[hpsdr] TAPR Hermes and ApacheLabs ANAN-10 combination. Help with Soldering solicited.

[Gregory Ratcliff]

Larry,

I've been doing this for a long time, I'm sure you can handle it.

Flux and tin the pads with a little solder wick.  Only tin the pads you will immediately place a part on, the area will stay warm and allow better temperature rise later.  I use a 20 watt iron and a pair of tweezers.  Use the tweezers to hold the resister firmly in place or it will "tombstone".  SMT parts are amazingly tolerant of heat, but be careful, they are low mass and heat up quickly.

Hover the iron over a pad as close as you can without touching it.  No worries if you do touch it of course.  Wait until you see the solder sheen change, then add just a tiny touch of solder.  Voila.   

With a little practice you will get the feel of how long it takes.  With my iron it's about 20 seconds; about 5 seconds if I apply direct heat.

Greg
Nz8r


On Nov 10, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Larry J on his Dell LT <larry at foxgulch.com> wrote:

> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
> 
> I have in hand both my TAPR Hermes and Apache-Labs ANAN-10 kit. Although I've been soldering at electronic devices for over 50 years,  my skill set does not include surface mount components.  My seriously senior citizen eyes and hands don't  help either.
> 
> In particular,  I don't know how to proceed to solder  the  teeny tiny coaxial connectors on the TAPR Hermes board at J28 and J29 needed for integration into the ANAN-10 kit.    For example, after adding some solder paste to the underside of the sockets, and cleaning the Hermes pads with flux,  do I need a hot air rework station to satisfactorily install these sockets?
> 
> Thanks for any advice you can direct my way.
> 
> Larry Jones  W0AY
> 
> 
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