Help with my first DIY please

Ok here are my issues so far. My soldering gun, a 25w weller, doesn't get the tips of the bits hot enough to melt solder and if you melt solder on to it, it pools down towards the base. I got some stuff soldered but I don't know how. I think a magical solder fairy came in while I had my head turned. Really I was using the little solder stylus to push the solder over on to the joints quickly (yes I was using flux). I think my connections on to the battery side of the driver are good, magically. The little pill board with the spring on it to connect to the battery, I soldered on to there pretty easy but then it wouldn't pop in to the bottom of the heatsink like it was supposed to because the wires were in the way. I took them off, resoldered them. STILL wouldn't pop in there. On my last attempt I got the positive "ok" though it needs shrink wrap to keep from touching the case and shorting, the negative fell off the little board. I figured since its case negative and probably running to the little copper ring around the bottom of the board, I stuck the wire through one of the holes in the side of the board, bent it around to touch the little ring, and soldered it to it. I left enough bare wire on the edge to so it grounds against the copper heat sink too. tested it and it appears to work. Multimeter reads 0 with clicky off, 4.02 with clicky on.

I don't see how on earth I can solder the other diode side of the driver though, it looks like it will be near impossible to do without shorting to that little thing in the middle and if I do I don't think I can get the solder off without burning the little thing.

Also, when I took it out of the package, my driver had that little bit pictured broken off, is that ok?

keep a wet sponge near by. also it is good to have a tip that is in similar size to, or smaller than a sharpened pencil. next you will want to always keep you tip clean with the wet sponge then reapply solder to the tip. always do that process right before you want to make a connection. if you want to save money and dont have a small tip. then you can grind yours down. but make it as smooth as possible. also not including your diode, you will want to pre tin all your connections.

michael

The tip of my iron is pretty small, but the tip part doesn't get hot enough to melt solder. If anything I wish it were blunt, the tip just blocks me from getting the actual hot part to where it needs to be. Perhaps I need a more powerful iron?

25watt is recommended here. try scuffing up your tip. also how long are you letting it run before you try to use it. my 25 watt needs about 3-4mns.

About 5 mins + . I'll try scuffing it. I pre-tinned it also though it seemed as though the solder was drawn to the hottest part and would always just form a droplet there regardless of gravity. Maybe its my solder? I figured the stuff that came with the iron would work well the the iron it came with but maybe its crap.

i use the thinnest rosin core solder i can find. i don' know the numbers off the top of my head.

michael.

Well I got it all together although I didn't manage to stuff everything inside the aixis and there is no pill so I had to let the module stick out a bit. It came on and worked though. :wave::wave::wave::wave::wave: First build a success. Only issue is its an LED. At first I was worried I messed up the diode but I pulled the driver back out and its not set thought it was gonna be preset to 1200ma, but none of the resistors are soldered so instead its probably giving under 100. Pretty blue LED though. Now I just have to pray after I solder the three thingies, turn up the pot, and put it back, that it still works. Ohwell, atleast I have the minor accomplishment of making a 0.1mw blue LED flashlight.

chipdouglas said:

keep a wet sponge near by. also it is good to have a tip that is in similar size to, or smaller than a sharpened pencil. next you will want to always keep you tip clean with the wet sponge then reapply solder to the tip. always do that process right before you want to make a connection. if you want to save money and dont have a small tip. then you can grind yours down. but make it as smooth as possible. also not including your diode, you will want to pre tin all your connections.

michael

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correct me if i am worng but arnt iron tips coated with something to stop them rusting and getting messy? wouldnt grinding it make it good for like a week then its destroyed?

BTW I stopped using the weller and picked up some radioshack store brand plus some very fine non resin solder. Things went MUCH easier. I just applied some flux paste to the desired parts. Put a lil blob on the end of the iron. Touched it and watched it instantly suck over with a little hiss. The difficulty before was partly my iron and partly the solder.

Like I said, I just hope I can get it all back together after I attempt to set the driver. I'm almost tempted to use some window defroster repair paint (used to use it on motherboards in place of solder on pins, just trace a line with a toothpick and let it dry).

please tell me that you are going to use a multi meter when you adjust your pot!!!!!!



tterbo.... i don't know why or what they are coated with but ive been using mine for years. i keep it clean at all times. and rusty? they are made of copper, well at least mine is.

Nope no test. I don't have a dummy load and the max the driver can do isn't too much for the diode so I was going to crank it all the way up and come back down a lil for somewhere >1000ma but <1500ma.

its your money but i will give you a scenario.... what if the driver is bad or has a short? a dummy load is like 3 or 4 bucks if you make it yourself. also your theory of turning it up might not work if you have a pot that just keeps turning

TTerbo said:

correct me if i am worng but arnt iron tips coated with something to stop them rusting and getting messy? wouldnt grinding it make it good for like a week then its destroyed?

Click to expand...

I believe they are coated in zinc, at least my Weller one are. (EDIT, coated with Nickel)

oic0 said:

BTW I stopped using the weller and picked up some radioshack store brand

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Hope your radioshack brand last longer than mine. It was the first soldering iron I bought, it was adjustable, 20W to 40W. The tip was great for 10-15 sessions but crapped out after that no matter how well I took care of it. But the worst thing is, I couldn't get a replacement tip!!! You would think RS would sell replacement tips for the irons they sell!! Geez!!

I bought a weller and couldn't be happier. But as has been said, proper tip care is a must. If I use sandpaper, or scuffed it up, it took away the zinc coating and it was crap after that.

Don't leave your iron on for any longer than need be. When putting away, always cover the tip with solder. And every now and then, I use some tip refresher.

They do sell the tips at the one I went to, they were cheap too. It was actually just the tip I wanted but they didn't have any to fit my weller and neither do any of the other stores around here that I know of. So I just bought their cheapy soldering iron just for the tips pretty much rather than ordering a tip for my weller and waiting.

The pointy tip on my weller that wouldn't even get hot enough to melt solder sort of melted its self. Strange how it couldn't melt solder but it could melt its self (not all the way off but its disfigured).

Iam not sure if i understand correctly but did you use the pills driver for part of this build other then you Laser diode driver? Because Correct me if iam wrong but dont you have to desoldier everything from the pill Driver before connecting your laser driver to it if you decide to use the original driver?

It was a DIY kit from flamingpyro. dunno what he did to the little board but theres nothing surface mount on it and now it just acts as a battery terminal with a spring and a + and a - on it. Its a neat clean setup that maximizes heatsink size, though its a bit cramped for the driver and wires. Need some really good flexible wire to work with it, sadly mine isn't so I've had to improvise.