[jdkJake]

This way i can even take the crappy one I got from amazon and repackage it into the home depot stuff and return it to them. If they notice, "oh man my mistake, sorry, the other one looks the exact same, i must have gotten them mixed up". if they dont notice, i just got a free 40 watt soldering iron with a fine tip

Please explain to me why Home Depot (and indirectly, the rest of us folks who shop there) has to pay for your mistake?

 

[shrimants]

technically, home depot will get a fully functioning 15 dollar soldering iron in the package of a 20 dollar soldering iron. they will send it back to weller, who will give them back a 20 dollar soldering iron and throw out the original since weller doesnt even sell it anymore. btw, your post is off topic.

 

[jdkJake]

You have much to learn about life my young friend....

 

[Mullet]

Haha... young padawan...
 
I can't tell you what the morally correct thing to do with regards to pulling the switcheroo on Home Depot... been down that road myself. But, I can tell you if you're going to be doing tons of DIY you might as well spend the money on an adjustable heat iron. You will thank me later.

 

[shrimants]

I'm not entirely prepared to stomach the cost of an adjustable iron just yet. This entire project is funded by my dad due to my good grades, and he was expecting a 130 dollar investment. I managed to spend a little over 200 on just parts and another 100 on all the equipment. Previously all i had was one of those 30 watt radioshack firestarters and it had everything from wood to carpet fibers burnt onto it. The tips they sold were crap to begin with and that was the soldering iron i used when i didnt even know about 'tinning the tip' and such, so it was basically like soldering with nothing but oxidized metal. i am looking for a summer job but between my girlfriend draining my allowance every weekend and my parents not wanting to give me more than 30 a week im not really able to spend on a big fancy iron until I either get a job or refuse to go out with the gf for a few weeks at a time. And I already tried the whole staying in thing when I was trying to afford the turbines and i heard about how bored she was every single day, multiple times a day.

On a brighter note, my parts should be here today so i'm gonna give this new soldering iron a whirl very very soon. Still gotta order that chip quik.

EDIT: as for the moral compass thing, we just dropped almost 400 bucks this weekend alone on lawn supplies and flowers and junk for the long weekend, so i hardly feel bad about skimming 15 bucks off of them.

 

[MisterX]

Try that we spent almost $400 nonsense with a circuit court judge and let me know how it works out.

 

[Ntropic]

Personally, I wouldn't have gone for the y2 just yet, and I certainly would have included the cost of equipment. I went with a WES51 (because the 936 was just sold out) for my iron, and an ETO tip for SMD. Hasn't failed me yet, although I don't seem to be able to get the TI chip working on the y1. Whatever. I just feed it through coaxial, and power delivery is fine. Works perfectly (after I ordered some transistors to replace the wrong ones I put in...).
 
Your may or may not look shiny for SMD. I think it's all the flux sitting on top, or how little solder sits on top of the pin. Most of it's on the bottom and around the back. As long as you don't get a bridge, you'll be fine. Those voltage regulators are a pain in the ass though. The Cirrus chip was a pleasure to do.
 
Uh. I don't have anything else useful to say.

 

[shrimants]

thanks, that helped in any case. the wes51 was one of the irons I was considering, though I dont know if the tip it comes with is enough or not. I dont really understand how to test if a chip is functioning/set up right or not. I get the whole testing between pad and lead but I dont get how else to test if the part is working. I definately dont want to just plug it in because thats the sort of thing that could blow a chip and whatnot. I can only assume the leads themselves are dark after a while because of a mixture of flux and oxidization sitting right on top...

Also, no parts came in today, perhaps tomorrow or friday i'll be able to resume. I'm still really scared about the whole doing the TI chip again. gonna order that chipquik right now.

 

[shrimants]

Parts came in today, still waiting on the chipquik stuff but that just shipped out today since im an idiot and didnt order it until last night.

One thing I still dont get is that I've seen a bunch of drag soldering videos and I dont understand how that doesnt create solder bridges or how solder doesnt connect on the "back side" of the lead. Not really sure how to phrase that better. I have a 5,10,15x loupe (some cheap crap from radioshack, gets the job done but image is inverted sometimes, still figuring out how to use it) and with that loupe I can hardly see between each chip lead (talking in particular about the wolfson and the TI hex inverter on the Y2). How does the solder not bridge behind the chip or some such thing when drag soldering? Also, I kind of got drag soldering to work but I dont know how to check for bridges. If I could simply drag solder both the wolfson and the TI, it would make my life a lot easier, but i'm too scared of ruining it again. I figured i'd practice on the already broken TI chip and board once the chip quik comes in the mail.

 

[shrimants]

Another quick update: Chip Quik came in the mail, the 40watt iron with a fine tip is working like a dream. It took a whle for me to figure out the "tinning" thing, because no matter how i tried it always looked like it was oxidizing. now I realize that if you tin the tip, the actual solder gets oxidized and not the tip itself. I'm working on all the resistors on the Y1 boards, both USB and DAC. I'll post pics when I'm done. Gonna try to get the nice EOS20D working too so the pics are actually worthwhile.