much interchangeable in most applications. I prefer the 2N3772 - I have never had a failure, and I have reliable sources. I have come across a number of counterfeit 73s. This is a hobby for me, so coming across even one counterfeit is remarkable, much less 3 out of 5.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA