UPDATE: Sadly, after a few weeks of running fine, the power supply once again started exhibiting the same symptoms and failure as before. I have no idea what is the cause, and probably won't be exploring it further, but I'm still very happy to have made this video.
Could be other caps on the way out or gone bad , if one goes the rest are not far behind . You could replace all of them and it might work and it will give you soldering practice
You got the job done so bravo! Here’s some tips for you for future jobs: 1. As soon as solder is melted you don’t need to keep the heating it. The heat transfer can damage the component or other components connected via the board traces or close to the component your are desoldering. 2. There is no need to cut off pieces of wick. Pull out about 8-10 inches from the spool and leave it attached. After you fill the end with solder, just cut off the used wick. You can also use pliers or the heatsink clip to hold the wick so you don’t burn your fingers. 3. You can get away with heating the solder pad and with your other hand pull directionally on the component you are removing. You can heat solder joints alternately and rock a capacitor back and forth gently to remove it. Then cleanup the solder pads with the wick and IPA to free the pads of solder. 4. I recommend taking pictures or writing down the position and/or polarity of components being removed to ensure you don’t accidentally install the replacement component in the wrong direction. It can be dangerous for some components to be installed in the wrong direction like a high voltage capacitor. 5. Avoid over heating pads and solder joints as you can destroy the pads, layers of the PCB you can’t see, or destroy components with prolonged heating. When installing parts, heat just enough to add solder. You can solder for 2-3 seconds, pause a few seconds, and then repeat as needed until you have added enough solder. Happy soldering. The more soldering you do, the better you will become at it. I recommend practicing by removing all components from a dead PSU or something. I did a lot of desoldering when I was 13, and I got quite good in no time.
@@HardwareHaven you are welcome! Everyone starts as a beginner. Believe me, I have stories I could tell about burned fingers, burned carpet, and even a bed blanket fire stemming from soldering and tinkering with electronics. So don’t feel like you’re terrible at it…I can assure you I was much worse lol 😂
@@HardwareHaven As a counter-point, I would say that in many cases, you may need to stay on a pad with the iron for longer than it takes to just melt the solder. If it's a temp-controlled iron, that should go most of the way to preventing damage to the PCB substrate, and you'll find that getting enough heat into some pins (especially the ones connected to ground and power planes) is difficult, but if you're removing a potentially bad compoent, don't worry about damaging the component *too* much. Honestly, as counterintuitive as it may sound, a bigger iron (or just a bigger tip for your current iron - something with lots of thermal mass, like a chunky chisel tip instead of a cone tip, can help a little as well) can help you get in and get out quicker and reduce chances of damaging components or the board. Also, solder suckers DO work, but require lots of heat since the air rushing around the joint can cool the solder, and if you're cheap like me, you can semi-re-use solder wick by heating up the blob of solder on it with your iron and them flicking it off into a metal trashcan. It won't remove all the solder from it, but at least 90% so you can use that section repeatedly to grab the majority of solder from a joint and then you only need a tiny piece of fresh wick to get the last 10% off a joint. Happy (de)soldering from me as well!
@@HardwareHaven 6. When using the desoldering gun, don't be afraid to keep the tip in contact with melted solder until you are sure you are aiming it right. The tip is meant to take the heat and survive. If it melts, you'll know you have a uselessly cheap device. 7. Try out a different soldering iron tip, a bevel/chisel edge is usually better for these uses because they transfer heat better.
You're devotion to this channel and the idea behind it is incredible Your videos even when not or hardly scripted are of very high quality and I have enjoyed watching every one of them
As a freshman in high school I built a 0 - 9 vdc power supply and knowing the basic theory behind how you get from 120vac to 9 vdc takes lots of the “mystery” out of it. PC PSU’s are easy to get and trying to repair this is a good place to start. Excellent video
Hey! Any chance I could pick your brain a bit? I've been working on an old AT power supply and have hit a dead end. I replaced the bad main filter caps and check pretty much every passive component and they all check good. There might be a few capacitors on the secondary side that are so so, but that isn't a worry at this stage. I'm getting no power to the control IC which means it will not start. I have photos where I marked out the traces If you'd be willing to take a look. I'd be very appreciative.
I'm so glad this was a success for you. I worked for over 2 years repairing power supplies like FSP's, Delta etc and these were all returned to Dell, HP and other big companies. We were contracted to repair their powers supplies so the advice is sound. Your soldering would have gone a lot easier and quicker had you used a chisel tip on the iron, the thin tip just not transfer heat quick enough as the large components act as a heat sink and draw the heat away from the legs quickly. The end result was a solid job. Great video and thanks for the mention.
A larger, less-pointy, tip will have much better heat transfer and heat build-up. Also for these large components the mass of solder you are trying to smelt is way larger than that of the tiny pointy tip. You might have noticed that when you tried to smelt the solder by touching the terminal of the component with the very tip of the soldering iron, but discovered it was way more effective by using the middle section of the soldering iron instead. ;) You did good, be broud of yourself :)
I don't know if you'll see this, but I'll try. I've been soldering for about 60 years now. You've got right equipment, but some wrong thinking. If you want to remove a simple component (2 legs), then just quickly/alternately heat eat leg while pulling out the component (use damp tissue if it's too hot for your fingers). Focus the heat where the lead contacts the trace. Watch your tip and don't let it wander around (and use just the tip most of the time; hold your iron at more like a 45 degree angle). Rocking a component after the solder is cooling will probably lift/trash a trace. THEN use the solder wick to mop up the holes. Don't spread it out. That guarantees you'll get it stuck across traces or leave tiny copper fibers as shorts. I've got a few videos on solder technique and immodestly speaking, I'm pretty fair at soldering from training/experience.
@@stoutscientist Ofc then you shouldn't be near a PSU. But compared to other things like motherboards or GPUs, PSUs are generally easy and simple to work on.
Awesome awesome video. I seriously think this was exactly what you were intending for the outcome to be as you described at the beginning. Seriously tho no need to be so nervous. You did great! You’ll get better with practice. I think it’s really good to document stuff like this. Soldering can be very daunting but showing this will have dozens of people trying it out for the first time because they saw what it’s like to solder something at a “beginner level” I wish I could like this video more than once
I'm just a nobody that enjoys all your videos because I find a great sense of entertainment from them but also learn a good amount. But please never stop making videos. You're great at every aspect of them (even the learning along with us) and I always look forward to them.
I am really impressed! You did a really good job considering your limited experience. When I first started soldering, everything I touched became a disaster. These boards are a pain to work on because of the massive traces that suck all the heat away as you saw in the second joint. I would love to see more videos like this one, and I look forward to your next upload! Cheers!
Ok, here is my 30+ years of soldering experience in a nut shell... "Leave the solder wick on the roll and real out to use, then cut off the end. No burnt fingers...done..." LOL Also you don't need to spread out the end of the wick... :-) As other have mentioned turn up the heat if you can and get a flat tip for the iron. If you are going to do more soldering (practice make perfect) I suggest you get a Weller Soldering station where you can control the heat. You can get one of the cheaper ones to start out, it will be fine... 👍 Flux is your friend but use it wisely. Get the liquid "no clean" pins like a sharpie. Much easier to use... Lol When repairing anything from China remember, they use "lead free" solder and it takes tons and I mean tons of heat to melt it. You did the right thing in the video, flood it with Lead Solder to soften the Chinese solder. Take your solder wick and add flux to it, it will help the wicking action and absorb the solder better... 🙂 When you get 98% of the solder removed you can just heat both pins back and forth and wiggle the cap and pull on it and it should come out. When using the solder sucker leave the iron on the pin and place the sucker over the pin and iron at the same time and don't worry about the little gap between the iron and board it let's the sucking action work better... LOL Lastly, YOU Did a Great Job! It is all about learning. I guarantee you will not learn any younger! 🤣😆🙂 Thanks for the videos! LLAP 🖖
I love your videos. Especially this one. Every one that you make is so down to earth and everyone is not perfect and I understand that. This video has been great. Stay awesome!
You did an decent job overall, the more you solder the better you will get, keep in mind that flux is your friend, it helps solder flow better, also when you go to heat a part up with your iron, add a small dab of solder to the tip of the iron where it will touch whatever you are heating as it helps GREATLY with heat transfer, and also when adding solder to components like that I have found it best to apply solder to the joint between the iron and the part as it will almost immediately melt the solder and start flowing into the joint, also through hole components don't need much solder, it should be a nice even concave curve from the edge of the pad up the stem of the component a little bit. Keep up the great content and I can't wait to see your skills improve.
I do think it's a great first job! As everyone says, practice makes perfect. One of the things I learned with time and pain is that there is never too much flux. Always put it, helps a ton with the job. And don't be afraid to put more if that's necessary! You can clean it afterwards with IPA and a toothbrush or something like that. Again, good job and keep them coming!
Your solder job was honestly not that bad. De-soldering is a finicky pain even on the best of days with the best tools. The only critique I have is that you're using a garbage iron that looks like it has no temp control. Ideally you want your iron to be hot enough that solder melts as soon as you touch it, without you having to sit on it and cook it. Solder wick is also much harder to use without high enough heat. The idea behind it is that you push it onto the solder with the iron, and the iron heats the wick up to the temp that the wick melts the solder, which then gets insta-sucked into the wick. This is almost impossible with an iron that isn't hot enough. Solder wick is a huge hassle no matter your skill level. A sucker is easier to use in this case. Don't be afraid to push the top of the sucker onto the melted solder/iron and hit it. The tip is made of silicone and is very heat resistant. There's a nice solder sucker made by vampire tools that's the best you can get. A slightly broader tip for your iron would help with de-soldering as well.
@@HardwareHaven The iron is probably good enough, but it almost certainly isn't temp controlled, super cheap irons like this are power controlled, there is a considerable difference as a temp controlled iron will give full power as soon as it notices a drop in temp. The real issue is that garbage pencil tip, you really want a bevel, chisel, or knife tip, it gives more surface area and has a slightly more mass, plus you want the tip to somewhat match the size of what you're working on, seriously the right tip can make all the difference even in a cheap iron, if you want a cheap upgrade though either a Pinecil or a TS100 is an easy recommendation at between $26 to $50.
@@HardwareHaven Not an expert but have soldered my fair share of chunky solder joints on old pcbs. The tip you're using is conical which is typically better for small precision work. The contact area is really small so when you have a chunky joint, old joint or you're working with lead free solder (all 3 probably apply here) it can be difficult to get enough thermal transfer going. This is probably why you had such a hard time with the wick. The TS100 soldering iron is widely available and pretty well regarded as a decent hobbyist iron. It's ~70-80USD, temperature controlled, usually comes with a conical tip and you can pick up a chisel tip for ~15USD off of amazon. Not sure if that's affordable for you but I swear by mine :)
@@HardwareHaven Almost any Weller iron is good for its price range. I used a WLC100 for a good while. There are a lot of replacement tips you can get for cheap for Weller irons too, which you'll go through over time. Hakko is a good brand for a next-step once you've accumulated some practice and honed your skill a bit.
Hey man, you've got great content. You don't need to apologize or cater to the one person who is going to leave a nasty comment. You are actually taking action and asking how you can improve and that, to me, makes up for the little imperfections. Plus, if you work through a mistake I get to learn from it. Keep it up!
1:34 Don't worry! When you come to Taiwan for Computex, I'll show you how to solder. Hint: It is a LOT of practise to get the feel for things. Don't be afraid to try on dead boards first.
My wife wants to thank you. I have 4 used PC's that I'm in the middle of tinkering with on my dining room table. This after I built a crazy rig over COVID! No seriously though, keep up the great content.
Good stuff! Cool video! Also loved the little talk about not being an asshat to others and helping out those who are newer to the field. I certainly would have loved some of that back in the day and I try to help people where I can now.
I think your soldering skills are alright, the main problem is your soldering iron. I used to have a soldering iron that looked exactly like the one you have, and I always had problems with it. I don't think it gets hot enough. I now have a Hakko fx888d solder station and a few different tips and it's made a world of difference. I love your channel and I do hope to see more repair-type videos!
Congrats on the fix :). Have more faith in your work. @mesterak is giving some pretty good advice in the comments; I'd add to that one more - avoid those thin soldering iron tips. Get a thicker one, to get better heat transfer going on. Anyway, again, congrats :).
Thx for sharing! I'll probably try to fix my own power supply that I got laying around. Also practice makes best so don't worry if you're not good at soldering now because I know you will get better at it in no time!
I'm not a soldering expert, but I can give you some advise as an electrical engineer. If you want to make certain the power supply is safe to work with get a multimeter and measure the voltages on the input side. Important parts are the high voltage capacitors and the main input wires. To discharge the PSU use a screwdriver and short out the pins. In general though 110-230V isn't dangerous as long as you don't have a heart condition. You just get a shock which hurts momentarily. After your soldering job you can also test the PSU with the multimeter. This fault is finding before connecting it to other components. In the end though we are all human and capable of doing mistakes. I recently cut off some useless molex connectors from my PSU and when putting back it together I forgot to plug in the PSU fan. It worked initially, but after maybe 20min the PC just shut off because the PSU was overheating. Because I also installed a new graphics card it took me a few attempts of fault finding to figure it out.
Somebody already added an excellent comment about soldering. I wanted to give a few small additions to that comment. That tip on your iron is completely useless in electronics. It doesn’t have enough thermal mass for proper heat conductivity. If you’re wanting to learn how to solder and do it well, I’d recommend finding a used Hakko unit online somewhere for cheap. I can’t recommend getting a good flux enough as well. The one you used is okay but ends up leaving a lot of residue and doesn’t do the greatest job cleaning the joint as it’s flowing. Leaded solder is king. A big roll will last you a long time. When it comes to desoldering braid, if you apply flux to the braid as well as have a nice larger tip on your iron, it’ll do a lot better job sucking up the solder through surface tension. Also, no need to spread out the ends of the solder wick :) Also also, those tweezers could have saved your fingers when using the solder wick, or better, don’t cut it off the roll until a section has already been used. Otherwise, good job getting that replaced! Glad you had that learning opportunity!
Very cool! I’ve always loved the idea of repurposing and repairing older tech, just seems like a great use of the resources available to us and helps keep just a little bit more e-waste out of the landfill. Currently working with a surplus Dell 5040 i7 SFF that I got from my local community college for a great deal. Using it as a NAS and Plex Server currently but there’s so much more I could do!
I had many of the same issues you ran into when I started working on my old monitor a few years ago. My results improved dramatically when I switched to a small 3,2 mm chisel tip. It's certainly cheaper than a new iron, so maybe try that first.
Soldering tips (no pun intended): 1) Speaking of Louis Rossman, he advised that the type of tip you used in this video should go straight into the trash. Use a chisel tip instead. 2) Don't trouble yourself with trimming the amount of Solder and wick that you're using. Just use it straight off of the spool. The solder will automatically shorten itself. The wick will need to be trimmed only of the used portion. Other than those two things, you accomplished your goals. Good job! Keep that flow going (again, no pun intended).
From an amateur at soldering, I have some tips. I don't usually hold the wire when trying to remove the solder. Also, I tend to first try to remove the capacitor by wiggling it out and then getting the solder out. Another tip that helped me out is, if the solder isn't melting, try to rub the tip a bit
Good job! I can't offer any soldering advice with confidence as I'm waiting on my first welding station to arrive. I just know a buddy of mine says it's a combo of using the right tip, adequate heat, and flux is your friend.
I find that the best and easiest de-solderer to use, at least for me, is the type that have a squeeze bulb directly attached to the iron. You just compress the bulb with your finger and hold it that way until the iron melts the solder and then release the bulb to suck up the solder. The combo iron/bulb are cheap, easy to use, lasts a LONG time because the tip is metal not plastic/Teflon like the separate solder suckers and quite effective on de-soldering. I got mine many years ago from Radio Shack...when they still had stores you could actually shop in. I miss Radio Shack.....😕 PS: To make life a little easier, I use rosin core solder which is usually a mix of lead and tin to solder and also help to remove the harder silver solder when de-soldering. You don't have to worry about adding separate flux because it's already mixed into the center of the solder. Now with the anti-lead regulations, it will get harder and harder to get lead/tin solder I would imagine so maybe best to stock up on it when you find it. I may be wrong about that but you never know...🤔
I was yelling at you while you were soldering, just to hold the solder wick with a tool vs your fingers. I'm glad you fixed it though with something small like that, especially if the PS is more power efficient than the larger ones. As for a script, yeah, I found I ramble too, and that is why I voiceover most all of my work now. (Cartoon Goodmonkey is fun, but we will see how far I go with it).
Dude, no roasting never from me but I will tell you I was the same way and this is how I got better, I overcame by practicing more and more and more and I learned that the more you do soldering the better you get at it so never fear keep going you're doing good.
Your soldering job looks nice -- an ideal solder joint on a lead should be solidly conical with slightly concave sides, like what you managed. Ideally, you want to minimize the amount of time you have the iron against the board/components to reduce the odds of heat damaging anything but, as with all things, you'll get better/faster with practice. If you plan on soldering more frequently, I have one word for you: flux. It makes soldering jobs faster, neater, and reduces the the odds of bridging connections.
Hello, a little late to the party, here are my thoughts: I agree with most of the constructive comments, and you're not that bad at soldering (I've seen people doing a far worst kind of job when they're told how to solder to be their primary job) for the solder wick, only cut the parts that are heavily soaked in solder, and to not burn your fingers, use a flat pair of tweezers or some small nose pliers. adding some flux before using it helps the wick to suck more solder. Another thing to take seriously is the soldering Iron, you have the cheap style (I'm not against it, I have one like that in a small box for when i'm in the field), and it does the job, since it's an hakko tip style (900m series tips) either your set comes with other tips or you can order a set of different tips for cheap, in this case your tip was primarily for SMD of thin legged through hole components. The best Tip in your case would be knife style (angled large flat tip) or the biggest chisel Tip (Angled rounded tip). The tip you choose for a work is dependent to type of work, some basics to how to choose are already on the Web, and on UA-cam, by the most reputable brands. To help extract the capacitor, you can use a trick where you put a piece of copper wire, like that you can heat the two pads simultaneously ( but need a heavy mass tip like i mentioned above. a thing to consider, your capacitor was depleted, but if you redo this or someone else, if the power supply was tested short time before (and some times it's the same a week after), you need to discharge the capacitor, either the flashy way ( screwdriver trick) or by putting a high value resistor (like 500K or 1 M ohm), and checking the voltage is under 10V (safe voltage is under 50V but at that voltage, the current stored can tickle you)
I had a similar soldering iron, and while it's OK for larger passive parts: THT capacitors, inductors and resistors. It's not suitable for SMD or active parts (anything that has silicon: transistors, diodes, ICs), as it's not temperature controlled - the dial controls the power of the iron, not the temperature, so it gets scorching during an extensive session, and will fry your smaller/sensitive components. (You might noticed it getting warmer on the handle) For a replacement: I have heard a lot of great things about the USB-C powered digital irons, but I never tried one. It's not larger than the one in the video, like regular soldering stations (like the one I own). But go with whatever you can source for cheap and is not completely trash.
When repairing a PSU, I recommend using a PSU tester before working on it so you know what problems it is exhibiting, and test again after finishing repairs to ensure the PSU is working. A $9 PSU tester is easier item to replace vs. a motherboard and components that could get fried by a faulty PSU or because there were missteps in the PSU repair work.
I am really bad at desoldering as well, especially i don't have any wick or sucker, just melt and pull. My immature suggestions: cut the lead of the dead component so it's no long a heat sink, use bigger hotter tip, and most of all "ADD MORE FLEX". Good video.
Yeah I thought about just powering it on, but I needed to make sure I didn't run into the same fault I had previously, which was slightly inconsistent. Probably would've been smart though... haha
Wow!!!!! That's so cool man! The electrical side of things is so far from anything I know, this was cool seeing the process! Makes me wanna mess around with it a bit. Maybe I can fix the power issue with my old Bass Amp! :) I'll pick your brain about it later. Another Great Video!
Solder wick needs lots of flux to work well, so that's probably why you never had "luck with it before" (ie you didn't add flux to whatever you were doing). Also, don't cut it off, use the container it comes in to hold it without burning your fingers. With such large solder pads (especially when large traces or planes are involved) a bigger tip helps get more heat into the pad (ie more than the traces dissipate) - making soldering easier. The solder sucker is the best way to remove solder with through hole components, but you don't usually remove the iron before letting it "suck". For trickier things you can also wiggle the component out of its holes by melting the solder on one pin, pulling the part gently out a bit, then repeating on the other pad. Repeat the entire thing until the component comes out.
I know the video is about "soldering", but think about the physics involved. 1. The glue should have been attacked FIRST. It was bound to stop things moving! 2. The component being removed was in bad shape; it did not need its leads polishing with wick. Melt the joint and pull the component from the other side of the board. Do things quickly and you won't burn your fingers, but there such things as pliers! 3. Work on one lead at a time and rock the component so as to pull that lead at least partially through the board, then work on the other. Yes yu will stress the component, but in this case it was scrap anyway. 4. You are trying to get heat from the iron into the joint. Molten solder on the iron improves that transfer (it's called tinning). You were continually wiping it off on your cleaning pad, and all that time the thing you were trying to heat up was cooling down. 5. You would have been better with a bigger tip on your iron, but if it's all you have... 6. Once the component is out, THEN think about cleaning the joint with wick. It might not even be necessary with a large component like this.
I cringed a tiny bit at your solder skills but only because I see myself so many years ago also having no idea what I was doing basically ! Im not good by any means but I only got as far as I have now because I keept on trying and imporving and I commend you for that ! To show off that you arent a master like other youtubers who have been doing that stuff for years to show even a person with little experince can try to fix stuff ! Amazing. Keep up the great work and I havent watched it to the end yet but if you have failed projects in the future, upload them maybe show what you put into trying to fix something because at least for me, it hits really hard when you cant fix something whilst others on youtube do it with ease and its nice to see that not everything can be fixed / that maybe you havent had collected enough experince yet ( I had a Gamecube that I took apart when I was like 12 years old and now last year I finally put it back togehter again 10 years later ) Im sorry if my english is a bit broken cant wait to see what comes next
Some tips with wicks, flood the surface with more flux. That's what usually works for me. And also use some tweezers, to move around the wick, as you probably know the wick can get pretty hot. So there's my two cents. I'm not an expert my any means. Just some tips from a guy. EDIT : Also for optimal soldering use a adjustable temperature soldering iron like a TS100 or a soldering station. Increase the temperature on huge ground planes or huge surfaces like high power traces. The solder will flow better that way. Also hold the solder more further away. Cause it heats up. I see your finger is uncomfortably close to the iron.
Great Video! Adamant IT's UA-cam has some wonderful videos on computer repair and diagnoses. I'd give his videos a watch to look at his technique and his understanding. It TREMOUNDOUSLY helped me on my solder and repair skills. I look forward to the future of your channel!
Man, you should of seen me trying to solder on a inductor back onto a server motherboard with the cheapest 40 watt soldering iron you could ever buy lol, it worked!
Hello Haven This is your fan again hope you are good!! i have a tip to check the power supply you could just short the black and green wire on the atx pin and the fan would turn on thats the indication that a power supply working without connecting the computer
Very interesting and thanks for the video. No way i trust myself with repairing a power supply though. I know I'm not -great- not good at soldering and i don't want to fry other hardware or worse. I recently had a 12 yr HP EX495 media server 250W PSU die and i replaced it with a new 350W with extra molex and sas power for future upgrades. $70 shipped. Looking at the old broken psu, i couldn't see anything obvious like capacitors but i did see charred metal shielding near a copper coiled thingy. Was so happy when the new PSU worked. Thanks again for your videos.
Here is some advice as like to friend. If you want to solder real good get a de soldering pump and get a little bigger chizzle (idk how to say it) for soldering iron and that's it and some practice. Love your videos.
Definitely needed either a different soldering iron or a bigger tip for a pad like that . The board will soak up a lot of heat and that pencil tip was having problems trying to melt the solder , it was struggling to transfer enough heat . Bigclive is a good one to watch for soldering if you don't already know his channel .
Congratulations friend! I´m happy, that you made it. You didn´t made any horrible mistakes, I wasn´t good at soldering when I started with electronics too. I think the only thing you need is practice. And if you have still the Liteon psu from the AMD Compaq, I think you will be able to replace the IEC connector. Mayve you should try that in future video.
A bit of flux on the wick makes it eat up solder like nobody's business, a good thing to remember is if you want solder to flow somewhere hit it with flux first.
Congrats on fixing the PSU. Please next time get a fume extractor the smoke of solder is toxic. A couple of tips I’m sure other ppl mention them. Flux is your friend, a good solder puller is important get a Hako DS10 they are really good. You don’t have to cut the solder wick. Next time add more solder and move it around to mix the lead solder and the unleaded solder used in manufacturing. But over all you did a nice job, you will get better with time keep practicing.
Leave the solder wick on the roll, add some flux on the solder wik, heat up the solder, then place the wik over and heat them both, the flux will ensure that the solder gets melted onto the wik and do not add solder after that. Once the tip of the wik is full of solder, snip it off and add some flux and keep on going. Cringe ... but you learned and that is the main purpose of attempting something. Well done! There can be no learning without failing
Those capacitors can carry 325Volt DC at peek. 7:28 don't worry my man, everyone was bad at some point, you just have to make sure you use the temperature you prefer, and flux use, for desoldering stuff, i use a bit higher temperature: About 380C and for soldering, i use about 320C. You have to play arround with your tool you have. When you facing a project, at first glance, the procedure will be hours, but end of the day you realize, that you just got better. Nothing to worry about. 8:21 The mistake that some guys make that they applying heat for longer period of time with lower temperature (Like 5-10second on 300C on desoldering. Make the temperature higher, and the solder will melt in fraction of second, the board in that period of time will not be heated much, that means, that you unlikely to damage the board. ) I dont wanna offend you in any way, i do soldering for two year, im pretty confident when i grab my soldering tool, and i rock with the pcb/solderable board/pins etc... My last project, it was a 10Watt Quasi class AB audio amplifier, that gave 32Watt output on 8ohm load (changed the circuit a bit, and raised the Rail voltage from 30Volts to 50Volts). Soldering quality came out pretty good, and im proud of myself. 17:10 Your soldering tool looks decent, just raise the temperature a bit if you're want the tin melt faster. Like 20-40 Celsius can do a great magic. I do mostly amplification, i have smoked some amplifier IC's, one instance was that the Ic exploded in my hands due the IC was been not genuine, and i burned some transistors when i was playing arround making a proper amplifier, that i found some scematic on the internet.
If you want to improve your soldering skills it’s a good idea to get some broken electronics and practice de soldering and re soldering components, I did it on my parents broken sky+ box years ago when I was harvesting the hard drive, i was terrible at it but it’s amazing how quickly you improve and start getting a feel for things, then it doesn’t matter if you have to throw it away after
on the bigger solder joints like that capasitor one you should use a bigger tip on the iron, the tips ware out and the fine point ones are good to save for the tiny connections. also modern solder suckers are crap so what probably explains why you havent had much luck with them. i have a pretty good one but thats only cuz its from the 1980s lol
If I was you I would have checked if any of the voltage rails were shorted before plugging it into the PC after replacing the capacitor. I would have also checked if the cap you replaced was shorted or if you had an ESR (equivalent series resistance) meter, measure internal resistance or measure capacitance with a multimeter out of circuit. I would have also tested the PSU by tripping it on and loaded with a HDD or something to see if all voltage rails were present, before plugging it into the PC. That's just a few thoughts I had, I'm still pretty much a novice. Anyways it was an entertaining video keep it up.
you're wrong. I don't always feel the need to correct people...😁 but for real, I love the attitude. this space can be a exciting place to lean if just try. we're all here to learn
I guess the best way to troubleshoot a PSU seems to be to test every single component, which may not even work and then you need to unsolder all of them, test them, and solder them back... the fast way of troubleshooting while the device is running is far to dangerous here, unless... the PSU's control circuit could maybe run on an external 5v supply so you can test that without connecting the power plug
Even if you did something wrong, I will not criticize you. The main thing is that you are trying to learn, and sooner or later you will learn. It's just a matter of experience.
You did well considering the tools you have, but testing a PSU in a computer was a big no no if it's something you didn't want to blow up, instead simply connect a jumper between PS_ON and ground (search for "power on atx psu" or the pinout if you don't know what that is), then check for 12v / 5v / 3.3v using a multimeter, if you don't have one, a super cheap one only costs like $4 or if you want it today, something like $10 or $15 at most hardware stores or in the car aisle of a supermarket. Side note, not needed on modern PSUs but if it shows nothing then it may need a load attached before it outputs anything.
Great Video!! I don’t think I could ever do anything like this because of the horror stories I’ve heard about faulty PSUs. 😅 On another note, thanks to your videos I set up my own TrueNAS/Plex Server and got it up and running in no time!
Hahaha, as long as you know how to make sure the caps are all discharged and double check that, it's fairly safe. And that's awesome! What are you running it on?
I'm running it on a Supermicro X10SLM+-F, Intel Xeon E3-1231v3, 32GB DDR3 Ram with a 2.5GBase-T PCIe Network Adapter in TrueNAS SCALE (because Linux lol). I haven't installed and so far not had to install a GPU but I'm very happy to have something other than scattered external hard drives to store my family's data.
Need large blade tip for soldering iron. Turn up the heat Use more flux... more more flux. Low melt solder enables cheat mode for desoldering. Not for soldering, just desoldering.
@@HardwareHaven Heat moves through the metal iron to the solder. More surface area = more heat able to move. Big tip for most jobs. Fine tip for hard to reach places. Blade tip for best of both.
Damn, forgot! When you are messing with Caps, always discharge them by shorting across the Positive and negative pins with a screw driver and be ready for a flash and a pop some times... Lol LLAP
imo the tip you used is too sharp/small, having a larger tip helps melt the solder through the wick easier pro tip: keep 2 different kinds of tips for your soldering iron; a sharp one for the small precise stuff and a bigger/duller "general purpose" one
@@HardwareHaven i end using the bigger tip almost all the time, i pretty much only use the smaller one for soldering connectors with a lotta pins onto PCBs and for extremely small wires
The desoldering wire is only for little solder pads and desoldering the bridges . If you want to desolder big solder pads you need to use a solder sucker. (im 13 but used the soldering iron and other stuff. Btw it was 2 ago.)
At partway through, I'm thinking. 1. What the hell kind of tip is that, the traditional chisel tip would be much better. 2. Don't cut braid, gold it by the spool and you won't burn your fingers. PS. Got any Haven suggestions for me for a Veriton N281G (Atom D425, 4GB, one 2.5" drive capable)... 1x 2.5" file server? Kodi box? Not sure if it would have the punch for retro emulation
You should have gone with Branded Capacitor.. like Nippon - Chemicon, Nichicon, or atleast Elite... That unbranded Cap doesn't looks good.. also I recommend to replace output side capacitors too.. to make pSU more little long lasting
I’m around 6 1/2 minutes into the video and I have a couple of thoughts. A. Don’t ever let anybody tell you what to do. It’s your channel, it’s your safety, you do what you feel comfortable doing. End of story. B. PSU’s aren’t worth repairing, as there’s largely an inherent risk in getting hurt. Those FSP GROUP INC power supplies are so cheap, they’re E-waste from the get go.
22:20 Why not, i would, maybe just mention it !? Never sought to find out if it is common in the world of electronics, seemed so to me from what i saw, but could be other substance, but once i get something to stick a little with solder, it is.... here comes the tons of glue. So far so good anyhow. (from holland, with defect spell checker).
7:20 You're not bad at soldering, what happen is that you are not using the correct tip for that job. For desoldering large components, you need a big flat tip for the soldering iron, the one that you were using is better suited for small jobs, like soldering smd components. I speak from experience, because i said the same thing about my soldering skill, until i got advice and bought the proper equipment, after that, it wasnt that bad :D
Hey Haven, I love your videoss so muchh, esspecially the mc server ones. So I am hoping you can see this and directly kinda help me if you can(and I apologise for my grammar and my English overall).Situation is that I have a spare Win7 PC(p43 chipset,xeon e5440, 6gb ddr2) and I want to use it remotely from my main pc, but my second pc lacks a GPU. I thought of installing my main pc's gpu in it and then instaling some software which could let me use the pc remotely and then swapping the GPU again, but I don't know whether that is possible or if I am supposed to use another OS(I am not so good software-wise). I plan to use the server just for MC for now and maybe for a NAS in the long run. Again absolutely love your videos!
@Hardware Haven Ah, I forgot to mention that it's also worth to check transistors at the input also, because when that so called tank cap goes bad, sometimes also transistors goes bad causing ded short on the input. It is also a good idea to test PSUs with Incandescent light bulb or halogen lamp in series, so you can simply replace the fuse with light bulb therefore if sth gets shorted, the light bulbt will act as a current limiter and will protect the circuit... Sometimes it works, sometimes not and for example transistor gets shorted anyways, but at least you will avoid blackouts caused by popped braker in ur breaker box.
The only reason the other pin was harder to do is because it was attached to ground, aka the point where the most components are attached sooner or later. This means it's literally the biggest hunk of metal on the board, and heating this up takes time. You put your iron nice and hot on the pad, but heat quickly escapes to the rest of the metal that's cold due to the difference in temperature and willing to equalize it. That's why solder wouldn't melt at first, why wick got stuck, etc. Plain and simple - bigger metal, need to wait longer until it heats up and solder melts. Yes it can take a minute, even a few minutes. A bigger surface area of the tip hels with faster heat transfer, so laying the tip flat like you did helps as well. As a semi-pro electronics repairer, I'd say you're overreacting - there's nothing that made me scream in the video, save for "that's pretty good, why does the guy beat himself up for it instead of just giving it a go". Soldering is like riding a bicycle - it's easy stuff that just about every monkey can do as long as you get some starting advice so you don't get stuck doing the same mistakes over and over, and you practice often. That's it. It's easy, and it's a fun superpower to wield. Go solder more and have fun!
7:00 im already walking towards the exit when buddys says were going to remove this by adding solder?! no no no my frien thats not what you do...and what you need is a hot air station instead of fiddling fkin around with soldering iron burnin the pcb and makin a mess.
UPDATE: Sadly, after a few weeks of running fine, the power supply once again started exhibiting the same symptoms and failure as before. I have no idea what is the cause, and probably won't be exploring it further, but I'm still very happy to have made this video.
Great work none the less love the channel makes me want to finally start mine
Could be other caps on the way out or gone bad , if one goes the rest are not far behind . You could replace all of them and it might work and it will give you soldering practice
Great work and appreciate your honesty.
You got the job done so bravo! Here’s some tips for you for future jobs:
1. As soon as solder is melted you don’t need to keep the heating it. The heat transfer can damage the component or other components connected via the board traces or close to the component your are desoldering.
2. There is no need to cut off pieces of wick. Pull out about 8-10 inches from the spool and leave it attached. After you fill the end with solder, just cut off the used wick. You can also use pliers or the heatsink clip to hold the wick so you don’t burn your fingers.
3. You can get away with heating the solder pad and with your other hand pull directionally on the component you are removing. You can heat solder joints alternately and rock a capacitor back and forth gently to remove it. Then cleanup the solder pads with the wick and IPA to free the pads of solder.
4. I recommend taking pictures or writing down the position and/or polarity of components being removed to ensure you don’t accidentally install the replacement component in the wrong direction. It can be dangerous for some components to be installed in the wrong direction like a high voltage capacitor.
5. Avoid over heating pads and solder joints as you can destroy the pads, layers of the PCB you can’t see, or destroy components with prolonged heating. When installing parts, heat just enough to add solder. You can solder for 2-3 seconds, pause a few seconds, and then repeat as needed until you have added enough solder.
Happy soldering. The more soldering you do, the better you will become at it. I recommend practicing by removing all components from a dead PSU or something. I did a lot of desoldering when I was 13, and I got quite good in no time.
This is fantastic, thanks!
Excellent advice, I agree
@@HardwareHaven you are welcome! Everyone starts as a beginner. Believe me, I have stories I could tell about burned fingers, burned carpet, and even a bed blanket fire stemming from soldering and tinkering with electronics. So don’t feel like you’re terrible at it…I can assure you I was much worse lol 😂
@@HardwareHaven As a counter-point, I would say that in many cases, you may need to stay on a pad with the iron for longer than it takes to just melt the solder. If it's a temp-controlled iron, that should go most of the way to preventing damage to the PCB substrate, and you'll find that getting enough heat into some pins (especially the ones connected to ground and power planes) is difficult, but if you're removing a potentially bad compoent, don't worry about damaging the component *too* much. Honestly, as counterintuitive as it may sound, a bigger iron (or just a bigger tip for your current iron - something with lots of thermal mass, like a chunky chisel tip instead of a cone tip, can help a little as well) can help you get in and get out quicker and reduce chances of damaging components or the board. Also, solder suckers DO work, but require lots of heat since the air rushing around the joint can cool the solder, and if you're cheap like me, you can semi-re-use solder wick by heating up the blob of solder on it with your iron and them flicking it off into a metal trashcan. It won't remove all the solder from it, but at least 90% so you can use that section repeatedly to grab the majority of solder from a joint and then you only need a tiny piece of fresh wick to get the last 10% off a joint. Happy (de)soldering from me as well!
@@HardwareHaven
6. When using the desoldering gun, don't be afraid to keep the tip in contact with melted solder until you are sure you are aiming it right. The tip is meant to take the heat and survive. If it melts, you'll know you have a uselessly cheap device.
7. Try out a different soldering iron tip, a bevel/chisel edge is usually better for these uses because they transfer heat better.
You're devotion to this channel and the idea behind it is incredible
Your videos even when not or hardly scripted are of very high quality and I have enjoyed watching every one of them
Man, that really means a lot! I really appreciate you supporting the channel so much, and always love seeing your comments
@@HardwareHaven and I love seeing your videos!
Making my own minecraft server has been a lot of fun so thanks again for the inspiration
The comment was posted 1 day ago, even though the video was posted 2 minutes ago...
@@sekkern9737 Patreon Early Access
@@First_Grafter Heck yeah! That's awesome! Hope it's been working well
As a freshman in high school I built a 0 - 9 vdc power supply and knowing the basic theory behind how you get from 120vac to 9 vdc takes lots of the “mystery” out of it. PC PSU’s are easy to get and trying to repair this is a good place to start. Excellent video
That's awesome Johnny! Diving more into electronics is something I'd like to do if I get the time. And I always appreciate your comments
If you ever need to bounce ideas off an old head, let me know. I’ll help if I can
Hey! Any chance I could pick your brain a bit? I've been working on an old AT power supply and have hit a dead end. I replaced the bad main filter caps and check pretty much every passive component and they all check good. There might be a few capacitors on the secondary side that are so so, but that isn't a worry at this stage. I'm getting no power to the control IC which means it will not start. I have photos where I marked out the traces If you'd be willing to take a look. I'd be very appreciative.
I'm so glad this was a success for you. I worked for over 2 years repairing power supplies like FSP's, Delta etc and these were all returned to Dell, HP and other big companies. We were contracted to repair their powers supplies so the advice is sound.
Your soldering would have gone a lot easier and quicker had you used a chisel tip on the iron, the thin tip just not transfer heat quick enough as the large components act as a heat sink and draw the heat away from the legs quickly. The end result was a solid job.
Great video and thanks for the mention.
just a tip: use the flat tip for your iron as it will transfer heat better than the pointed tip.
Thanks! Seems like that would've helped a bit
A larger, less-pointy, tip will have much better heat transfer and heat build-up. Also for these large components the mass of solder you are trying to smelt is way larger than that of the tiny pointy tip.
You might have noticed that when you tried to smelt the solder by touching the terminal of the component with the very tip of the soldering iron, but discovered it was way more effective by using the middle section of the soldering iron instead. ;)
You did good, be broud of yourself :)
I don't know if you'll see this, but I'll try. I've been soldering for about 60 years now. You've got right equipment, but some wrong thinking. If you want to remove a simple component (2 legs), then just quickly/alternately heat eat leg while pulling out the component (use damp tissue if it's too hot for your fingers). Focus the heat where the lead contacts the trace. Watch your tip and don't let it wander around (and use just the tip most of the time; hold your iron at more like a 45 degree angle). Rocking a component after the solder is cooling will probably lift/trash a trace. THEN use the solder wick to mop up the holes. Don't spread it out. That guarantees you'll get it stuck across traces or leave tiny copper fibers as shorts. I've got a few videos on solder technique and immodestly speaking, I'm pretty fair at soldering from training/experience.
PSU's are notoriously difficult to fix. I respect it. Love the content as per, very relaxing.
Love the comment as per
What do you mean? PSUs are really simple and easy to fix.
@@miggee47_2 well if you don't know how to solder or what the parts inside are it could be pretty difficult
@@stoutscientist Ofc then you shouldn't be near a PSU. But compared to other things like motherboards or GPUs, PSUs are generally easy and simple to work on.
@@miggee47_2 ok that is true
Awesome awesome video. I seriously think this was exactly what you were intending for the outcome to be as you described at the beginning. Seriously tho no need to be so nervous. You did great! You’ll get better with practice. I think it’s really good to document stuff like this. Soldering can be very daunting but showing this will have dozens of people trying it out for the first time because they saw what it’s like to solder something at a “beginner level” I wish I could like this video more than once
I'm just a nobody that enjoys all your videos because I find a great sense of entertainment from them but also learn a good amount. But please never stop making videos. You're great at every aspect of them (even the learning along with us) and I always look forward to them.
I am really impressed! You did a really good job considering your limited experience. When I first started soldering, everything I touched became a disaster. These boards are a pain to work on because of the massive traces that suck all the heat away as you saw in the second joint. I would love to see more videos like this one, and I look forward to your next upload!
Cheers!
Ok, here is my 30+ years of soldering experience in a nut shell... "Leave the solder wick on the roll and real out to use, then cut off the end. No burnt fingers...done..." LOL
Also you don't need to spread out the end of the wick... :-)
As other have mentioned turn up the heat if you can and get a flat tip for the iron. If you are going to do more soldering (practice make perfect) I suggest you get a Weller Soldering station where you can control the heat. You can get one of the cheaper ones to start out, it will be fine... 👍
Flux is your friend but use it wisely. Get the liquid "no clean" pins like a sharpie. Much easier to use... Lol
When repairing anything from China remember, they use "lead free" solder and it takes tons and I mean tons of heat to melt it. You did the right thing in the video, flood it with Lead Solder to soften the Chinese solder.
Take your solder wick and add flux to it, it will help the wicking action and absorb the solder better... 🙂
When you get 98% of the solder removed you can just heat both pins back and forth and wiggle the cap and pull on it and it should come out. When using the solder sucker leave the iron on the pin and place the sucker over the pin and iron at the same time and don't worry about the little gap between the iron and board it let's the sucking action work better... LOL
Lastly, YOU Did a Great Job! It is all about learning. I guarantee you will not learn any younger! 🤣😆🙂
Thanks for the videos!
