Tag: Soldering

Voltlog #256 – Best BST-863 Hot Air Rework Station (Alternative to Quick 861DW)

Inside the box of the BST-863 we have the station, a really nice and heavy stand for the tool piece, a total of 3 nozzles, a grounding strap and a power cord. The first thing I notice is the hose which pretty thick, certainly thicker than what I had on my old Gordak station but seems to be softer material. The way it’s designed with the tool standing vertically in the stand makes the air hose forms this loop which depending on your bench setup might or might not bother you but it’s something to consider. But I like the quality of the stand, it’s heavy and feels very sturdy, you get this accessory here which allows you to remove the nozzles while hot and the station has a sensor to detect when the handle is in the stand.

Adjustment of temperature and air level is made through this touch screen control. I’m a bit anti touch screen control on test gear so I would’ve preferred some switches on the front panel but don’t get me wrong, the touch screen works well on this unit, it has nice big touch keys and after setting up your presets you are likely  not going to need to adjust the temperature you will just be using the presets like leaded, lead free and another one for heatshrink maybe.

Is this cheaper station a good alternative to the Quick 861DW? This video review should provide you with enough info to decide which one to buy.

Here are some high resolution images from the teardown:

Voltlog #252 – How to fix a solder bridge

Welcome to a new Voltlog, today I want to talk about solder bridges and show you how to deal with them. A solder bridge can happen for many reasons, incorrect soldering temperature, incorrect amount of solder being used, too little or no flux, or just the incorrect technique for soldering but they all basically mean the same thing , a blob of solder shorting two or more conductive surfaces on your PCB.

Modern printed circuit boards which typically get soldermask coverage even between IC pins will help prevent this problem because molten solder normally doesn’t stick to the soldermask surface and so it’s harder to form a bridge across that surface.

But even with enough experience and the proper technique solder bridges can still happen if you do hand soldering on fine pitch ICs, it’s just part of the soldering job. It’s true that as you get better at soldering they will happen less often but don’t think they go away forever. So it’s good to know how to deal with them.

Voltlog #249 – Making Some USB Serial Converter Boards With CH340E (part 1)

Welcome to a new video, today I’m building a bunch of usb to serial converter boards because if you are into electronics and microcontrollers you will for sure need a bunch of usb to serial converters to connect your boards to a computer for example.

The idea for building these boards started when I found the CH340E converter chip on aliexpress, I like several things about this chip, it was small because it comes in MSOP10 package, it was cheap at about $0.40 a piece and it requires minimal external circuitry, in fact it only needs an external bypass cap.

Voltlog #243 – TS80 VS KSGER T12 Soldering Iron Comparison

Welcome to a new Voltlog, yet another soldering iron comparison video and today it’s between the TS80 and the KSGER T12 station. Everyone knows the TS80, is quite a popular portable soldering iron, works with USB type C input, it needs a quick charge compatible adapter to reach full power and it’s quite a capable soldering iron. The drawback is the cost of the tips, it uses this proprietary type of tip and the cost is about $20 a piece.

On the other hand we have the KSGER soldering station which I reviewed in Voltlog #232. This station has a built in power supply and uses the well known T12 tips which are widely available on aliexpress, for example you can get KSGER T12 branded tips for about $3 a piece. I think that’s important, because I have 2-3 different tip shapes that I use regularly and maybe another 2 or 3 that I use occasionally for odd jobs. You can’t just rely on a single tip shape and purchasing the same number of tips for the TS80, is not going to be cheap.

Voltlog #210 – 946C Hot Plate Review & Teardown

Welcome to a new Voltlog, today we’re gonna do a review and teardown of this hot plate which was supplied for free by banggood.com. So you would use something like this to preheat a pcb, to prepare it for desoldering an IC or even for reflow soldering a board. As usual there will be links placed in the description below which I encourage you to check out. There is a 100x100mm version at 400W and a 200x200mm version which I have here at 800W.

If you haven’t worked with a multi layer pcb you might ask yourself why do I need to pre-heat the board. Well modern devices uses a high number of internal pcb layers so desoldering something from those might be harder if you only heat the board from the top with hot air, it might take some time until the IC reaches desoldering temperature because the heat is sucked away by the internal copper layers.

This could be bad for the board and the IC because you will need to increase the temperature of your hot air station above the normal working temperature to compensate for that and in the process you might damage the board or the IC. Such a tool allows you to bring the board to a higher temperature without creating any hot spots, and then you can just heat with hot air from the top the are where you need to work.

Voltlog #179 – How To Solder Through-Hole Parts

In this video I’m gonna show you how to solder through hole parts. I’m gonna take you step by step through the procedure as well as give you several tips & tricks that should bring your soldering skills to a new level.

Links for all the tools and parts shown in this video are placed in the video description.

Voltlog #161 – How To Assemble SMD Parts

In this video I’m gonna show you 3 methods to solder SMD parts but before we get to the actual methods I think it’s best to talk about the type of solder to be used. And there are two main types of solder that you can use, that is leaded or lead free solder. If you are doing prototype work it’s best to stick with leaded solder or solder paste because it’s easier to get right, it has a lower melting temperature. If you are doing production work, you plan to sell those boards, than you might be forced to use lead free solder to be compliant with the regulation.

Here are links to the items shown in this video:

Voltlog #140 – ISDT Q6 Plus Lipo Charger Repair

Welcome to a new Voltlog, this will be a repair video, because my ISDT Q6 Plus battery charger has failed. If you remember Voltlog #109 I did a review of this charger and I’ve been using it quite often since I got it, with no issues whatsoever, until a few days ago, I think I was just storage charging some batteries, I did 2 batteries and when it was time for the 3rd battery to go on it would not start anymore, it was saying, “current operation is not supported”.

Get the ISDT Q6 Plus here:

Voltlog #99 – Samsung TV Power Supply Board Repair MK32P5T BN44-00213A

In this video I am repairing a power supply board from a Samsung TV. The part number for the power supply board is MK32P5T (BN44-00213A). The TV was showing the stand-by led but refused to turn on. It turns out this was a common problem with a simple fix.

Here are links to some of the tools used in this video: