Hasbro tear-downs
I recently gutted a few Hasbro sabers for their soundboards, only to find that in place of solder, Hasbro uses a type of epoxy to hold their boards together. One of these boards needed to be rewired due to some broken wires, and in my attempts to solder new wires to the board I melted the contact point and burnt halfway through the board itself. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how to get around the epoxy on Hasbro boards?
To be honest, it sounds like your iron is too hot, burning a board is pretty hard to do.
Yeah, your iron too hot. Most solders need around 800 degrees f. That's my experience.
Maverick
Too hot...kk, thnx
My iron was cheap and gets WAY TOO HOT!!! Tried it out later today and burnt a hole through my sponge into my table
That said, the Hasbro boards are covered in a thin layer of epoxy and the traces peel up with just a little extra heat. I have a nice Weller soldering station and had a similar problem after my second wire break. Two resolders and the pad peeled off the board. I had to scrape the epoxy off a connected trace and solder to that spot instead. I suggest getting a nice desoldering iron, removing all the original wires (they're too thin and break easily), and soldering on some larger gauge stranded wire in their place. The boards seem to be ok with a good iron and a single resolder. The new wires will prevent later breaks.
mess
I agree that heavier stranded wire would be best on these boards. However, I have to say that the factory solder job sucks. There are huge blobs of solder in places and some places where the solder looks like it is shorting something out. I think I am going to need a ton of de-soldering braid.....
You could get a desoldering pump instead.
Originally Posted by swear000
pump
I just may get one. For now I just cleaned off some excess solder then heated the joint and pushed the extra wire through. I found the type of wire they use at my local hardware store. It is a low voltage hookup wire. It comes as four wires wrapped together as one. It was uber cheap, $5.00 for a whole roll (in a big box).
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks