![\"Materials\"](\"http:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/P104SV.jpg\" "\\"Materials\\"")
<\/a>Stuff you will need.<\/p><\/div>\n
*Note that you can do the drilling before tinning if you wish but then it’s difficult to clean the excess flux out of the holes.<\/p>\n
Precautions:<\/strong><\/p>\n Note that if you’re thinking of using a desk fan to blow away the fumes, make sure to keep it away from your soldering iron – otherwise your soldering iron will be cooled by the air flow from the fan.<\/p>\n First a little prep work:<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 Using the wire brush clean the debris out of the grooves of the flat file.\u00a0 Bastard-cut files are generally single-cut so you can brush along the grooves to get rid of all the swarf.\u00a0 This is an important first step and shouldn’t be skipped.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 Next, get yourself a small slug of solder.\u00a0 You can either melt a couple of feet of 18 or 22 SWG cored solder or use a solder bar or\u00a0 (if you’ve been doing some de-solder work lately) you can make a slug of solder out of the debris ejected from your de-solder pump.\u00a0 The slug in the photos is about 15mm in diameter and 4mm thick.<\/p>\n 3. You will also need a small tub of brown flux jelly.\u00a0 Apparently this is also called red flux jelly.\u00a0 Anyhow, you can buy it in the UK from Rapid Electronics<\/a>.\u00a0 Other flux products may do but you should make sure your product is non-corrosive and suitable for light electrical soldering.<\/p>\n Procedure:<\/strong><\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Switch your soldering iron on so it has time to get nice and hot.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 Clean the etch-resist off your circuit board.\u00a0 If you used photo-resist then acetone will clean it off.\u00a0 If you used laser toner then elbow grease and an abrasive is the order-of-the-day.\u00a0 Either way finish off with a solvent cleaner such as acetone, isopropyl alcohol or mineralised methylated spirit.<\/p>\n Nice clean copper.<\/p><\/div>\n 6.\u00a0 As soon as you finish cleaning the board, apply a fairly liberal coating of jelly flux.\u00a0 Don’t wait because otherwise the copper will start to oxidise.<\/p>\n Lashings of flux jelly!<\/p><\/div>\n 7.\u00a0 Lay down a clean sheet of A4 printer paper on your workbench and place the flux-covered circuit board in the middle. Using the file and the slug of solder “grate” the solder over the circuit board and surrounding area. You are looking for a very light coating of solder filings. Less really is<\/em> more!\u00a0 Don’t be tempted to create solder swarf by another method and then sprinkle them on – you will<\/em> overdo it.<\/p>\n 8. \u00a0 Make sure the tip of your soldering iron is clean and free of debris (it doesn’t need to be tinned – and it shouldn’t have a huge blob of solder on the end).\u00a0 Hold the soldering iron tip flat to the surface and rub the iron back and forth across the circuit board.\u00a0 As you do so, the tip will pick up the particles of solder and spread them thinly over the board.<\/p>\n Work in Progress.<\/p><\/div>\n 9.\u00a0 The trick is to use plenty of flux and get the right amount of solder filings on the board.\u00a0 It’s best to start with too few solder filings because you can always add more (or pick up some of the filings from around the edge of the board with your soldering iron – this is why you have a clean sheet of white paper under your board).\u00a0 If you get the amount of solder just right you will get a very thin layer of solder.\u00a0 Too little solder and the effect doesn’t work; too much solder and, well, too much is too much<\/em>.\u00a0 Experiment to find the best result.<\/p>\n 10.\u00a0 When the board is completely covered with a thin layer of solder, wash off the excess flux with acetone.<\/p>\n Partially finished (and cleaned) PCB.<\/p><\/div>\n 11.\u00a0 You’re done!<\/p>\n I learned this technique a good few years ago from an old boy who was a prototype wireman for a large electronics company.\u00a0 I’ve never seen it mentioned on the Internet so I thought I would write it up as a how-to. You will need the following: Your circuit board – after etching and before\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1450,"href":"https:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/1450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stompville.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"