[Coco] precision soldering skill

[Rogelio Perea]

On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 1:43 AM, Gene Heskett wrote:

On Friday 19 October 2012 01:34:23 Retro Canada did opine:
>
> > this is a new 'ride a horse' soldering technique:
> >
> > http://t.co/HQ4pxzK0
> >
> > found inside my coco2 and it was still factory sealed. made in korea.
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
>
> Chuckle. ;-) even.  But, speaking as a C.E.T., which I am one, that is
> about as sloppy a job as I've seen since I retired a decade back.  HOWEVER,
> it looks as if all legs I can see from this side are actually connected,
> I'm not so sure I would warm up the iron and fix it unless I could see,
> with a very strong magnifying glass, any hairline, almost invisible cracks
> in the solder between the leg and the board.  Those would likely lead to
> its only operating at one or the other temperature extreme.
>

Saw many of those from my manufacturing floor days on consumer grade wave
soldering operations. Those boards are hardly touched by human hands beyond
placing them on the conveyor belts, even as if all components are properly
seated at the start of the process, there will be some jolts from time to
time strong enough to unsettle a component or two on the board. This IC -
as you noted - got all its legs soldered to the board regardless so once
taken out to testing it will pass and move on to a happier life :-)

Reminds of one of my first tech jobs in a manufacturing facility that built
IBM clone keyboards - this was not the main business for the company and it
showed. When I joined in I was given a tour of the facility and found odd
that a fire extinguisher was laying close to a small wave soldering machine
instead of hanging on its peg like all other extinguishers - not word was
said and I didn't ask, that wasn't going to be under my responsibilities so
I moved on. Less than a week working full time one good day I heard a
commotion and saw a flash of orange on the corner of my eye: the wave
solderer caught fire and the two guys working on it quickly set if out with
the conveniently close extinguisher - these fires were a weekly recurring
incident; it was then that I realized my days working at that company were
counted, only lasted 3 months.


-- RP