It's great that you didn't edit out your problems soldering these little ba####ds on like some do. Makes me feel better about my sad attempts at it. Love your videos and I've learned a lot following you.
Julian Ilett warts and all is what we like to see. I'm always happy to see that even clever people like you show it for what it is, life at times is a bitch🙏
With the right equipment as Julian mentioned it really is not too difficult to work with SMD. Even the cheap hot air and rework stations work reasonably well when building with SMD. The things to remember are to preheat your board to a safe level, use a tip on your iron with high thermal mass with quick heat recovery and you can't use too much flux.
The first four symbols on the right side of the instrument are read as follows: 1: = - This is a DC measuring thing 2: Horseshoe with an extra line - moving coil mechanism 3: 2.5 - Class 2.5 instrument: At full scale the accuracy is 2.5%. At lower voltage it will be less accurate. 4: a vertical line on a horizontal line - The accuracy is only correct when the scale is vertical. In your case it will be slightly off.
Use a chisel tip, throw the round one in the trashbin. Pre tinn one pad and solder it and then solder the other pad and yes solderpaste and or flux is making it aloot easyer. Hotair is not the answer to solder SMD parts. A chisel tip is enough. Keep doing you videos, love them!
I'm waiting for a smd to dip conversion board to show up to have my first smd experience, I don't have a chisel tip either, but I have a lot of Flux ready.
Its so comforting to see you battling with soldering SMD after trying this for the first time last week I no longer feel so useless ;-) love your work as always.
nice project. Love the juxtaposition of the state of the art SMD and the olde timey analog meter. Thanks for showing your struggles with the SMD and how you solved it.
I soldered electronics everyday for 4 years without ever touching flux aside from my rosin cored solder. The first time I used it, it was like god descending from the heavens. It will be your best friend and lover if you let it.
Thank you all for your genuinely helpful comments on SMD soldering, for sharing my pain and for not lecturing me. I'm really pleased with the modifications to the supercapacitor bank and look forward to connecting two of them to Muppet 2 :)
Hey Julian! Another tip for SMD soldering, finer tweezers would help you immeasurably. I put food on the table manufacturing RF filters, and all of what I do is hand soldering with SMD caps and hand wound air coils which aren't much bigger than 600F capacitors (0805 package) I've got a grand total of 5 pairs of tweezers, and depending on what I'm attaching or even what angle I'm working at, I could be dropping one pair and grabbing another as often as 3-4 times a minute. The tips closed on my biggest pair are probably only 70% of the size of one tip on the tweezers you're using in the video. My 2 main sets I use are the AC-PI from Excelta and Aven 3C-SA anti-magnetics, they'd serve you much better.
That's about what I have now at 52, plus a x2 head band that helps a lot. Problem is that I have to get so close to focus that I have to control the respiration in order not to suck the Flux smoke, it's a thi-chi thing 😂
I'm glad you soldered the rest of them off camera, because it was torture feeling your frustration and not being able to do anything! On the subject of the old style volt meters, I always assumed they would use up way more power because of their mechanical nature, though I guess LEDs are fairly power hungry too. Perhaps a non-backlit LCD would be the most efficient? I've actually wondered just how much power various volt meters use, so perhaps a subject for a future video?
himselfe I think it's in the tao te ching : "The voltmeter that takes least current is the one that's disconnected when not being read". If Julien is reading this - how about a project based on an e-ink display and a microcontroller that drops into pico-power sleep between updates? And user-selectable update frequency. Almost zero energy consumption most of the time. But then maybe the ana is ok...
Hahaha. Probably one of my favourite videos of yours. I tend to have the same attitude about soldering, and especially smds. I always tell myself "It is what it is and if you don't like it, too bad"
For SMD led's (and many other SMD components) there's a really easy trick to soldering them. Flow a blob of solder onto ONE pad. add a bit of flux, re-melt it and touch the led to it. The liquid solder will suck the LED in and position it. Let the solder set, then flow the other side. Simple and easy.
Great video! As to your soldering technique - I'm not a big fan of SMDs either, but I usually use a hot air station, or a voltage controlled soldering iron. But my attitude has always been 'Whatever works for you!'
Yes, SMT was the way to go. There are digital meters that have integrated boost converters for the LED segments that operate down to 1.2V, and LCD voltmeters in the same operating voltage
I like the challenge of fiddly soldering. Masking tape is great for preventing tombstones. Do one side - remove tape, then do the other. Good for the "big" SMT stuff.
A lot of SMT components can still definitely be soldered manually, and without needing solder paste nor a hot air station. I've yet to personally use solder paste for projects at home, and often manually solder 0603 or even 0402 parts using a 2.5mm chisel tip. That is with a second-hand Metcal station though. My eyesight is just starting to fail me slightly (at 36), so I know what you mean. lol You don't necessarily even need temperature control for easier soldering, just a half-decent iron with a good choice of tip, and good thermal capacity (not just a higher "wattage".) Also, I find that using a smaller gauge solder of around 0.5mm for most stuff (both SMT and through-hole) really helps to control it. Certainly never larger than 0.7mm for most electronics work, unless you're tinning lots of large wires, or soldering larger heatsink tabs or battery terminals. And yep - extra Flux REALLY helps, especially after scraping away soldermask etc. ;)
smds are fine and this video is more interesting than just opening the packets.
7 лет назад
I love super caps, last week they provided me a week of cold beer during camping at festival. 100W solar panel and cheap charge controller from banggood, but instead of lead battery I used 6x 500F super cap bank. Beer was inside 57W thermometric cooler. Even on cloudy day beer was chilled to perfect temperature. Pretin one smd contact re-flow it and then solder another this always works.
