Worst soldering you've ever seen?

[Phaedrus]

We just got sent this board from our office in China. I was appalled. I couldn't solder this poorly if you paid me. I refused to hook it up to our equipment. I'd want to spend a couple hours with a multimeter and the Weller before I risked hooking it up...

Have you ever seen solder this bad in person? I've seen one or two worse on the internet, but I've never seen something this bad up close.

Large resolution (THE HORROR):

[XOIIO]

Oh wow.

Worst I've seen was in some thread where a guy butchered his kit and demanded  refund when it did not work properly, and the thing was a complete mess. Think it was in the "worst customer you've dealt with" thread or something like that.

[CrashO]

Wow....

I think even Stevie Wonder would do a job 10 times better than that.
How the pineapple did they even manage to get the solder everywhere on the groundplane? 

[cimmo]

It looks like someone's loaded the end of the iron with gobs of solder then just flicked it all over the board!
 

[mariush]

Here's that thread:  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/horrible-solder-job-buyer-wants-money-back-after-butchering-kit-with-his-skill/

I remember it because I started the thread.

[T3sl4co1l]

Looks like they don't have the benefit of leaded solder and rosin flux, either.

Tim

[Phaedrus]

There's flux residue all over the board. Whatever he was using, it was probably rosin-cored. I think that he was using 60/40 on an RoHS HASL board or something.

[coppice]

We just got sent this board from our office in China. I was appalled. I couldn't solder this poorly if you paid me. I refused to hook it up to our equipment. I'd want to spend a couple hours with a multimeter and the Weller before I risked hooking it up...

Somewhere in your 40s you'll probably start wearing reading glasses, and then you will think more kindly of bad soldering. 

[Joule Thief]

In your 50's you won't be able to handle SMD's without dropping them on the rug (goodbye forever) and when you hit 60's, it won't matter since you won't remember where you put the roll of solder !! 

[Joule Thief]

I would submit this one to the thread.

I'm working on this as we speak. A piece of commercial test gear from the 80's I believe.

[nctnico]

I can't show the worst soldering I've seen because the board didn't survive. The guy who did that was beyond any hope of ever soldering something right 

[DenzilPenberthy]

Some shining examples from a device that's on my bench at the moment. My client paid >£300 and waited 3 months for this. It contains <£10 worth of parts and doesn't even work. 

Edit: To clarify... they bought it from someone else and I'm fixing it

[richard.cs]

I've seen worse but it was done by a 12 year old on her first attempt at soldering. Most of the copper was missing from the PCB.

[Radio Tech]

I would submit this one to the thread.

I'm working on this as we speak. A piece of commercial test gear from the 80's I believe.

That must have been soldered during the jarrasic era   

[Joule Thief]

I would submit this one to the thread.

I'm working on this as we speak. A piece of commercial test gear from the 80's I believe.

That must have been soldered during the jarrasic era   

saw my little "easter egg" in that 2nd photo - good on you!

[XOIIO]

I would submit this one to the thread.

I'm working on this as we speak. A piece of commercial test gear from the 80's I believe.

That must have been soldered during the jarrasic era   

Exactly what I was thinking.

Now you just need to extract the DNA from it and make an island adventure park!

[Psi]

I saw someone at uni totally butcher a PCB with hook up wire and terrible soldering EVERYWHERE.

The really infuriating think was that he did get the circuit working, much to everyone's surprise.

[GreyWoolfe]

I wish I had pictures to show.  ELO touchscreen monitors supposedly bought refurbished had lifted traces, cold solder joints, no solder joints and covered in flux.  There were 3 capacitors in the power supply board that would go bad.  Sometimes they were simply bulged, sometimes all that was left was the base of the cap and the rest scattered inside the monitor.  I think I ended up fixing about 50 because no one on that project felt comfortable taking apart the monitors and replacing 3 capacitors.  The work looked like it was done by blind left pawed dogs using right handed equipment.  The repair was simple but the paperwork was a pain as I had to track my time for that project, including travel time to get the equipment to the pack and ship, and break it out on my timesheet because of different cost codes plus use a different cost code when shipping the equipment back, plus using the different cost code for buying the replacement parts to get properly reimbursed.  Through hole parts replacement isn't that hard and the company that "refurbished" those monitors deserve multiple  and 

[Relayer]

One of my ex-bosses had to be the worst I've ever seen.
Though what amazed me is the fact that he was doing warranty repair work for major companies: Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp etc.
I found out a few years after I left his employ, that when some of the major companies that pulled him up on the shoddy solder work, he told them it was his techs, me included, that were the culprits. 
Regards,
Relayer

[avaldezc92]

It seems that it was make on porpuse. I've never seen something like that. I've seen really really bad designs. One boss route VCC and GND crossing each other. I don't know what he was thinking.

[VK3DRB]

I had a more expensive type of Philips digital clock radio that was giving intermittent trouble about 15 years ago. I opened it up and was shocked by the deplorable soldering in side. Hand soldered, cheap arse components, disgraceful component mounting, insufficient solder and dry joints everywhere. It was the worst soldering I have ever seen on a consumer product from a so-called reputable brand. Made in China of course. When so-called named brands start producing crap, sacrificing quality to save a few bucks, it scares customers off.

I have never bought anything with the Philips brand since. Would not even consider them.

[GreyWoolfe]

One of my ex-bosses had to be the worst I've ever seen.
Though what amazed me is the fact that he was doing warranty repair work for major companies: Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp etc.
I found out a few years after I left his employ, that when some of the major companies that pulled him up on the shoddy solder work, he told them it was his techs, me included, that were the culprits. 
Regards,
Relayer

Why should he own up to his incompetency when he can easily shove it off on others

[N2IXK]

Why should he own up to his incompetency when he can easily shove it off on others

Isn't that principle taught the first week in business school?

[tom66]

I don't even... Found this attempted repair on a plasma TV power supply.

[Dave Turner]

Regarding the original photo I suspect that there are a lot of dry joints too judging by the appearance - completely unacceptable.

For decades my soldering iron for electronics was a 15W Antex plugged directly into the mains. I've got at least 4 such irons of varying wattages. Whilst such irons are derided these days I  built many electronic projects successfully with them and despite now owning a good temperature controlled unit I will still keep my old ones.

With age my biggest problem now is to finely manipulate solder, iron, wire and socket without shaking, thus causing bad joints. Once upon a time I could do all this with just my fingers but no longer.  Now I need two extra hands to hold everything steady. Everything takes 10 times longer.  Aah well.

[jakeypoo]

Somewhat related, pick and place error. As seen on an arduino mega.

Cap lodged under the SO8 kept it from getting soldered down. Co-worker brought it to me asking why it would only work if the external power source was plugged in and not just from USB.

[G7PSK]

I would submit this one to the thread.

I'm working on this as we speak. A piece of commercial test gear from the 80's I believe.

Can you get a DNA sample from the bug in the rosin.

[zapta]

... when you hit 60's, it won't matter since you won't remember where you put the roll of solder !! 

Mount it on the walker or ask your care giver to find it.

[TerraHertz]

Wow. That's probably bad enough to charge royalties as an 'artwork'.
Like this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.388740-Woman-Demands-Royalties-on-Destroyed-Jesus-Fresco

[Andy Watson]

I think this one has appeared before on the EEVBlog:
http://xenu.com-it.net/meter/e-meter_e.htm

I had assumed that these things were made in somebody's garage, on a one-off basis, but apparently not!
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/E-Meter/

[KB8CWB]

The absolute WORST soldering job I have seen was from the stone age and was made in Chicago of all places.  Mind you I am a fan of Hallicrafters, but this S-19R looked like someone flung solder at it from 20 paces.  Not only that some of the terminals had so much solder on them and were cold joints I am amazed it even worked!  And it had been untouched I am sure as all of the original components were there, dogbone resisters you name it.  I probably had to redo well over half of the joints.  What a pain for such a mediocre radio... 

So much for quality in America.  I suppose even then it was a fallacy.  Especially for cheap stuff built to a price point. 

On a positive note I think it lost a good half pound or so from all the excess solder I removed.  I have seen Heathkits where people didn't know what they were doing look better then this thing.... 

[mamalala]

I think this one has appeared before on the EEVBlog:
http://xenu.com-it.net/meter/e-meter_e.htm

I had assumed that these things were made in somebody's garage, on a one-off basis, but apparently not!
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/E-Meter/

Well, since those things don't do anything useful by default, and are there to just randomly wiggle a meter movement, i think it doesn't really matter how it looks on the inside As long as it wiggles the movement enough, so that the suckers can be relieved of their money, they work as intended...

Greetings,

Chris

[sacherjj]

I think this one has appeared before on the EEVBlog:
http://xenu.com-it.net/meter/e-meter_e.htm

I had assumed that these things were made in somebody's garage, on a one-off basis, but apparently not!
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/E-Meter/

Well, since those things don't do anything useful by default, and are there to just randomly wiggle a meter movement, i think it doesn't really matter how it looks on the inside As long as it wiggles the movement enough, so that the suckers can be relieved of their money, they work as intended...

I believe that tons of left over flux is actually a good thing to trap the Thetans. 

[Flump]

a microphone i bought off ebay

[sunnyhighway]

a microphone i bought off ebay

Ouch... When I fixed my walkman headphone, on a camping trip, with a nail heated up with a camping-gas burner as a soldering-iron replacement it looked better than that.

[cloudscapes]

Large resolution (THE HORROR):

I'm imagining some person buying those overpriced spools of like a foot of pipe solder to use it on this.