SMT Solder Reflowing Ipod firewire connector

[Michael Kennedy]

Hi everybody, I have an older Ipod and it has a 9 pin smt firewire connector
on the mainboard. One or two of the connections were cracked and I reflowed
them with my 15/30w iorn and it worked great for 2 days and now it has broke
loose again. I guess I'm looking for some tips on how I can reflow this
where it will stay. Smt stuff is not my favorite things to work on. A
smaller iorn might be somewhere to start, the tip on my iorn is larger than
the connectors.

I had also thought about taking it to the local electronics shop to see what
they would charge. Does anyone know about what it should cost to have
someone reflow 9 smt connections? I would take everything apart so all they
would have to do is just solder it.

Mike

 

[Andy Cuffe]

Hi everybody, I have an older Ipod and it has a 9 pin smt firewire connector
on the mainboard. One or two of the connections were cracked and I reflowed
them with my 15/30w iorn and it worked great for 2 days and now it has broke
loose again. I guess I'm looking for some tips on how I can reflow this
where it will stay. Smt stuff is not my favorite things to work on. A
smaller iorn might be somewhere to start, the tip on my iorn is larger than
the connectors.

I had also thought about taking it to the local electronics shop to see what
they would charge. Does anyone know about what it should cost to have
someone reflow 9 smt connections? I would take everything apart so all they
would have to do is just solder it.

Mike

Did you just heat up the solder until it melted, or did you add new
solder? You need to add new solder to get a strong connection. The
connections should look shiny and smooth when you're done. This will
work assuming the circuit board foil isn't damaged.
Andy Cuffe

[email protected] <-- Use this address until 12/31/2005

[email protected] <-- Use this address after 12/31/2005

 

[Michael Kennedy]

I didn't add solder becasue I would have overflowed the pad with my iorn. I
also was not sure if it was silver solder or lead.

"Andy Cuffe"

Did you just heat up the solder until it melted, or did you add new
solder? You need to add new solder to get a strong connection. The
connections should look shiny and smooth when you're done. This will
work assuming the circuit board foil isn't damaged.
Andy Cuffe

The circut board was fine when I took it apart, but I don't know if it
seperated this time or if the solder just broke off. I havn't taken it apart
again yet.


- Mike

 

[Michael Kennedy]

Since you mentioned it, how would you fix it if you pealed off the circurt
board foil? I have had this happen in the past and have really had to hack
some stuff to fix it. Could you possibly use superglue to reattach the foil
to to the pcb? Just a thought.

- Mike

 

[James Sweet]

I didn't add solder becasue I would have overflowed the pad with my iorn. I
also was not sure if it was silver solder or lead.

Just add a bit of ordinary tin/lead rosin core solder, you can get it at
Radio Shack amoung many other places. Doesn't take much, and if you do it
right it won't overflow.

 

[James Sweet]

Since you mentioned it, how would you fix it if you pealed off the circurt
board foil? I have had this happen in the past and have really had to hack
some stuff to fix it. Could you possibly use superglue to reattach the foil
to to the pcb? Just a thought.

- Mike

There's a variety of ways, but generally you glue down the component if it
doesn't have enough undamaged connections to hold it physically, then you
solder small jumper wires.

 

[Michael Kennedy]

I bought a new 15w iorn. Then I got gutsy and added some solder to it. I
couldn't find my small solder so I had to use some big stuff. I had a bit of
overflow onto the other connections but I cleaned it up without any probs.
Trusty ole solder sucker did its job great. So far so good its seems to be
on there good.

- Mike