Excellent vid, Julian. Any soldering, no matter the scale, is a challenge for my old fingers; so smds do tend to challenge the extent of my disgusting vocabulary. However, when they are on the board, they do look "the business". It was a little nostalgic seeing the analogue meters and reminded me of the joy with which digital instruments were greeted in the 80s. Now that the novelty has worn off, it does seem a bit precious to convert an analog value to digital (with all the opportunities for error that path offers). Analog meters are so much better with noisy signals than digital.
The soldering battle was refreshing to see. I just had my on battle with a small ribbon cable clamp on a Garmin GPS. If the little plastic clamp comes off it is not easy to get back on the pins. 73 and nerve problems in right hand doesn't help at all.
I used to hate smd soldering but when I got a usable temperature controlled iron they didn't seem so bad. Now I have a microscope and don't even hesitate for the tiniest 0102 components.
Really enjoyable video Julian, as usual, full of your take on things, which is always enjoyable. I'm just over 50 and I know what you mean about eyesight!! It would be good if you could do a video about solder paste/hot air gun and recommend what's good bad. Always find of the way you just appear to cobble things together, that somehow just seem to look all professional and retro and dare I say arty! I have build your setup, so look forward to adding the SMD Leds to my basket and hoping some smart ppl here can show us an easy way to do it. Thanks for sharing
I did hate the thought of SMD soldering until I tried solder paste and hot air :-) Had to laugh when the LED went 'ping' across your bench. Times I've done that! :D
Yeah been there with the surface mount stuff, Julian. I'm 27, so it's not too difficult for me to see, but controlling the parts without shooting them across the room is a challenge. Also, one really big issue for me is not getting too much heat into the surface mount parts. I can cook a thru-hole all day long, but by the time I get a smd transistor on the board it's melted. Sigh. I thought hot air would be a wonderful addition to soldering surface mount, but it's not, I always end up cooking the piece before the solder melts. Great for desoldering though! The best strategy I've come up with so far, especially for those 1206 leds is to use the temp-controlled iron, put solder directly on the iron (oh the horror!), and touch it to the joint while holding the piece with the tweezers. I certainly don't envy you having to do that on those large copper planes, though, that definitely would make my method not work -- maybe you could do a preheat of the board with some hot air or some time in the oven?
Good idea to show the part you struggle with the soldering Julian. You need an iron with a larger (thicker) tip that holds more heat for large pads. "sucks the heat out of the iron", or tip to be more precise, is a correct analyzis of you :-) Tinn one pad and solder it first, then do the other side.
Yeah I agree those little SMD LED's are such a pain I bought some Chinese made lamps and the LED's tend to fail after a short while so I had to buy some replacements to repair mine, I found holding them in place with thermal cement is the best way as the cement holds them very well the heat from the soldering iron cures the cement and it is not to strong than the leds can be moved during curing.
I too am north of 50, and I agree that surface mount bits-n-pieces are far too fiddly. And you're not alone in having younger folk find fault with your surface mount soldering. The same happened when I posted a video of me trying one of those cheap surface mount practice boards.
*I love SMD components!* If I make my own PCBs I don't have to drill that many holes. And 0402 components fit well beween two pins or tracks (when you forgot a pullup or smoothing cap in your design ;) ). I even use them on perfboard (including SOT-23 and SOIC-8 packages). Hot air isn't the tool to solder them. You're more likely to blow away other parts nearby than solder on the one you want. And *yes, a temperature controlled and high powered soldering station is a must.* A small chisel shaped tip also helps. Hot air is pretty much the only way to remove SMD components without destroying them though. Half the components of my last projects were SMD salvaged from random PCBs. And another tip: *don't eat near the desk where you solder SMD.* I had some very crunchy surprise when what I thought was a small chocolate chip fallen from a cookie turned out to be a 0402 SMD resistor that vanished two hours before that out of the grab of my tweezers ;) .
I've never used temperature controlled irons, my iron of choice is the antex xs25, i recently had to change a led on a led strip, i used the 1/8 chisel tip. My theory on irons is a lot of heat for a very short time reduces the transfer of heat through the rest of the component. You could add some stiff copper wire to the mounting screws on the meter and solder to the board for support, those screws would be insulated and won't cause problems, it will stop breakages due to vibration etc.
Yup I hate sm soldering in that sort of situation too! It's so much easier on a brand new board that's tinned and prepared, in your situation it can be so frustrating. I don't have the eyesight problem, but shaky hands don't help either! I ALWAYS use extra flux for sm, it just seems to help flow and stick things in place.
What about adding a switch in-line with the voltmeter so that it's not constantly drawing energy? That way you could switch it on when you wanted to monitor the voltage and off when you're storing it?
In contrary to popular belief, you use a large chisel tip for soldering SMD. It's like seeing someone individually solder the pads on a ssop or something.
How to solder SMD's the easy way: Place the SMD part on with left hand using a tweezers. Touch the tip of the Iron to the left pads of each post while holding the part down so it wont move. As you do, the heat melts the little tin that is already on the PCB (not in your case), as you touch the pad with your soldering iron, it tacks or spot welds it. Do all your components, then turn the PCB board around and solder the pads that you didn't touch with your iron (the right side pads). I solder with my right hand. Once this is done, solder the first pads (welded ones) and you are done. Once you get the hang of it, you will never go back to through holes, unless you are bread boarding. 1206's are easy. 402's are not bad. The rest? Oh boy...We are all in trouble. Good luck.
Julian, as a 62 yr old, life long glasses wearer, I'm challenged by thru hole, and would not even consider surface mount. My head mounted magnifier is my friend, as is my table mounted one. I would just put small thru hole LED's on the next board. It was frustrating watching you play games with that little chip,
Yes, my first thought when I saw that brush was static electricity electricity. You can fill a mist sprayer with tap water (not distilled) and spray a little above and somewhat away from your workbench to reduce static on those cold dry days.
If you externally power the LED display you can unsolder the bridge and add a sense wire and it will go down to 0. You could also just piggyback the LEDs on the resistor.
the set that i bought from amazon i tested for giggles with an iMax B6 and discharged at a rating of 432 mAh at a 600 mA discharge rate i though that alone was really neat and i plan on buying more in the near future
On a couple of occasions you said half an amp was going in but the display showed 0.2 amp. Good vid. Going to buy some super caps for a play soon, and it will be your fault. LOLZ!
You need a three wire voltage display. Black and red wire for power and white wire is the sense wire. Then it will show down to zero as long as you have a separate power source for it.
I too hate SMD, however I have used them where I absolutely had no choice. In fact I have one HAM radio set laying on my bench back in South Dakota (I am in Arizona now hiding from the snow!) that has the display for the frequencies built out of tiny smd leds. Most of them are burned out, and without them the radio is pretty much useful only for a repeater or some other such mondain usage, however I planned on mounting her in my Ford Edge when repaired. So it was that I found out the size and ordered in a strip of them. Well now, you commented on your eyesight going a bit at 50, I just hit 66 last May, and mine is getting steadily worse for close up making this repair even more difficult, in fact even seeing the arrow on those tiny LED's will be a chore for a microscope. Thankfully I have a couple of cheap electronic microscopes, one is too powerful to be of any use at all (think viewing virus [medical not computer]) but the other works fine and I can view the results on my laptop so it will help a quite a bit. A few years ago, the Veterans Administration issued me a pair of reading glasses (they called them computer glasses but they aren't much good for computers any more, but I can indeed read rather well with them) and I can use them for very close up projects such as this. I am sort of planning this project in my head, and I think that fine tip on the USB soldering iron may be the way to go on it since it is much finer then my regular iron, however is not as regulated as my good iron. OH why did I ever buy that stupid radio (BECAUSE IT WAS CHEAP, that's why!!) I ask myself every time I look at her, but then never mind. I do have a frequency counter that I can use to set the transmit frequency if I change it, then key up and see where I am, that sort of thing, but the counter is way to big to mount on the radio itself.
The problem there is the conical tip. Do as Dave Jones suggests and use a screwdriver style tip. The very point of a conical tip loses heat very quickly and is mostly just the iron plating on the bit - think about it, iron is a lousy conductor of heat. Oh, and you answered half the question when you suggested you should use flux. Not intended as a snipe, just a comment from somebody who's been there, done that, got the T shirt ;)
I typically use 0805 (metric 2012 2.0x1.2mm) as the minimum size for components on my solder trainers. Gotta be a bit careful about the markings on those LEDs, last year we bought a batch of red ones for one project and a batch of green ones from the same product line for another project, the markings were around the WRONG way on one or other. Not an "eBay special" either, they were from DigiKey so I assume it was a dodgy batch. Oh and SMT = Surface Mount Technology
What would be cool would be to stick 6 fibre optic lines from the led's to a straight line under the Volt Meter and then seal the unit into a nice form factor. Also wouldn't you want to have a push-button to enable the Voltmeter?
Yes, you are not alone, I do hate SMD components but only those 0402 or 0201 ones, they are a pain to work with, even 0603 are acceptable to work with. Buy a microscope, it helps a lot!
I don't hate SMC, but as I'm over 50 I do find them fiddly. I use a bench magnifier to save going cross eyed and I've developed a technique which works for me. 1. Apply flux from a flux pen to the pad. 2. Tin your soldering iron bit, position the component and hold it in place by pressing down with tweezers. 3. Apply the iron to one pad and the flux should allow a small amount of solder to tack the component in place. Then solder the other pad or pads, and return to the original to make a nicer joint. I use my smallest bit
try using an analogue multimeter and see the meter only move a little either way on a slight varying voltage compared to the digital with the numbers flickering about !
Julian, ebay sells a neat little front-slanted case, in which to mount the DPH3205 power supply--a very neat little "control-panel type enclosure!!! I just got mine, but haven't had a chance to use it yet--looks awesome! (Hangzhou Ruideng Technology" is printed on it along with that familiar 'double-arrow' display. Mine also has a large bubble wrap of 'something' in it.
No! I also prefer through-hole 1980's technology for hand soldering! You are not alone. My eyes also much tireder these days, got myself a couple of jewellers loupes just for identifying what SMD's are!
Julian Ilett BTW, there's a guy who made a jump start box with supercapacitor banks like that, but bigger. He put a geared motor to charge them with a hand crank... And it's really turned out amazing!
Of course the capacitor discharge(& discharge) is not linear unless a constant current is arranged to flow through. Through a resistive load the relationship is i=C dV/dt. Certainly for supercaps we can use I=CV/T. Solving for the discharge gives T=CV/I. Remember--use units of seconds volts farads, and Amperes.
Last time I had to deal with especially tiny SMD parts, I glued them in place with a tiny amount of super glue and then soldered them. You'll want to have something blowing the fumes away, hot super glue vapour is not a great idea.
A temperature controlled iron is not going to help on huge copper pours unless it's one of the high mass ones. I use a Weller 1140A and Kester 186 or tacky flux. Sometimes it helps to preheat carefully with a heat gun. I'd donate you some if I had enough money.
I used my first SMT quite recently which was an ams1117 voltage regulator and it wasn't too bad because I was soldering to my own pcbs but I can see that the ones you are using a much smaller and that would be a pain .
Sorry Julian, I really like SMD components because they are nice and compact... But then, soldering is a PITA, because they are so tiny... Even worse is when they slip out of the tweezers because they are so small... They tend to fly off on the desk or floor, never to be found again, because they are so miniscule... Still I quite like SMD components, because... ;-)
I'm 56, I bloody hate surface mount devices (all of them) and I love old school analogue panel meters. In fact my favourite bench psu has two of them. You know you are getting old when you can't see the number clearly on an IC even with a 10x jewellers loupe.
Thanks, Julian. Do you use good quality leaded solder? That, plus pre-tinning the solder pads, using either a hot air gun or a higher wattage iron (carefully), will help greatly. If using an iron, lightly tack down one end of the component, next solder the other end properly, then finish by going to the first end and soldering it properly. I don’t like SMD either, but practice and the use of a large, mounted, magnifying lens and a good light, along with stainless steel surgical tweezers helps greatly. - So long as old age and poverty haven't taken too big a toll! SMT is *_ageist_* of course! ;-p
If you want to try a cheap temperature controlled iron, The T12 kits are cheap (~$15), have quite high thermal capacity, and could even be powered directly from your solar (12v-24v)
Julian Ilett I would wholeheartedly recommend one of the cheap Hakko or JBC clones if you're on a bit of a budget, but unfortunately not all of them are created equal. lol Some of the "Yihua" stations with the proper chunky transformer inside are pretty good for around £25-40 on AliExpress or Banggood etc. Just make sure they have a sturdy Earth connection inside (see EEV Dave's vid on the cheap iron), and that they can use the Hakko / clone replacement tips. If you want a far more sturdily built station for around £60-70, Tenma make a really nice one, and I think you can still get them from Maplin, Farnell, eBay etc.
The TS100 iron is also really good, and very portable. A little more pricey though, 60 bucks or so, but it's basically a full blown soldering station that fits in your hand, save for a laptop PSU which is needed to power it... :) Since you're good friends with bangood, you could probably get them to send you one for review... :D
Thanks for the many videos. Do you have a diode to suggest that would drop about half a volt and could take 5 - 10A? It might be useful for a lead acid battery undervolt protection. Instead of dropping down to 10 volts (and ruining the battery), it would only drop to 10.5 volts.
I always find the best way to mount smds by hand is to tin one side of the board only, with a healthy amount. Enough so you don't need to add to it and your hand is free to hold the component while you melt the existing solder, once one side is down the other can be normally soldered. Just my humble opinion. Not that I don't respect your methods. Those tiny SMD's are fiddly as hell in all fairness
Why not go for a LCD voltmeter? much less power drain than LED, LCD meters only draw about 6mA compared to LED which draws up to about 100mA. Have you actually measured/calculated the current drain of the Analogue meter?
Don't feel bad about soldering surface mount they like to skid all about the board like hover craft. Trick is tin one pad (no matter the package type) and tack the part in place. Solder all the rest and re-flow the tacked solder point with fresh solder. Liquid flux or better yet flux paste is your friend as well.
Hi, Julian, I'd be putting a sheet of clear poly-carbonate or perspex over the PCB under the meter, with all that energy, having exposed solder joints is a bit dangerous. You might let the smoke out.
Bit of a bodge the way you're using the electrical connections to support the panel meter - should have made a simple 'L' bracket to support it, or 3D printed one. It would have been wiser to solder the ring terminals BEFORE connecting to the meter terminals, especially with your low powered iron and to avoid the potential for heat distortion of the plastic case where the contacts protrude. Also, you really need to use flux for SMD soldering, in fact ANY situation where reworking is necessary. You also put no current limiting resistors on the LED's which is why they're "Lovely and bright" - don't be surprised if they begin to fail after a while!
You're not the only person who struggles with surface mount components! I HATE THEM! But unfortunately sometimes they're the only way to go for some projects. My main problems are my eyes and the fact that I can't stop my hands from shaking! So a combination of not being able to see what I'm doing and not being able to hold anything still for any longer than 1 second at a time is rather annoying when you're trying to do those fiddly little jobs like soldering surface mount components!
"don't have any affiliation with alice" - maybe you *should* with as much exposure as you give them. I've bought components from them myself thanks to your videos.
It's great that you didn't edit out your problems soldering these little ba####ds on like some do. Makes me feel better about my sad attempts at it. Love your videos and I've learned a lot following you.
I was so tempted to edit all that out, but thought better of it. I'm looking forward to all the soldering advice that's coming my way ;)
Julian Ilett warts and all is what we like to see. I'm always happy to see that even clever people like you show it for what it is, life at times is a bitch🙏
With the right equipment as Julian mentioned it really is not too difficult to work with SMD. Even the cheap hot air and rework stations work reasonably well when building with SMD. The things to remember are to preheat your board to a safe level, use a tip on your iron with high thermal mass with quick heat recovery and you can't use too much flux.
it was hilarious, julian loses it. something we dont get to see often.
Julian Ilett stay freash and human!
The first four symbols on the right side of the instrument are read as follows:
1: = - This is a DC measuring thing
2: Horseshoe with an extra line - moving coil mechanism
3: 2.5 - Class 2.5 instrument: At full scale the accuracy is 2.5%. At lower voltage it will be less accurate.
4: a vertical line on a horizontal line - The accuracy is only correct when the scale is vertical. In your case it will be slightly off.
Oh wow, thanks for the decyphering :)
Use a chisel tip, throw the round one in the trashbin. Pre tinn one pad and solder it and then solder the other pad and yes solderpaste and or flux is making it aloot easyer. Hotair is not the answer to solder SMD parts. A chisel tip is enough. Keep doing you videos, love them!
Roger Andersson I have abhor air station but I only use it for component removal...and heating my basement.
I'm waiting for a smd to dip conversion board to show up to have my first smd experience, I don't have a chisel tip either, but I have a lot of Flux ready.
Its so comforting to see you battling with soldering SMD after trying this for the first time last week I no longer feel so useless ;-) love your work as always.
nice project. Love the juxtaposition of the state of the art SMD and the olde timey analog meter. Thanks for showing your struggles with the SMD and how you solved it.
I soldered electronics everyday for 4 years without ever touching flux aside from my rosin cored solder. The first time I used it, it was like god descending from the heavens. It will be your best friend and lover if you let it.
...been soldering for decades and never used flux. I now have some coming in from ebay.
Thank you all for your genuinely helpful comments on SMD soldering, for sharing my pain and for not lecturing me.
I'm really pleased with the modifications to the supercapacitor bank and look forward to connecting two of them to Muppet 2 :)
Hey Julian! Another tip for SMD soldering, finer tweezers would help you immeasurably. I put food on the table manufacturing RF filters, and all of what I do is hand soldering with SMD caps and hand wound air coils which aren't much bigger than 600F capacitors (0805 package) I've got a grand total of 5 pairs of tweezers, and depending on what I'm attaching or even what angle I'm working at, I could be dropping one pair and grabbing another as often as 3-4 times a minute. The tips closed on my biggest pair are probably only 70% of the size of one tip on the tweezers you're using in the video. My 2 main sets I use are the AC-PI from Excelta and Aven 3C-SA anti-magnetics, they'd serve you much better.
You are not alone. I also hate really tiny surface mount components. I am 61 and also now use glasses (+2.25 diopter) for close up work.
I'm using 3.5 diopters for soldering, 2.5 for looking at my phone screen while filming.
That's about what I have now at 52, plus a x2 head band that helps a lot. Problem is that I have to get so close to focus that I have to control the respiration in order not to suck the Flux smoke, it's a thi-chi thing 😂
I'm glad you soldered the rest of them off camera, because it was torture feeling your frustration and not being able to do anything! On the subject of the old style volt meters, I always assumed they would use up way more power because of their mechanical nature, though I guess LEDs are fairly power hungry too. Perhaps a non-backlit LCD would be the most efficient? I've actually wondered just how much power various volt meters use, so perhaps a subject for a future video?
I'm loving these analogue voltmeters - such a tiny power consumption. I definitely made the right choice :)
himselfe I think it's in the tao te ching : "The voltmeter that takes least current is the one that's disconnected when not being read". If Julien is reading this - how about a project based on an e-ink display and a microcontroller that drops into pico-power sleep between updates? And user-selectable update frequency. Almost zero energy consumption most of the time. But then maybe the ana is ok...
*Surface mount parts are bane of my existence!!!*
SMT - Surface mount technology. Maybe.
Yeah, I keep forgetting that!
Small Miniature Things :)
Hahaha. Probably one of my favourite videos of yours. I tend to have the same attitude about soldering, and especially smds. I always tell myself "It is what it is and if you don't like it, too bad"
Thanks Steve :)
For SMD led's (and many other SMD components) there's a really easy trick to soldering them. Flow a blob of solder onto ONE pad. add a bit of flux, re-melt it and touch the led to it. The liquid solder will suck the LED in and position it. Let the solder set, then flow the other side. Simple and easy.
Great video! As to your soldering technique - I'm not a big fan of SMDs either, but I usually use a hot air station, or a voltage controlled soldering iron. But my attitude has always been 'Whatever works for you!'
Yes, SMT was the way to go. There are digital meters that have integrated boost converters for the LED segments that operate down to 1.2V, and LCD voltmeters in the same operating voltage
I like the challenge of fiddly soldering. Masking tape is great for preventing tombstones. Do one side - remove tape, then do the other. Good for the "big" SMT stuff.
Oh Julian, I feel your pain. I'm 48, my eyes have been going for about 4 years now. I despise SMD soldering.
A lot of SMT components can still definitely be soldered manually, and without needing solder paste nor a hot air station.
I've yet to personally use solder paste for projects at home, and often manually solder 0603 or even 0402 parts using a 2.5mm chisel tip. That is with a second-hand Metcal station though.
My eyesight is just starting to fail me slightly (at 36), so I know what you mean. lol
You don't necessarily even need temperature control for easier soldering, just a half-decent iron with a good choice of tip, and good thermal capacity (not just a higher "wattage".)
Also, I find that using a smaller gauge solder of around 0.5mm for most stuff (both SMT and through-hole) really helps to control it.
Certainly never larger than 0.7mm for most electronics work, unless you're tinning lots of large wires, or soldering larger heatsink tabs or battery terminals.
And yep - extra Flux REALLY helps, especially after scraping away soldermask etc. ;)
smds are fine and this video is more interesting than just opening the packets.
I love super caps, last week they provided me a week of cold beer during camping at festival. 100W solar panel and cheap charge controller from banggood, but instead of lead battery I used 6x 500F super cap bank. Beer was inside 57W thermometric cooler. Even on cloudy day beer was chilled to perfect temperature. Pretin one smd contact re-flow it and then solder another this always works.
Excellent vid, Julian. Any soldering, no matter the scale, is a challenge for my old fingers; so smds do tend to challenge the extent of my disgusting vocabulary. However, when they are on the board, they do look "the business". It was a little nostalgic seeing the analogue meters and reminded me of the joy with which digital instruments were greeted in the 80s. Now that the novelty has worn off, it does seem a bit precious to convert an analog value to digital (with all the opportunities for error that path offers). Analog meters are so much better with noisy signals than digital.
The soldering battle was refreshing to see. I just had my on battle with a small ribbon cable clamp on a Garmin GPS. If the little plastic clamp comes off it is not easy to get back on the pins. 73 and nerve problems in right hand doesn't help at all.
I think your soldering of SMT is just fine. Its better than I can do.
I used to hate smd soldering but when I got a usable temperature controlled iron they didn't seem so bad. Now I have a microscope and don't even hesitate for the tiniest 0102 components.
Another excellent video Julian and thanks for sharing it with us :)
Really enjoyable video Julian, as usual, full of your take on things, which is always enjoyable.
I'm just over 50 and I know what you mean about eyesight!!
It would be good if you could do a video about solder paste/hot air gun and recommend what's good bad.
Always find of the way you just appear to cobble things together, that somehow just seem to look all professional and retro and dare I say arty!
I have build your setup, so look forward to adding the SMD Leds to my basket and hoping some smart ppl here can show us an easy way to do it.
Thanks for sharing
I think if you use a momentary switch, there would not be any power drawn from your supercaps
I did hate the thought of SMD soldering until I tried solder paste and hot air :-) Had to laugh when the LED went 'ping' across your bench. Times I've done that! :D
Yeah been there with the surface mount stuff, Julian. I'm 27, so it's not too difficult for me to see, but controlling the parts without shooting them across the room is a challenge. Also, one really big issue for me is not getting too much heat into the surface mount parts. I can cook a thru-hole all day long, but by the time I get a smd transistor on the board it's melted. Sigh. I thought hot air would be a wonderful addition to soldering surface mount, but it's not, I always end up cooking the piece before the solder melts. Great for desoldering though!
The best strategy I've come up with so far, especially for those 1206 leds is to use the temp-controlled iron, put solder directly on the iron (oh the horror!), and touch it to the joint while holding the piece with the tweezers. I certainly don't envy you having to do that on those large copper planes, though, that definitely would make my method not work -- maybe you could do a preheat of the board with some hot air or some time in the oven?
Good idea to show the part you struggle with the soldering Julian.
You need an iron with a larger (thicker) tip that holds more heat for large pads.
"sucks the heat out of the iron", or tip to be more precise, is a correct analyzis of you :-)
Tinn one pad and solder it first, then do the other side.
Yeah I agree those little SMD LED's are such a pain I bought some Chinese made lamps and the LED's tend to fail after a short while so I had to buy some replacements to repair mine, I found holding them in place with thermal cement is the best way as the cement holds them very well the heat from the soldering iron cures the cement and it is not to strong than the leds can be moved during curing.
I too am north of 50, and I agree that surface mount bits-n-pieces are far too fiddly.
And you're not alone in having younger folk find fault with your surface mount soldering. The same happened when I posted a video of me trying one of those cheap surface mount practice boards.
Completely agree with you where the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned surface mount stuff is concerned!
*I love SMD components!* If I make my own PCBs I don't have to drill that many holes. And 0402 components fit well beween two pins or tracks (when you forgot a pullup or smoothing cap in your design ;) ). I even use them on perfboard (including SOT-23 and SOIC-8 packages).
Hot air isn't the tool to solder them. You're more likely to blow away other parts nearby than solder on the one you want. And *yes, a temperature controlled and high powered soldering station is a must.* A small chisel shaped tip also helps. Hot air is pretty much the only way to remove SMD components without destroying them though. Half the components of my last projects were SMD salvaged from random PCBs.
And another tip: *don't eat near the desk where you solder SMD.* I had some very crunchy surprise when what I thought was a small chocolate chip fallen from a cookie turned out to be a 0402 SMD resistor that vanished two hours before that out of the grab of my tweezers ;) .
superdau , mmm.., ohmic....
I've never used temperature controlled irons, my iron of choice is the antex xs25, i recently had to change a led on a led strip, i used the 1/8 chisel tip.
My theory on irons is a lot of heat for a very short time reduces the transfer of heat through the rest of the component.
You could add some stiff copper wire to the mounting screws on the meter and solder to the board for support, those screws would be insulated and won't cause problems, it will stop breakages due to vibration etc.
Yup I hate sm soldering in that sort of situation too! It's so much easier on a brand new board that's tinned and prepared, in your situation it can be so frustrating. I don't have the eyesight problem, but shaky hands don't help either!
I ALWAYS use extra flux for sm, it just seems to help flow and stick things in place.
Oh! @20:54 - "gravity advantage", now that's a good trick.
Thanks Sean :)
What about adding a switch in-line with the voltmeter so that it's not constantly drawing energy? That way you could switch it on when you wanted to monitor the voltage and off when you're storing it?
In contrary to popular belief, you use a large chisel tip for soldering SMD. It's like seeing someone individually solder the pads on a ssop or something.
At 78 I hate fitting smd but love them when done. I have several glasses of different strengths on the bench, some times wear two pairs at a time.
How to solder SMD's the easy way:
Place the SMD part on with left hand using a tweezers. Touch the tip of the Iron to the left pads of each post while holding the part down so it wont move. As you do, the heat melts the little tin that is already on the PCB (not in your case), as you touch the pad with your soldering iron, it tacks or spot welds it.
Do all your components, then turn the PCB board around and solder the pads that you didn't touch with your iron (the right side pads). I solder with my right hand.
Once this is done, solder the first pads (welded ones) and you are done.
Once you get the hang of it, you will never go back to through holes, unless you are bread boarding.
1206's are easy. 402's are not bad. The rest? Oh boy...We are all in trouble.
Good luck.
Yep, SMDs are a sod. Flux pen and a variable power soldering iron are both helpful ;)
Don't those volt meters have black screws in the middle that can be used to tension the spring and calibrate the meter?
Julian, as a 62 yr old, life long glasses wearer, I'm challenged by thru hole, and would not even consider surface mount. My head mounted magnifier is my friend, as is my table mounted one. I would just put small thru hole LED's on the next board. It was frustrating watching you play games with that little chip,
They look a right PITA to work with!!
Yes, my first thought when I saw that brush was static electricity electricity. You can fill a mist sprayer with tap water (not distilled) and spray a little above and somewhat away from your workbench to reduce static on those cold dry days.
If you externally power the LED display you can unsolder the bridge and add a sense wire and it will go down to 0. You could also just piggyback the LEDs on the resistor.
the set that i bought from amazon i tested for giggles with an iMax B6 and discharged at a rating of 432 mAh at a 600 mA discharge rate i though that alone was really neat and i plan on buying more in the near future
Tin one pad and then tack solder the componend in place works a treat for me
On a couple of occasions you said half an amp was going in but the display showed 0.2 amp. Good vid. Going to buy some super caps for a play soon, and it will be your fault. LOLZ!
