The Ugly File: Lying liars and the messes they make.

vibroverbus

vibroverbus

Hack of All Trades
So I received a piece of gear this week... Got the classic seller claim "always worked great! until just recently! stopped working and I didn't need it so haven't bothered looking into it!"... Something sniffed funny so I pre-adjusted my expectations...

And sure enough, turn it on and it wants to burn itself up within about 7 seconds. That alone paints specific seller claims about "powers on" as misleading at BEST. Does NOT power on without looking like its going to explode.

And of course, pop the covers and find this disaster mess attempted repair.

Hey kids, how many cold solder joints and burned traces can YOU count?

So much for 'stopped working and so I just left it'...

IMG_3696%20(Small).JPG
 
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14 cold solder joints and 4 burned traces, I can see. And who bothers to clean up flux? Should be a fun clean up job. :D
 
I learned that leason too, that's why I always do a good visual inspection before I power them up. Too bad.
 
Looks retrievable...

HUGE solder blobs (right) cut through with wire cutters - nice
 
:yikes:

Some hacks really should be banned from opening gear or picking up soldering irons. Where do these people come from? With a little instruction, I think a 7-year-old could do better work than that. That said, I've seen my share of boards like that, and even worse, when opening up secondhand gear. There must be a lot of these hacks out there. For some reason, Marantz receivers in particular seem to have attracted a lot of these clowns. [OR maybe I've just opened up more secondhand Marantz receivers, so I've seen more examples there? :dunno:]

Hard to believe the contrast between that and what I saw when opening up the DIY power supply for my GT-2000 TT. The solder joints in that were just barely different enough to tell that they were done by hand, yet each one was nearly perfectly formed, small (but big enough), tight, shiny and uniform, with no visible flux, no distorted blobs, no peaks or tails... just near-perfection. I'm happy when any of my joints approach that standard; whatever unknown Japanese did that work, is an unsung master with a soldering iron, IMO.

I guess the Pareto Principle, audio sub-paragraph 2a, or some such thing decrees that for every one master like that, there must be ten awful hacks out there!
 
visiman said:
that's why I always do a good visual inspection before I power them up.
Click to expand...

Yep! I always power up DUT on my beloved Gen-rad Variac with the sweet built in ammeter, and with a 2amp fast-blow so that fuse blows first if the current draw sneaks up on me when I'm not on the knob.

MelodyMaster said:
However what actually caused the burnup would be those two obvious solder bridges
Click to expand...

Well spotted. Yeah, from further poking, I believe we have the classic "crappy repair which then may have blown up both the replacement component and other things as well!"

I will say having a desoldering station now is just HUGE for messes like this. First thing I do is just vacuum up all the mess that previous idiots left behind, then examine what is left under magnification, flux it up, and then re-flow. Something that would have been an extended wick & sucker job before takes 2 minutes. Slurp!

Hyperion said:
HUGE solder blobs (right) cut through with wire cutters - nice
Click to expand...

Also well spotted. Actually at least 2 3-lead components were a solder-blob trimmed mess like that.

Sir.Byrd said:
Ouch, what was it?
Hopefully you didn't pay too much.
Click to expand...

Not a crisis - I was prepared for the possibility.

It's a scope, and the price I paid was predicated on the fact that I have a 'sister' unit and wanted a parts mule even if it wasn't fixable. Still this one has a couple more bells & whistles than mine and is in great cosmetic condition, so if I can put it back in service eventually I will.

However for now it's going on the parts shelf... When you start to have multiple of particular items in repair status (2 scopes, 2 dist analyzers), you know you need to focus on one thing at a time and get some stuff finished..! At least yesterday I got an HP RF generator fixed and working great. Time to sweep some ceramic IF filters!
 
There is a flip side to this phenomenon. I acquired an HK795i dirt cheap off eBay because it was one of those "right channel just stopped working" deals. Five minutes of circuit tracing led me to a balance pot with one leg reading 85 Kohms; a quick shot of FaderLube, and it's been golden ever since!
 
Wow, I can solder better than that. And I am self thought.

You should see the soldering the engineer I work with does. Have you ever seen anyone create a point to point circuit with surface mount components?
 
Arkay said:
:yikes:

Some hacks really should be banned from opening gear or picking up soldering irons. Where do these people come from? With a little instruction, I think a 7-year-old could do better work than that. That said, I've seen my share of boards like that, and even worse, when opening up secondhand gear. There must be a lot of these hacks out there. For some reason, Marantz receivers in particular seem to have attracted a lot of these clowns. [OR maybe I've just opened up more secondhand Marantz receivers, so I've seen more examples there? :dunno:]

Hard to believe the contrast between that and what I saw when opening up the DIY power supply for my GT-2000 TT. The solder joints in that were just barely different enough to tell that they were done by hand, yet each one was nearly perfectly formed, small (but big enough), tight, shiny and uniform, with no visible flux, no distorted blobs, no peaks or tails... just near-perfection. I'm happy when any of my joints approach that standard; whatever unknown Japanese did that work, is an unsung master with a soldering iron, IMO.

I guess the Pareto Principle, audio sub-paragraph 2a, or some such thing decrees that for every one master like that, there must be ten awful hacks out there!
Click to expand...

See guys, this is why I'm here. I could be that guy-- easy. I have more experience successfully seducing supermodels than I do making even one good solder joint.

Now, tell me how to get it right.

Let's start with this here soldering cleanup station...

