Hacking QuickSolder = 100x Easier than Wires

[modmanwii]

Just did my WII with WIIKEY...

ive done 20-30 XBOX1 with Xecuter chips, usin wires and quicksolder..

I spent prolly 30-40 minutes on tryin to get the wires on.... everytime I went to solder a point next to one I did, i would melt the one I just did and it would pop off. Eventually I just did the quicksolder, took about 30 seconds, works perfectly...

Just so everyone knows

 

[lookout]

Welldone! let see how fast can you take it off?

 

[Foxstar]

Would it really be that hard to take off? If you have a solder sucker i wouldn't imagine it being too hard.

 

[Little]

hmm the solder needs to be quite hot before the desoldering will actually work, since you need to remove pretty much all of it.... That could damage the wii and the chip. With a wire, you can just quickly heat up the solder, remove the wire and then desolder. But having so many points with the quick solder, you'd have to completly heat and remove the solder from every point, you cant just pull away, as they will all hold themselves into place.

Least thats what we were taught in electronics... well not about wiis but when removing components, it will usually damage your PCB and component if you have to reheat the solder directly on the pcb to remove it.

 

[brocher]

The main problem I have when desoldering (mainly faulty chips) from PCB's is the little circle of metal on the PCB can come off if you're not careful. Don't know how many wire mods I've had to make from chip leg to destination due to this done by me and others

Surface mount I never really did many mods on, this was more "homebrew" electronics

If you have the skills, wired is definitely the way to go. Just put a blob of silicon where you're going to site the chip to hold it in place later, works a treat.

If you have any doubts about your soldering skill or never soldered before and if you can't find / pay someone competent to do it, go with quick solder.

 

[iza]

i'm not experienced in the slightest. never held a iron before. but once i open my wii, i plan on hitting an old pcb with the iron for about 10 minutes to practice, and then do the install. from what i've heard, as long as the wire's tinned, it just takes a nice tap to successfully solder...

 

[Rake]

I practiced some soldering on an old cd drive pcb.

I bought a swanky iron a few years ago, cost a fair bit but it was heavily discounted at the time. It lets me set the iron tip from anything between 150 to 450 degrees celcius.

At about 230, i was able to melt my solder and attach wire to things, but the joins were weak as hell and almost fell off. Set it up to 400 and the soldering was not only easier and quicker, but strong enough that the wire+joint would hold the entire weight of the pcb on its own. Doing it too much broke the joint, but that was only because the wire was continuously twisted, so wire eventually broke.

 

[aesthetics]

I try to keep my iron at 325 celcius, any lower and it takes too long to heat the solder. With well tinned wires and a bit of flux, the wires will solder to the points of the wii fairly easily. Slow and steady is the way to go, no need to rush it if your not fully confident..

 

[thieves like us]

most lead-based solders melt at approx. 370°F. however, because of the harmful nature of lead, many solders are now lead-free which have a higher melting point.

I read in a few soldering faqs that you should adjust the temperature of your iron (if you have a good soldering station that has that ability) to find out your solder's melting point and then when you go to use it for projects, turn on your iron (setting the temperature to about 10° less and then ramp it up the 10° when you're ready to do the work to help extend the life of your tip.

 

[moshii]

The problem with the quicksolder kits isn't that you can't get them off.. it's that when you take them off you risk distroying the pad it was connected to or even worse if it's fixed to something that isn't a real pad and just a filled through-hole you risk having it drop through when you heat it destroying the point and maybe the drive.

A word of advice, get someone that has at least a week of an EE course under their belt to do the install for you. The chances are if you're 14 with a cheapy iron and next to no experience you might get the chip on and working but your soldering will be a nightmare to remove. Also decent EE will be able to trace out an alternative point to solder to if anything goes wrong.

Avoid people that have flux in their soldering kit too.. or people that put solder on the soldering iron for that matter.

 

[frendly5]

The problem with the quicksolder kits isn't that you can't get them off.. it's that when you take them off you risk distroying the pad it was connected to or even worse if it's fixed to something that isn't a real pad and just a filled through-hole you risk having it drop through when you heat it destroying the point and maybe the drive.

A word of advice, get someone that has at least a week of an EE course under their belt to do the install for you. The chances are if you're 14 with a cheapy iron and next to no experience you might get the chip on and working but your soldering will be a nightmare to remove. Also decent EE will be able to trace out an alternative point to solder to if anything goes wrong.

Avoid people that have flux in their soldering kit too.. or people that put solder on the soldering iron for that matter.

Why not flux?

 

[moshii]

Flux is used to clean dirty joints so that you get a good contact, it's unlikely you'll need to clean the points on the wii.. you're soldering to existing solder after all. Aside from that, flux is only really good for plumbing style soldering where you need to clean the oxide off of copper pipes etc, i.e areas of copper larger than a pin head

. For electronics work you should use Rosin cored solder and nothing else.

 

[frendly5]

I was told to use flux on the wire I was tinning because it would help the solder to stay on the wire instead of the iron.

Is that correct? If not, what do you suggest?

 

[moshii]

All flux does is remove dirt and oxide so that you get a clean joint. Rosin does exactly that.

Tinning wire... multicore wire (maybe not a good idea for your mod) ... twist the cores and heat from one end, add solder from the other, the solder will melt and propagate up to the iron, at which point you remove the iron. Single core you only need to tin to make soldering it easier, do the same as before but you only really need a tiny bit of solder.

As for keeping solder off the iron, if your iron is hot enough for the solder you're using you shouldn't have any problems keeping it where it should be. And if you use too much and do get some on the iron use the wet magic sponge you should have setup before you started.

I'm probably going to get solder paste to install a wiikey, little bit on each contact and heat.