Actually, you made me want some surface mount LED's. ! Glad to see that occasional soldering issues isn't just me. Sorry.
You need a three wire voltage display. Black and red wire for power and white wire is the sense wire. Then it will show down to zero as long as you have a separate power source for it.
I too hate SMD, however I have used them where I absolutely had no choice. In fact I have one HAM radio set laying on my bench back in South Dakota (I am in Arizona now hiding from the snow!) that has the display for the frequencies built out of tiny smd leds. Most of them are burned out, and without them the radio is pretty much useful only for a repeater or some other such mondain usage, however I planned on mounting her in my Ford Edge when repaired. So it was that I found out the size and ordered in a strip of them. Well now, you commented on your eyesight going a bit at 50, I just hit 66 last May, and mine is getting steadily worse for close up making this repair even more difficult, in fact even seeing the arrow on those tiny LED's will be a chore for a microscope. Thankfully I have a couple of cheap electronic microscopes, one is too powerful to be of any use at all (think viewing virus [medical not computer]) but the other works fine and I can view the results on my laptop so it will help a quite a bit. A few years ago, the Veterans Administration issued me a pair of reading glasses (they called them computer glasses but they aren't much good for computers any more, but I can indeed read rather well with them) and I can use them for very close up projects such as this. I am sort of planning this project in my head, and I think that fine tip on the USB soldering iron may be the way to go on it since it is much finer then my regular iron, however is not as regulated as my good iron. OH why did I ever buy that stupid radio (BECAUSE IT WAS CHEAP, that's why!!) I ask myself every time I look at her, but then never mind. I do have a frequency counter that I can use to set the transmit frequency if I change it, then key up and see where I am, that sort of thing, but the counter is way to big to mount on the radio itself.
The problem there is the conical tip. Do as Dave Jones suggests and use a screwdriver style tip. The very point of a conical tip loses heat very quickly and is mostly just the iron plating on the bit - think about it, iron is a lousy conductor of heat. Oh, and you answered half the question when you suggested you should use flux. Not intended as a snipe, just a comment from somebody who's been there, done that, got the T shirt ;)
I typically use 0805 (metric 2012 2.0x1.2mm) as the minimum size for components on my solder trainers.
Gotta be a bit careful about the markings on those LEDs, last year we bought a batch of red ones for one project and a batch of green ones from the same product line for another project, the markings were around the WRONG way on one or other. Not an "eBay special" either, they were from DigiKey so I assume it was a dodgy batch.
Oh and SMT = Surface Mount Technology
I buy a lot from China and some of the packaging is unbelievable! Great video Julian.
Also how many m amps can 1 protection board discharge, thanks
Class is accuracy, that will have an error of plus/minus 2.5V at 100V (supposedly)
Ah, so +/- 2.5%
No, +/-2.5 Chinese%
What would be cool would be to stick 6 fibre optic lines from the led's to a straight line under the Volt Meter and then seal the unit into a nice form factor.
Also wouldn't you want to have a push-button to enable the Voltmeter?
Yes, you are not alone, I do hate SMD components but only those 0402 or 0201 ones, they are a pain to work with, even 0603 are acceptable to work with.
Buy a microscope, it helps a lot!
I use a hot air gun to pre-warm the pcb tracks,which allows you to use a small soldering iron.
That's a good idea - Ill try that.
Class 2.5 means it will be 2.5% accuracy.
I am with you. I can never get surface mount stuff to look right. I much prefer through hole.
I was waiting for a doubleboost John "bastard thing" when that led launched off across the room to places unknown!
I don't hate SMC, but as I'm over 50 I do find them fiddly. I use a bench magnifier to save going cross eyed and I've developed a technique which works for me. 1. Apply flux from a flux pen to the pad. 2. Tin your soldering iron bit, position the component and hold it in place by pressing down with tweezers. 3. Apply the iron to one pad and the flux should allow a small amount of solder to tack the component in place. Then solder the other pad or pads, and return to the original to make a nicer joint. I use my smallest bit
try using an analogue multimeter and see the meter only move a little either way on a slight varying voltage compared to the digital with the numbers flickering about !
Julian, ebay sells a neat little front-slanted case, in which to mount the DPH3205 power supply--a very neat little "control-panel type enclosure!!! I just got mine, but haven't had a chance to use it yet--looks awesome! (Hangzhou Ruideng Technology" is printed on it along with that familiar 'double-arrow' display. Mine also has a large bubble wrap of 'something' in it.
I also hate smd, but it is workable. Get a temperature controlled soldering iron, a chisel tip, some flux and fine solder to make things easier
No! I also prefer through-hole 1980's technology for hand soldering! You are not alone. My eyes also much tireder these days, got myself a couple of jewellers loupes just for identifying what SMD's are!
I'm even more of an amateur than Julian, but I have no problem with SMT devices moving... a drop of superglue works wonders!!
Superglue sounds like a good idea, but how do you dispense such a tiny amount?
Just make sure to not wack the glue onto the pads, the stink when you touch it with an iron will eat your eyes out.
Squeeze out a blob of glue onto something and pick up a tiny amount with a toothpick and apply it to the component.
Via the point of a cocktail stick.....
Before you say the meter is reading wrong, did you check the zero adjustment first?
Great video Julian, totally agree "dreadful surface mount LEDs" 26:31 :)
Really, really nice! But what exactly are you going to do with the ssupercapacitor bank?
+MC's Creations Transfer charge from one capacitor bank to the other :)
Julian Ilett LOL
Julian Ilett BTW, there's a guy who made a jump start box with supercapacitor banks like that, but bigger. He put a geared motor to charge them with a hand crank... And it's really turned out amazing!
Place the leds on top of the resistors. That would look much neater than your angled soldering and it would be much easier to solder.
AFAIK 85C1 is the size & style of the meter.
I like the size of surface mount component, but like you said, they are hard to handle.
Of course the capacitor discharge(& discharge) is not linear unless a constant current is arranged to flow through. Through a resistive load the relationship is i=C dV/dt. Certainly for supercaps we can use I=CV/T. Solving for the discharge gives T=CV/I. Remember--use units of seconds volts farads, and Amperes.
Hi Julian.
Don't know if someone else has mentioned it down below, but the 2.5 on the meter refers to its accuracy. e.g. 2.5%
Last time I had to deal with especially tiny SMD parts, I glued them in place with a tiny amount of super glue and then soldered them.
You'll want to have something blowing the fumes away, hot super glue vapour is not a great idea.
A temperature controlled iron is not going to help on huge copper pours unless it's one of the high mass ones. I use a Weller 1140A and Kester 186 or tacky flux. Sometimes it helps to preheat carefully with a heat gun. I'd donate you some if I had enough money.
I LIKE surface mounted components. They are a little bit ugly to solder, but you don't have any problems, if you do this day by day :-)
I used my first SMT quite recently which was an ams1117 voltage regulator and it wasn't too bad because I was soldering to my own pcbs but I can see that the ones you are using a much smaller and that would be a pain .
Sorry Julian, I really like SMD components because they are nice and compact...
But then, soldering is a PITA, because they are so tiny...
Even worse is when they slip out of the tweezers because they are so small...
They tend to fly off on the desk or floor, never to be found again, because they are so miniscule...
Still I quite like SMD components, because... ;-)
I'm 56, I bloody hate surface mount devices (all of them) and I love old school analogue panel meters. In fact my favourite bench psu has two of them. You know you are getting old when you can't see the number clearly on an IC even with a 10x jewellers loupe.
Thanks, Julian. Do you use good quality leaded solder? That, plus pre-tinning the solder pads, using either a hot air gun or a higher wattage iron (carefully), will help greatly. If using an iron, lightly tack down one end of the component, next solder the other end properly, then finish by going to the first end and soldering it properly. I don’t like SMD either, but practice and the use of a large, mounted, magnifying lens and a good light, along with stainless steel surgical tweezers helps greatly. - So long as old age and poverty haven't taken too big a toll! SMT is *_ageist_* of course! ;-p
If you want to try a cheap temperature controlled iron, The T12 kits are cheap (~$15), have quite high thermal capacity, and could even be powered directly from your solar (12v-24v)
It's probably time :s
Julian Ilett
I would wholeheartedly recommend one of the cheap Hakko or JBC clones if you're on a bit of a budget, but unfortunately not all of them are created equal. lol
Some of the "Yihua" stations with the proper chunky transformer inside are pretty good for around £25-40 on AliExpress or Banggood etc.
Just make sure they have a sturdy Earth connection inside (see EEV Dave's vid on the cheap iron), and that they can use the Hakko / clone replacement tips.
If you want a far more sturdily built station for around £60-70, Tenma make a really nice one, and I think you can still get them from Maplin, Farnell, eBay etc.
The TS100 iron is also really good, and very portable. A little more pricey though, 60 bucks or so, but it's basically a full blown soldering station that fits in your hand, save for a laptop PSU which is needed to power it... :) Since you're good friends with bangood, you could probably get them to send you one for review... :D
Thanks for the many videos. Do you have a diode to suggest that would drop about half a volt and could take 5 - 10A? It might be useful for a lead acid battery undervolt protection. Instead of dropping down to 10 volts (and ruining the battery), it would only drop to 10.5 volts.
1:25 Am I the only one who thinks that the zoom looked smooth af?
I always find the best way to mount smds by hand is to tin one side of the board only, with a healthy amount. Enough so you don't need to add to it and your hand is free to hold the component while you melt the existing solder, once one side is down the other can be normally soldered. Just my humble opinion. Not that I don't respect your methods. Those tiny SMD's are fiddly as hell in all fairness
Alice is your other wife that Sylvia does not know about?
Why not go for a LCD voltmeter? much less power drain than LED, LCD meters only draw about 6mA compared to LED which draws up to about 100mA. Have you actually measured/calculated the current drain of the Analogue meter?
Don't feel bad about soldering surface mount they like to skid all about the board like hover craft. Trick is tin one pad (no matter the package type) and tack the part in place. Solder all the rest and re-flow the tacked solder point with fresh solder. Liquid flux or better yet flux paste is your friend as well.
Hi, Julian, I'd be putting a sheet of clear poly-carbonate or perspex over the PCB under the meter, with all that energy, having exposed solder joints is a bit dangerous.
You might let the smoke out.
Class 2.5 means accuracy is 2 1/2% of fsd.
What's the link to the capacitor bank sir?
SMD = Surface Mount Device
SMT = Surface Mount Technology (general term for all SMD parts)
THT = Through Hole Technology
just a FYI
Bit of a bodge the way you're using the electrical connections to support the panel meter - should have made a simple 'L' bracket to support it, or 3D printed one. It would have been wiser to solder the ring terminals BEFORE connecting to the meter terminals, especially with your low powered iron and to avoid the potential for heat distortion of the plastic case where the contacts protrude. Also, you really need to use flux for SMD soldering, in fact ANY situation where reworking is necessary. You also put no current limiting resistors on the LED's which is why they're "Lovely and bright" - don't be surprised if they begin to fail after a while!
You're not the only person who struggles with surface mount components!
I HATE THEM!
But unfortunately sometimes they're the only way to go for some projects.
My main problems are my eyes and the fact that I can't stop my hands from shaking!
So a combination of not being able to see what I'm doing and not being able to hold anything still for any longer than 1 second at a time is rather annoying when you're trying to do those fiddly little jobs like soldering surface mount components!
Who all are waiting for MPPT and PIC assebly programming?
"don't have any affiliation with alice" - maybe you *should* with as much exposure as you give them. I've bought components from them myself thanks to your videos.