I will say having a desoldering station now is just HUGE for messes like this. First thing I do is just vacuum up all the mess that previous idiots left behind, then examine what is left under magnification, flux it up, and then re-flow. Something that would have been an extended wick & sucker job before takes 2 minutes. Slurp!
Click to expand...

and those solder bridges... counting from the left I see 3...
badsolderjob.jpg


Now, maybe y'all should just refer me to a "soldering for newbies" thread, I don't want to hi-jack this one, but how do you keep from being "that guy"? Burning traces, solder-blobiness, etc.

BTW, I'm really glad it landed in your hands next... at least you know how to resurrect it.
 
oneinchside said:
don't want to hi-jack this one, but how do you keep from being "that guy"? Burning traces, solder-blobiness, etc.
Click to expand...

Basically just Give-A-Sh!7 is what it comes down to most, and I think is what the biggest gaps with the hacks seems to be. I've gotten stuff looking almost that bad from guys who have been slinging solder for years, they just never bothered to figure it out or care.

There's loads of 'how to solder' sites on the web... few keys to it like the importance of CLEAN the RIGHT TEMP AND TIMING (neither too hot nor too cold) and accordingly good equipment comes into it (temp controlled makes things SO much easier). I'm sure I'm no 'uber-master' myself but I always strive to have my joints look as good or better than the factory at least... If I get a joint that doesn't, I'll clean it up and start over...

What this guy did wrong? Well if you WANTED to make a mess like this, you'd follow these tips:
  • Don't give it a good inspection before starting - for instance especially don't clean up the slag from burned traces from original failure before re-soldering, and definitely don't look at anything other than the big burned part that obviously caught fire - you'll just be creating more work for yourself if you start getting fussy!
  • Don't clean the old component leads either, that would take time! OK but it might make stuff hard to flow so...
  • Just blob the hell out of everythign with solder when it isn't flowing well. More is BETTER! Start melting the solder first - don't preheat the joint, just melt some solder down on 'em, that'll work! When that doesn't work...
  • Just keep heating the stuff up! Maybe sooner or later it'll flow!
  • Only solder the joints for the parts you're replacing. Definitely don't bother looking for other component joints that might have been burned up by the failure or your bad soldering technique. As long as the parts not falling off the board, it's probably OK!
  • Don't bother to give a detailed inspection afterwards - if it's ugly just chop some globs off with cutters. It'll probably work! Close enough I say! Hey it's only KILOVOLT supply for a CRT flowing in this circuit... that much juice will just power through a bad connection I'm sure! The more power the less important the details are!
:D
 
CallMeJoe said:
There is a flip side to this phenomenon. I acquired an HK795i dirt cheap off eBay because it was one of those "right channel just stopped working" deals. Five minutes of circuit tracing led me to a balance pot with one leg reading 85 Kohms; a quick shot of FaderLube, and it's been golden ever since!
Click to expand...

yes. That's how I get a lot of my older nice gear for free. giveaways from local craigslisters saying "right channel is dead (or distorted)".

Basically I'm pretty honest with them but I don't volunteer that they should buy spray for a few bucks and try cleaning the pots. Most of these people wouldn't have the time/skill/inclination/desire to fix their gear anyway.

I got my c-70 preamp for free because of major issues with it's left channel. I fixed the major issues (those famous relays/powered slider switches). Still occasional dirty contacts when switching inputs, but nothing I can't live with. I'll open it up on wednesday and see if I can fix up those final little flaws.

Lots of time taken on it - so my time is worth money I feel, and the person giving it away was fully aware that it could be repaired by someone technical and gave it to me because he felt I was the guy to work on it and appreciate it.
 
vibroverbus said:
Basically just Give-A-Sh!7 is what it comes down to most, and I think is what the biggest gaps with the hacks seems to be. I've gotten stuff looking almost that bad from guys who have been slinging solder for years, they just never bothered to figure it out or care.

There's loads of 'how to solder' sites on the web... few keys to it like the importance of CLEAN the RIGHT TEMP AND TIMING (neither too hot nor too cold) and accordingly good equipment comes into it (temp controlled makes things SO much easier). I'm sure I'm no 'uber-master' myself but I always strive to have my joints look as good or better than the factory at least... If I get a joint that doesn't, I'll clean it up and start over...

What this guy did wrong? Well if you WANTED to make a mess like this, you'd follow these tips:
  • Don't give it a good inspection before starting - for instance especially don't clean up the slag from burned traces from original failure before re-soldering, and definitely don't look at anything other than the big burned part that obviously caught fire - you'll just be creating more work for yourself if you start getting fussy!
  • Don't clean the old component leads either, that would take time! OK but it might make stuff hard to flow so...
  • Just blob the hell out of everythign with solder when it isn't flowing well. More is BETTER! Start melting the solder first - don't preheat the joint, just melt some solder down on 'em, that'll work! When that doesn't work...
  • Just keep heating the stuff up! Maybe sooner or later it'll flow!
  • Only solder the joints for the parts you're replacing. Definitely don't bother looking for other component joints that might have been burned up by the failure or your bad soldering technique. As long as the parts not falling off the board, it's probably OK!
  • Don't bother to give a detailed inspection afterwards - if it's ugly just chop some globs off with cutters. It'll probably work! Close enough I say! Hey it's only KILOVOLT supply for a CRT flowing in this circuit... that much juice will just power through a bad connection I'm sure! The more power the less important the details are!
:D
Click to expand...

I think "the right temp" is the part that I haven't gotten yet... and it looks like you have to plunk down $40-$100 to get that control.

*sigh*
another thing to save up for.
or maybe this plus a 30w iron:http://www.instructables.com/id/10ish_DIY_Variable_Temp_Soldering_Iron_Controller/
 
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