Novel soldering technique

[John Rumm]

I had to laugh:

That ain't gonna work ;-)

(even if you ignore the cap in the space silk screened for Q1!)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

But the very idea of using a gas flame type iron on a PCB fills me with horror. Perhaps for an emergency repair in the field - but to build a project as in that pic?

[whisky-dave]

I thought soldering to the top of the board rather than the underneath was the worse error. We use a hot air gun to solder and desolder some things but never a flame.

[Chris Bartram]

It looks similar to a gas-powered iron I had as a field engineer years ago: the flame heated some sort of catalyst behind the tip, so no flame gets near the work. You still needed to be careful with it- only good for emergency use (and for shrinking heatshrink).

[tabbypurr]

The heat should shrink the plastic sleeve out the way, and melt what remains. The iron likely has enough grunt to solder to the cap's case, which is connected to -ve, so it should work... for some odd value of work.

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

I've used something similar for field repairs to RC model planes etc, many years ago.

It's pretty handy for car work too - solder is in many ways better than crimps if its mechanically supported.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Hardly. It appears to be a single sided board. The heat would need to transfer from the case of the cap to the lead - and you'd still not get the multicore near the work. Then you have the problem of the positive...

[pamela]

Corr, you must have good vision to have spotted that lettering!

[John Rumm]

Na, I have a zoom function ;-)

[tabbypurr]

You've completely misunderstood.

NT

[Graham.]

I suppose it's covered by "Images are for illustrative purposes only", although how that works as a disclaimer has always escaped me.

[Tim Streater]

I just hold the Control key down and scroll the mouse button. Everything zooms.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Good to know it meets the relevant US child standard. The photographer has some way to go.

[John Rumm]

Me too then... no amount of soldering to the case is going to move the tracks on the PCB to that side!

[John Rumm]

Yup that works, but zooms everything...

I find that for looking at an image closely, right clicking and doing a "view image" to open it in a new tab by itself, and then zooming that works well.

[Tim Streater]

Unfortunately that image doesn't have enough resolution.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Are you viewing it on a phone? The Q1 legend is clearly visible here without zooming or whatever. Just above C11.

[Syd Rumpo]

Actually, the gas burns without a flame. The catalyst lowers the reaction temperature to below the ignition temperature, or something roughly like that.

Cheers

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I've read Mr Purr's comment again and still don't get it. ;-)

[Adrian Caspersz]

That PCB seems to be from a 30 Watt stereo amplifier assembly kit.

Someone has been studying that aforementioned Ladybird book ... it looks nice!