is 30w or 45 iron good for soldering caps

[thetemp]

hello i am getting ready to replace some caps on my video card and i have a 30w and a 45w solder iron and i was wondering if these are good enough or should i go maybe to a 60w iron?

[Fizzycapola]

Re: is 30w or 45 iron good for soldering caps

I manage ok with $15 Rolson 60W, the handle is one piece construction no worrying gap where the 2 pieces of the handle haven't bonded together right like Skytronic and Duratools ones.

60W really speeds things up, things simple melt upon touch, you must work quickly though.

[thetemp]

Re: is 30w or 45 iron good for soldering caps

thanks for the quick reply there is a store here in town that has a 60w for 12.99 i just wasn't sure if that would heat things up to much and damage the board or cap

[starfury1]

Re: is 30w or 45 iron good for soldering caps

the hooter the iron the better for removal but ideally 2 would be good
thing is with a hotter iron you have to work a bit faster so get some junk and practice on that before hand

Read the FAQ's and learn the needle method for hole clearing.

getting the cap out is one thing but clearing the hole is another and probably were you are most likely to damage the PCB with too much heat.

its not hard but does take a little practice to get it down pat...so junk trial runs are recommended.

Also make sure you got a good mag glass and give the PCB a good visual when you finish, a sliver of solder can destroy your MB and handy work.

see FAQ and posts about cleaning

Lastly there are 2 types of solder construction :"Lead and non lead" most older stuff will be lead mixture but the new RoHs made MB is (more or less) tin only solder.
requires hotter temps.
basically Identify what your construction is, not a good idea to mix solder types
just beware of that point.

HTH, good luck

Cheers

[acstech]

Re: is 30w or 45 iron good for soldering caps

What happens if you mix the solder types?

On the soldering iron, I use a Radio Shack 35w iron with a gun type handle on it and a small conical tip. I feel that something hotter would be good for the new ROHS tin solders, as it barely melts it. It gets the job done, but... I'll be watching this thread closely.

[starfury1]

Re: is 30w or 45 iron good for soldering caps

Well the whole RoHs thing is a bit complicated and I have no first hand experience with trying to mix the 2 but from whats been posted around here and the info I've found in the past, thats the case.
(as I understand it anyway)

This document (pdf) explains it from more a manufacturing side of things. Here

This one here may be of interest too FACT AND FICTION IN LEAD FREE SOLDERING

looking at this it does sort of raise a question in my mind about Rohs type components in a lead based pcb repair.

there's a few that might be able to answer this more clearly then I.

But lead in a lead free environment does a good joint NOT make.

anyone really up on this subject?

HTH anyway

Cheers

[thetemp]

Re: is 30w or 45 iron good for soldering caps

yeah the video card is newer it is a 7600gt so i guess that would use lead free solder. i have some old motherboards here that i can work with first

what type of solder should i use? ie brand, thickness, can you get it with rosin core?. i don't think that it says that in any of the guides unless i missed it lol

[starfury1]

Re: is 30w or 45 iron good for soldering caps

well for lead MB 60/40 rosin core should be ok
(just clean excess flux off with alcohol (preferred) or metho

There are newer water based fluxes but not sure if thats used in cored solder or whats best (sorry bit old school here)

for the Rohs you get the tin stuff that come in a few variations
(I dont really have a clue with that stuff (yet)

There are few posts on solder around here but heres a few links on the lead free stuff

http://www.kester.com/en-us/leadfree/index.aspx

Heard of this mention by USA guys here

maybe eroupe look at this

http://www.techgsm.be/cat_Soldering_Wire_1400.html

As for size it depends on what you working with but nice to have a couple of sizes to handy

mostly around a millimeter diameter some use 0.71 some bigger, stuff I use is close to a mill (think 0.91 or something like that)

The Rohs tin stuff will be brighter to look at, not as dark as lead based. (solder its self)

With the pcb have a good look under good light
lead stuff is usally shiny and bright to look at
(but with the washes it never looks like a hand solder job)

Tin is suppose to look duller and darker and more like you made a bad joint.

some others here that are up on this will probably post

HTH anyway

Cheers