Electronics > Beginners
Atari 2600 resoldering skills
WyverntekGameRepairs:
Hi, I have been repairing and restoring my Atari 2600, and I wanted to show off my soldering skills. It is not perfect by any means, but it is better than it was when I constructed my first PCB back in 2013! The joints are shiny and concave, no cracks or holes. that is a proper joint. It may look like there was too much solder that leaked to the top of the board, but that is actually how it is supposed to be. I know that because the board was soldered like that out of the factory. That is to ensure both top and bottom pads have good connection to component leads in case the vias cracks over time. It also ensures a good grip on the leads.
I originally wanted to show off my skills to inform others, but a couple friends of mine snapped me out of it and told me what I was doing wrong. I’m thankful they did, because the mistakes I made were a bit farther from trivial than I thought: Solder smearing, too much solder, dirty joints... these are common intermediate mistakes that are easily overlooked. These mistakes could cause problems in the future. This proves the fact that soldering is quite a learning experience, and it requires a lot of time and patience and attention. I replaced the old photos with ones of the motherboard since it was a better example.
Indeed, I accidentally tore off a pad with the diode, but the pad was not connected to a trace. The via remained intact, thus the diode is still properly soldered in. The bottom pad remained intact. The other pad on the diode didn’t share the same fate though; the trace attached to the upper pad tore a bit. But thankfully, I was able to expose a bit of the trace and jump a little solder from the leg of the diode to the trace without bridging to any other component. The reason the diode tore trace and pads was due to the age of the board and due to insufficient heat. Learn from my mistake and don’t force components! The lack of heat was my fault for setting the iron too low first time around.
The main things to note are that the solder joints are not rough-looking or dull. They are shiny, smooth, and round. They do not have holes or cracks. That is a proper joint. Remember to watch for smearing though, it can and will catch you off guard if you aren’t attentive enough!
wraper:
Nope, it's not how good soldering looks like. While it's not horrible, it's certainly of sub-par quality. There are issues like solder not fully covering pads, solder smeared, solder extending over pad area, excessive amount of solder on smaller joints, solder surface is not smooth, no nice fillet and others. One joint is simply cold joint junk.
tggzzz:
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837
Most videos aren't worth watching; those "Pace Basic Soldering Lessons 1 - 9" videos are worth watching.
wraper:
--- Quote ---The smeared solder is going to be cleaned off. That is just the spatters from when the solder pops a little and flings rosin flux and solder everywhere, and I use the iron to pick it up a bit. I’m going to go over it with a brush and clean those spots.
--- End quote ---
You cannot clean that. It's a single piece of solder alloy together with what's on the pad. As I said, it's not horrible for beginner. But you cannot call it proper soldering and brag about it.
WyverntekGameRepairs:
Here you go. Fixed up a couple by sheer dumb luck (I DID fuck up a bit, but that was due to dirty areas with solder on them that I most likely didn’t notice when I first worked on it) HOWEVER, no matter how hard I tried, one pad was always extended a bit. This confirms the flaky mask bit. It is subtle, but it is enough to throw off the symmetry. I did a few others as well. I’ve decided to replace the photos in the original post with ones of a good new board that don’t have the flaws this one does. I picked a bad example, so fool on me for that.
I must thank you though, because I screwed up one joint that you didn’t point out on the capacitor lead. There was a small hole; apparently a bit of tip flux got in and sealed any chance of solder flowing in. I cleaned it up with wick and redid it and it looks pristine now.
On that note though, I have decided to go over every joint with a loupe and check for errors one more time. I’ll post the follow up images here when I finish.
Also, these joints are what my joints typically look like as well. I used better solder, as you can see, and therefore it was clean and octopus-arm-free. Dirty solder was the main culprit in the drug out solder from earlier.
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