The actual reason between superfine conical tips and chisel tips .

[T4P]

Anyone of you who used a superfine conical tip then switched over to a chisel tip must have realized :
Go look at your previous joints with a conical tip ? How does it look like ?
For me it was 70% dry and 30% wet .
After i reworked the entire board ( phew )
completely wetted properly .
Goes to show that really , conical tips are only as good as a baboon licking his own arse .
EDIT : Some pictures .

[codeboy2k]

the contact patch for a conical tip will be smaller than the same sized chisel tip, so you'll get more heating of the pad with a chisel tip.

By the way, ease up on the solder just a tad. no disrespect meant, I can see you know how to solder, but really you don't need that much.
I can see some joints look a little overfull there.  Most people like to put on enough solder until they can see it ball up, but by then it's usually
too much.  A really good joint on through-holes is actually deeply concave.

for SMD devices you should barely be able to see the solder at all just under the pins, again making a nice concave shape all around
from pin to pad.

Cheers!

[siliconmix]

thats not the same board is it ?

[T4P]

Not the same board , but i know , these boards are old .
I didn't have my kester 0.4mm solder then , nowadays my boards are all SMD and the joints are sweet 

[GeoffS]

That soldering would have gotten me a fail from my RAAF instructor!
We had to solder to NASA standards, something like this. Doubt I could do it now though.

[T4P]

That soldering would have gotten me a fail from my RAAF instructor!
We had to solder to NASA standards, something like this. Doubt I could do it now though.

I know ! The soldering is amateurish because i have not done a through hole board for months ! Therefore i don't have a good soldered board to show .
This was all before i got my kester 0.4mm solder

[quantumfall]

I started off soldering with a slanted tipped iron "bevel" in the 1970's they worked but later most of the repair engineers at a board level in house repair / maintenance company liked the conicle tips and weller low voltage irons.

So I tried them and found them quiet good, this is all with through hole boards.  The knack was to use the side of the tip not the very point. 60/40 solder with 22 SWG size and flux cored of course.

I've noticed the new Hakko type tips only have a very small iron plated end which is a bit short for my taste.

No disrespect but when the solder balls up like that it is usually when the component lead has not wetted properly.

Very important, you need to clean the leads of the components and the pads so they are bright and clean, more so the leads, I lightly drag a sharp blade along the leads several times to clean off the oxides.

You need to apply the solder to the iron with it at the joint and form a bridge between Iron, component lead and the pad at the same time , then heat until the solder flows it will suck into the joint, this process takes about 2 second or a fraction longer if your iron is the right size for the job. Start with a clean wetted tip.

Use just enough solder to fill the gap between the lead and the pad.

I hold the iron for 0.5 - 1 second more to make sure enough heat is there to make the solder alloy form at the junctions of the parts.

I was told that the solder makes an alloy at the surface it is on but it needs to reach the right temperature to do that but I'm not a metallurgist, what significance that has I do not know.

I have used this technique for years without a problem. Its what I was shown at "Control Data Institute" in London using US Navy based Videos, its so long ago I've forgotten if we did practical soldering, I think there must have been but I had been soldering since about 10 or 12 years old so probably did not bother at the time.

[SeanB]

Guess where i did work on this board.


crDSC01484 by SeanB_ZA, on Flickr

[GeoffS]

That board reminds me of my mainframe repair days!

Standard DIP packages with the legs splayed out for 'surface mount'.
Like the PCB too, all curves, no angled corners on tracks,

[SeanB]

Designed in the early 60's. Try to guess the functions it does.

[T4P]

Designed in the early 60's. Try to guess the functions it does.

If i'm not guessing that wrong , it might look like scsi ? or GPIB ?

[codeboy2k]

That board reminds me of my mainframe repair days!

Standard DIP packages with the legs splayed out for 'surface mount'.
Like the PCB too, all curves, no angled corners on tracks,

I used to make PCB's this way at home long, long ago... I laid out the IC templates, edge connectors, etc... joined them with black paper tape on translucent mylar sheets at 1x scale.
I never did any thing at 2x or 4x scale like this board might have been done for mass production.

I did occasionally make a contact print and develop it on a high contrast Kodak or AGFA reversal film, if I wanted to keep the layout. The tape and mylar wasn't durable and didn't last long.
This made really nice A4 sized contact sheets of very high contrast.  I started making double sided boards this way at home too.

