Component level repair and desoldering

[thirty-six]

It's something I have considered, electronic repair did earn my bread and butter many moons ago. At the time what was avaialable cost hundreds and would have saved me 1/2 hour some days. The relative expense then was too high. Today they are available for =A340 or so, but I can't justify the space in my home (whisky), despite my desire for a quirky tool. I rarely come across repairable items which cannot otherwise be dealt with. If I ever got stuck, other than "I could use a desoldering unit" then I would reconsider buying one. At less than =A380 there is no question today, if it was for professional use where it was used 10 times a day, I would buy. It is still not necessarily the best choice for professional use, a soldering iron has a reater bit choice for dealing with close circuits.

[thirty-six]

Were they using chokes?

[Theo Markettos]

Is that essentially a solder sucker but with continuous vacuum, so no plunger? A bit like those things that dentists use to clean up your mouth after they've done the 'job'.

I've found solder wick to be good for removing solder (and on modern work the quantities are usually small): the key is to add a little fresh solder to the wick on the joint to make it flow properly. Fluxing the wick also helps.

Theo

[Alan]

In message , DerbyBoy wrote

But with modern electronics you can take one pixel from CCTV and reconstruct a high definition image from it as seen all of the time on CSI.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

More a soldering iron with a hole up the middle of the bit with a vacuum pump on the other end. With a few various filters between. A good one is quick and very satisfactory to use. The hole can fit over the component lead 'tail' and once the solder is melted you wiggle it slightly with the pump running. Makes removing something like a multi-pin socket or whatever pretty easy. But mainly for conventional sized stuff.

Yes - and much cheaper than a desolder station. But if you do a lot of repair work the latter is invaluable. Perhaps the most famous make is Pace, from the US. Their older units come up pretty often on Ebay, but are much larger than a modern one - and often 110v only. Other good make is Royal - but spares can be difficult.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

This VHS was a first generation S-VHS dating from about '90 (cost over

1000 quid), and failed within a few years. Luckily the caps were an obvious problem - one had burst open. It's done the same a couple of times since.

[John Rumm]

Just like these I expect:

(from a system new in late 2006)

[NT]

Yes, maybe.

>> (which while not actually a massively difficult task with the right

It always applies, repairing something electronic without knowing whats wrong is very unlikely to work out. Maybe it does belong in its own article, but its a vital step in the process.

and microwaves.

[John Rumm]

They are usually a combination of a high power iron, and a vacuum pump. Often come with a foot switch or trigger on the iron to engage the suck. Much easier to use than the manual pumps with a separate iron.

[NT]

That might work out if we avoid microwaves

NT

[NT]

The first I had was a Philips G8. It used a thyristor to switch mains each half cycle on or off, so it ran at 100Hz. It worked, but the voltage output was far from steady.

NT

[John Rumm]

I guess it depends on if you mean communications or ovens... (the latter being somewhat beyond the scope of what I had in mind anyway)

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, but in the form of minature ferrite inductors.

[Graham.]

So baking a faulty motherboard at gas regulo 6 for an hour is not reccomended?

[Graham.]

Perhaps he means crystal ovens followed by a lot of frequency multiplication.

[Bernard Peek]

Depends whether you want to fix it or get revenge on it.

[thirty-six]

Does that bring some cap's back to life?

[thirty-six]

Only when wearing jeans.

[Graham.]

Why? if you disregard those with inverter derived HT, they are amongst the easiest domestic appliances to repair.

As for safety, yes there are dangers, but the precautions to take are straightforward enough.

The poor old microwave oven has got itself a reputation in this regard that I don't think it deserves.

[John Rumm]

You miss my point, it was not that method is not important - obviously it is. It was that we are not about to intentionally fill an guide with the "wild guesses" one might get in the normal flow of a usenet thread.