Hacking Rate my practice soldering with pics!

Louse76 · Mar 21, 2007

So I've never soldered before, but my installer has a Cyclowiz which has been giving him problems (stupid damn cyclowiz), so he's worried about installing mine. Therefore, he's going to let me borrow his triwing, and I'm going to do it myself.

Anyhow, I've never soldered before, but I have worked with small things like this (I used to carve bassoon reeds when I was in high school).

I picked up a 15w soldering iron from RadioShack, 30AWG wire, flux (this stuff seems to help, I don't know why its not talked about more), and solder.

The solder I picked up is super small, like .015 silver bearing. Also, some really thick stuff came with the flux that I bought. Both are silver bearing - is that ok? I think I remember people saying to use rosin-core instead...?

Anyhow, I put some of the flux on the small points (I used an old video card), dipped the tip of the small wires in it too, then I (actually using the big solder, easier to tin with) tinned the wire and got a little on the soldering iron. That was enough to install the test wires.

Please see the pic below and let me know what you think. Those three points are a lot closer than I will be dealing with on the Wii. The WiiKey is there as a reference.

I will be installing later tonight, so please give me any tips that would help!!

Scorpei · Mar 21, 2007

Although you have NEVER soldered before this seems pretty good. Give the wires a jank to see if they stay on your test board (the middle one is the only one I feel relativly scared about as it doesn't seem to stick to the pad but to the wire only). If so then you should be able to give it a go

. Still if you've never soldered before I wouldn't try and install a modchip, but again it seems pretty okay.

kai445 · Mar 21, 2007

I prefer silver bearing solder in a near-eutectic mix. Its good stuff.

Louse76 · Mar 21, 2007

I didn't want to install mine, but you've got to start somewhere.

My first guy wants to take my Wii and all accessories and keep them overnight, plus he's never done a Wii before and I've never met him, plus I wouldn't know where he lives, etc.

The second guy is just jerking me around taking forever and is to scared to.

And the soldering points will be better with the real chip. It is just that those are closer than they would be on the real chip, and I didn't want them to connect to each other.

I will practice a bit more before I really do it.

lenselijer · Mar 21, 2007

use some more solder and warm it up so you can see it flow to the other point, then get your iron away.

are you gonna do quicksolder or wire method? either way i suggest you first put some solder on both the wiikey and wii dvd board installation points, it will make the job much easier to do and you have much less chance of burning an installation point away.

Louse76 · Mar 21, 2007

Hey, I just checked and I can pick up the whole freakin' video card with the middle (weaker) wire, so I suppose it's not too bad.

Note that this is a full big honkin' PCI video card from back in the day (no heatsink though).

Any other thoughts?

Louse76 · Mar 21, 2007

QUOTE(kai445 @ Mar 21 2007 said:
I prefer silver bearing solder in a near-eutectic mix. Its good stuff.

What is "near-eutectic mix"?

Thanks for posting!

Louse76 · Mar 21, 2007

QUOTE(lenselijer @ Mar 21 2007 said:
use some more solder and warm it up so you can see it flow to the other point, then get your iron away.

are you gonna do quicksolder or wire method? either way i suggest you first put some solder on both the wiikey and wii dvd board installation points, it will make the job much easier to do and you have much less chance of burning an installation point away.

I think I am going to go with the wire method.

I'm going to tin the wire and have a little bit of solder on the iron, plus flux on the point on the board... you think that'll be ok?

hanman · Mar 21, 2007

looks pretty good to me...only suggestion i could make is don't strip that much insulation from the wires. there is a possibilty they could short against one another.

Takrin · Mar 21, 2007

QUOTE(Louse76 @ Mar 21 2007 said:
QUOTE(kai445 @ Mar 21 2007 said:

I prefer silver bearing solder in a near-eutectic mix. Its good stuff.

What is "near-eutectic mix"?

Thanks for posting!

Click to expand...

fancy word for low melting point

alucard77 · Mar 21, 2007

Your soldering job looks great. You will have no problems with the install. But like Hanman said, the only thing I would be concerned about is that you stripped to much of the wire. Cut that down. Basically, you should not see any of the metal in the cable. In my install, the plastic is pretty much right next to the solder.

Also, last note. Noone here mentioned this, but it is worth mentioning. Cut your wires to an 1 1/2" to 2" length and practice soldering with wires that small. I had no problems when I practiced with 6" long wires, but I found it hard to keep the wire still when I was using the 1 1/2" long wires.

Long wired mods have been known to cause problems, so keep your wires short.

kai445 · Mar 21, 2007

QUOTE(Takrin @ Mar 21 2007 said:
QUOTE(Louse76 @ Mar 21 2007 said:

QUOTE(kai445 @ Mar 21 2007 said:

I prefer silver bearing solder in a near-eutectic mix. Its good stuff.

What is "near-eutectic mix"?

Thanks for posting!

Click to expand...

fancy word for low melting point

Click to expand...

Fancy word for transitional phase from solid to liquid without a pasty intermediary. That'd be 62/36/2 (near-eutectic) for silver bearing, 63/37 (eutectic) for standard tin/lead. This tends to result in a better solder joint.

Hogmeister · Mar 21, 2007

looks good, and yeah strip far less than what you did on those wires, otherwise you risk them touching but other wise looks great

as far as long wire installs causing problems i have no idea where he's getting that info, as a LOT of people have modchip installs taht run wires out the back of the case and i've got mine a good 4 or 5" wires and i havent had a single problem *knock on wood* yet.

install it where youw ant it, if you can duplicate your results of the picture on the wiikey then you'll be golden just strip less and voila

enjoy your wiikey

Louse76 · Mar 21, 2007

QUOTE(hanman @ Mar 21 2007 said:
looks pretty good to me...only suggestion i could make is don't strip that much insulation from the wires.Â there is a possibilty they could short against one another.

Good point!

I actually was just screwin around. So I wasn't paying attention to that.

Note: to all those people who want to know how to strip these tiny wires: USE YOUR TEETH! So easy that way!

Louse76 · Mar 21, 2007

QUOTE(alucard77 @ Mar 21 2007 said:
Your soldering job looks great.Â You will have no problems with the install.Â But like Hanman said, the only thing I would be concerned about is that you stripped to much of the wire.Â Cut that down.Â Basically, you should not see any of the metal in the cable.Â In my install, the plastic is pretty much right next to the solder.

Also, last note.Â Noone here mentioned this, but it is worth mentioning.Â Cut your wires to an 1 1/2" to 2" length and practice soldering with wires that small.Â I had no problems when I practiced with 6" long wires, but I found it hard to keep the wire still when I was using the 1 1/2" long wires.

Long wired mods have been known to cause problems, so keep your wires short.

Great tip! This is exactly the kind of information that I was looking for before the install!

I wish I had the time - I would do a content analysis and consolidate all of the tips for installation such as this. Maybe one day! One day when I don't have to work fulltime with a couple of internships to boot, ha!

Lazycus · Mar 21, 2007

QUOTE(Louse76 @ Mar 21 2007 said:
QUOTE(alucard77 @ Mar 21 2007 said:

Your soldering job looks great. You will have no problems with the install. But like Hanman said, the only thing I would be concerned about is that you stripped to much of the wire. Cut that down. Basically, you should not see any of the metal in the cable. In my install, the plastic is pretty much right next to the solder.

Also, last note. Noone here mentioned this, but it is worth mentioning. Cut your wires to an 1 1/2" to 2" length and practice soldering with wires that small. I had no problems when I practiced with 6" long wires, but I found it hard to keep the wire still when I was using the 1 1/2" long wires.

Long wired mods have been known to cause problems, so keep your wires short.

Great tip! This is exactly the kind of information that I was looking for before the install!

I wish I had the time - I would do a content analysis and consolidate all of the tips for installation such as this. Maybe one day! One day when I don't have to work fulltime with a couple of internships to boot, ha!

Click to expand...

It's not a great tip. Like another poster said, many people have chips outside the case with no problems. I haven't seen one post about "long wired mods have been know to cause problems" in regards to these Wii chips.

Louse76 · Mar 21, 2007

I meant the part about not stripping back so much and all...

But I don't want to start any fights. If that works for him, that's good. I'll probably use longer wires myself. If there is an issue, I'll take care of it later.

alucard77 · Mar 22, 2007

Well long cables were documented in PS1 and 2 installs as being known to cause issues. I am not the only one to do this either. It doesn't really matter how you chose to do it. I was just taking extra precautions is all. Not all people need to do that.

klyick · Apr 2, 2007

Wire, although conductive, does have a resistance per unit distance. While it may be that no concerns have been made about longer wires and Wii modding, it can become a problem, depending on certain factors. So when connecting wires like this, having a wire that is too long for the purpose is not recommended, capiche?

-Klyick

Hacking Rate my practice soldering **with pics!**

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

I'm a pretty lucky guy

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Rotten

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Similar threads

Popular threads in this forum

Hacking Rate my practice soldering with pics!