Later I got a job at an embedded systems company, and I didn't have time anymore.. Then that company *BOUGHT* a local PCB manufacturer they were outsourcing to, and moved us and
that PCB shop into a new building, with us upstairs and the PCB manufacturing downstairs.  So I befriended the managers of the PCB division and got them to make a few hobby runs for me.
This was all my fun in the late 80's and early 90's LOL

cheers!

[GeoffS]

Designed in the early 60's. Try to guess the functions it does.

If i'm not guessing that wrong , it might look like scsi ? or GPIB ?

GPIB wasn't released until late 60's, SCSI in the late 70's.

[metalphreak]

I actually don't mind conical tips. I almost actually prefer then to chisel tips depending on what i'm soldering.

You do need to apply a different style when using conical though. Applying solder directly to the tip where it contacts the pin you are soldering helps the heat flow rather quickly and doesn't tend to heat up the device as much.

To each their own I guess 

[T4P]

I actually don't mind conical tips. I almost actually prefer then to chisel tips depending on what i'm soldering.

You do need to apply a different style when using conical though. Applying solder directly to the tip where it contacts the pin you are soldering helps the heat flow rather quickly and doesn't tend to heat up the device as much.

To each their own I guess 

I used to do that and still created a massive mess on conical tips .
I have never actually used the classic method of heating up the component with my conical though , i tried once and it just wouldn't go .

[SeanB]

It actually is a RAM board ( the 2 Mostek 4007 packages in purple ceramic) along with the memory controller ( part of it, the rest was over another 5 boards) and some self test logic ( the flatpack with no lid, caused by a little overvoltage event from the PSU) along with 2 positions for doing modifications ( the right side with the unpopulated flatpack lands) if needed.

You will not find info easily on the 4007 chips.

[T4P]

It's amazing what 50 years did to technology .



While the spacemen flew to the moon on 64kb , girls are snapping away with their 64gb flash memory overly expensive iphones : duckfaces .

Now behold :

This is just 512GB , i'd seen a 2TB SSD at a recent IT show .

[SeanB]

Those were 192 words of 12 bits, serial memory. Worked well at it's function, and was pretty good at it ( better than the operators for sure).

the test bench used all TTL, and fusible link PROMS as well. Programmed a few of those as well, with a breadboard and wire links.

[Randall W. Lott]

I've been using a conical tip with relatively thick solder for years.  I've had mostly good results, but I just ordered a chisel tip and fine solder since I trust Dave.  I'm looking forward to it!  The reasoning behind it makes total sense.

[dcel]

I've soldered PCB's with a Weller 8200 soldering GUN. Car audio amplifers are the worst, everything is heatsinked, either remove a thousand screws to get the board off the heatsink/chassis or brute force solder with a gun. Worked well but you have to use the low trigger pull and be really fast.

I guess it's preference or skill as to what tip you use, I find I like the angle tips which are a truncated conical, 2mm to 2.4mm, but I have as large as 4mm and as small as .02mm ( it looks like a needle). I started using the angle tip repairing audio/sound reinforcement equipment because removing through-hole components and cleaning out the hole for the replacement part was faster and much easier. Like putting your foot down on a towel to pick up a spill, the 'foot' of the angle tip used with braid prep'd the pads and holes quickly. If you have a large part sinking heat away from the joint, flip the tip 'foot' to pin/lead and concentrate heat to the lead and heat bridge to the pad.

Just my thoughts... YMMV...

Chris

[T4P]

I have problems with a soldering gun ergonomically . I just can't solder anything ... with it .

[Randall W. Lott]

I've been using a conical tip with relatively thick solder for years.  I've had mostly good results, but I just ordered a chisel tip and fine solder since I trust Dave.  I'm looking forward to it!  The reasoning behind it makes total sense.

As an update, my new chisel tip, flux, and solder works like magic!  I hand soldered a "half-pad?" device with no issues.

I forgot, could anyone please mention what this package type is?

[T4P]

... i thought you were showing me a corrupted image , but that doesn't look right to me ... at least me ...

[Randall W. Lott]

The image is correct.

I found that they are called "Leadless Chip Carrier (LLC)".