I recently sold a USB PC oscilloscope pcb on ebay.
Got an email and it said he was very happy with the scope after fixing all the dry solder joints !
I have been soldering for 40+years.
I have a Radio, TV, electronics examination board pass in practical electronic skills from 1981.
If it was so bad how come it was fully tested and worked ok for me ?
I can only guess the electrons were jumping the gaps ?
Got an email and it said he was very happy with the scope after fixing all the dry solder joints !
I have been soldering for 40+years.
I have a Radio, TV, electronics examination board pass in practical electronic skills from 1981.
If it was so bad how come it was fully tested and worked ok for me ?
I can only guess the electrons were jumping the gaps ?
Nigel,
I find in my old age I do make occasional cold solder joints. They do show up as failures. I did one just last month. One, not lots of them. So if your customer found lots of them.... One of you must be at the very least confused. Care to guess which one of you two the smart money would bet is the confused one?
An old test for army draftees who flunked the mental exam was to tell them they could be discharged, just go down the hall to the stairs on the right, up to the second floor, make a left and go to the third room on the right to get the discharge papers. If the candidate made it to that room without getting lost, they did not get a discharge, as they were competant enough to follow the directions.
Now if you are even slightly amused by the tale, your mental state isn't in question!
I find in my old age I do make occasional cold solder joints. They do show up as failures. I did one just last month. One, not lots of them. So if your customer found lots of them.... One of you must be at the very least confused. Care to guess which one of you two the smart money would bet is the confused one?
An old test for army draftees who flunked the mental exam was to tell them they could be discharged, just go down the hall to the stairs on the right, up to the second floor, make a left and go to the third room on the right to get the discharge papers. If the candidate made it to that room without getting lost, they did not get a discharge, as they were competant enough to follow the directions.
Now if you are even slightly amused by the tale, your mental state isn't in question!
I have been soldering 0.55mm pitch SMD with few problems so a through hole pcb shouldn't be a problem.
Soldering is a skill. Right solder, right bit, clean bit, right temperature etc etc.
I am soldering most days so its not like I have forgotten.
Maybe my only mistake is sometimes buying cheap solder although it is always lead/tin.
Soldering is a skill. Right solder, right bit, clean bit, right temperature etc etc.
I am soldering most days so its not like I have forgotten.
Maybe my only mistake is sometimes buying cheap solder although it is always lead/tin.
Hey Nigel, did you solder this board with lead free solder by chance? Many think the dull appearance of lead free solder means it is a cold joint.
Edit: Never mind I see you use lead solder. I buy Kester or MG Chemicals solder only because I have had problems with solderability of cheap solder and some exotic types as well.
Edit: Never mind I see you use lead solder. I buy Kester or MG Chemicals solder only because I have had problems with solderability of cheap solder and some exotic types as well.
I try not to buy lead free but sometimes I just buy cheap stuff so it might be lead free.
Sometimes it flows well and other times not so well.
I usually go over the pcb visually when I have finished looking for bad or missed joints.
I did get caught out with a SMD 0.55mm pitch device with some new solder.
It just left great blobs instead of flowing. I think the melting temp was simply too high.
Ruined a pcb as I couldnt remove the IC and had to bin it and the solder.
Sometimes it flows well and other times not so well.
I usually go over the pcb visually when I have finished looking for bad or missed joints.
I did get caught out with a SMD 0.55mm pitch device with some new solder.
It just left great blobs instead of flowing. I think the melting temp was simply too high.
Ruined a pcb as I couldnt remove the IC and had to bin it and the solder.
Sold another usb scope a couple of weeks back.
He denied every receiving it until I produced tracking number !
But thats another story.
I then get a message saying scope is rubbish, it shows attenuated voltage in 1ms range but is ok in 100uS mode. Also the square waves have massive spikes on them.
Checked one here and he is right, turned out i had left in a digital filter in 1ms mode that I had been playing with by accident. Took 5 seconds to remove it.
I couldnt for the life of me get spikes on the square waves.
If I disconnected scope probe then they appeared or if I used a very long scope ground lead they started to appear.
He sent some pictures and sure enough great long lead on scope probe ground.
Anyway decided he didnt want the scope so I got him to return it.
A bit sad really because next scope up is about 3 times the price and not a lot quicker.
There was a Chinese scope for £25 but that is only 8KHz, mine is 100KHz.
He denied every receiving it until I produced tracking number !
But thats another story.
I then get a message saying scope is rubbish, it shows attenuated voltage in 1ms range but is ok in 100uS mode. Also the square waves have massive spikes on them.
Checked one here and he is right, turned out i had left in a digital filter in 1ms mode that I had been playing with by accident. Took 5 seconds to remove it.
I couldnt for the life of me get spikes on the square waves.
If I disconnected scope probe then they appeared or if I used a very long scope ground lead they started to appear.
He sent some pictures and sure enough great long lead on scope probe ground.
Anyway decided he didnt want the scope so I got him to return it.
A bit sad really because next scope up is about 3 times the price and not a lot quicker.
There was a Chinese scope for £25 but that is only 8KHz, mine is 100KHz.
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