LLAP 🖖
the effort you put into these videos honestly one ups the quality of channels with millions of subscribers!
Thanks sausage! haha
I love your videos. Especially this one. Every one that you make is so down to earth and everyone is not perfect and I understand that. This video has been great. Stay awesome!
You did an decent job overall, the more you solder the better you will get, keep in mind that flux is your friend, it helps solder flow better, also when you go to heat a part up with your iron, add a small dab of solder to the tip of the iron where it will touch whatever you are heating as it helps GREATLY with heat transfer, and also when adding solder to components like that I have found it best to apply solder to the joint between the iron and the part as it will almost immediately melt the solder and start flowing into the joint, also through hole components don't need much solder, it should be a nice even concave curve from the edge of the pad up the stem of the component a little bit. Keep up the great content and I can't wait to see your skills improve.
I do think it's a great first job! As everyone says, practice makes perfect. One of the things I learned with time and pain is that there is never too much flux. Always put it, helps a ton with the job. And don't be afraid to put more if that's necessary! You can clean it afterwards with IPA and a toothbrush or something like that.
Again, good job and keep them coming!
Your solder job was honestly not that bad. De-soldering is a finicky pain even on the best of days with the best tools. The only critique I have is that you're using a garbage iron that looks like it has no temp control. Ideally you want your iron to be hot enough that solder melts as soon as you touch it, without you having to sit on it and cook it. Solder wick is also much harder to use without high enough heat. The idea behind it is that you push it onto the solder with the iron, and the iron heats the wick up to the temp that the wick melts the solder, which then gets insta-sucked into the wick. This is almost impossible with an iron that isn't hot enough. Solder wick is a huge hassle no matter your skill level. A sucker is easier to use in this case. Don't be afraid to push the top of the sucker onto the melted solder/iron and hit it. The tip is made of silicone and is very heat resistant. There's a nice solder sucker made by vampire tools that's the best you can get. A slightly broader tip for your iron would help with de-soldering as well.
Very helpful advice! The iron i have has temp control, but is still pretty cheap haha. Any recommendations that aren't crazy expensive?
@@HardwareHaven The iron is probably good enough, but it almost certainly isn't temp controlled, super cheap irons like this are power controlled, there is a considerable difference as a temp controlled iron will give full power as soon as it notices a drop in temp.
The real issue is that garbage pencil tip, you really want a bevel, chisel, or knife tip, it gives more surface area and has a slightly more mass, plus you want the tip to somewhat match the size of what you're working on, seriously the right tip can make all the difference even in a cheap iron, if you want a cheap upgrade though either a Pinecil or a TS100 is an easy recommendation at between $26 to $50.
@@HardwareHaven Not an expert but have soldered my fair share of chunky solder joints on old pcbs. The tip you're using is conical which is typically better for small precision work. The contact area is really small so when you have a chunky joint, old joint or you're working with lead free solder (all 3 probably apply here) it can be difficult to get enough thermal transfer going. This is probably why you had such a hard time with the wick.
The TS100 soldering iron is widely available and pretty well regarded as a decent hobbyist iron.
It's ~70-80USD, temperature controlled, usually comes with a conical tip and you can pick up a chisel tip for ~15USD off of amazon. Not sure if that's affordable for you but I swear by mine :)
@@HardwareHaven Almost any Weller iron is good for its price range. I used a WLC100 for a good while. There are a lot of replacement tips you can get for cheap for Weller irons too, which you'll go through over time. Hakko is a good brand for a next-step once you've accumulated some practice and honed your skill a bit.
Hey man, you've got great content. You don't need to apologize or cater to the one person who is going to leave a nasty comment. You are actually taking action and asking how you can improve and that, to me, makes up for the little imperfections. Plus, if you work through a mistake I get to learn from it. Keep it up!
1:34 Don't worry! When you come to Taiwan for Computex, I'll show you how to solder.
Hint: It is a LOT of practise to get the feel for things. Don't be afraid to try on dead boards first.
That would be awesome some day haha!
Yeah, I have a stack of stuff bound for recycling. I could probably mess round with some of the PCBs in there.
My wife wants to thank you. I have 4 used PC's that I'm in the middle of tinkering with on my dining room table. This after I built a crazy rig over COVID! No seriously though, keep up the great content.
Good stuff! Cool video! Also loved the little talk about not being an asshat to others and helping out those who are newer to the field. I certainly would have loved some of that back in the day and I try to help people where I can now.
I think your soldering skills are alright, the main problem is your soldering iron. I used to have a soldering iron that looked exactly like the one you have, and I always had problems with it. I don't think it gets hot enough. I now have a Hakko fx888d solder station and a few different tips and it's made a world of difference.
I love your channel and I do hope to see more repair-type videos!
Thanks! Yeah that seems to be a common point. I'll probably be looking into a better solution soon!
Congrats on the fix :). Have more faith in your work. @mesterak is giving some pretty good advice in the comments; I'd add to that one more - avoid those thin soldering iron tips. Get a thicker one, to get better heat transfer going on. Anyway, again, congrats :).
"Big Clive" is a good channel for soldering repairs
Awesome, thanks for the recommendation Kyle!
Thx for sharing! I'll probably try to fix my own power supply that I got laying around. Also practice makes best so don't worry if you're not good at soldering now because I know you will get better at it in no time!
I'm not a soldering expert, but I can give you some advise as an electrical engineer.
If you want to make certain the power supply is safe to work with get a multimeter and measure the voltages on the input side. Important parts are the high voltage capacitors and the main input wires. To discharge the PSU use a screwdriver and short out the pins. In general though 110-230V isn't dangerous as long as you don't have a heart condition. You just get a shock which hurts momentarily.
After your soldering job you can also test the PSU with the multimeter. This fault is finding before connecting it to other components.
In the end though we are all human and capable of doing mistakes. I recently cut off some useless molex connectors from my PSU and when putting back it together I forgot to plug in the PSU fan. It worked initially, but after maybe 20min the PC just shut off because the PSU was overheating. Because I also installed a new graphics card it took me a few attempts of fault finding to figure it out.
Somebody already added an excellent comment about soldering. I wanted to give a few small additions to that comment.
That tip on your iron is completely useless in electronics. It doesn’t have enough thermal mass for proper heat conductivity.
If you’re wanting to learn how to solder and do it well, I’d recommend finding a used Hakko unit online somewhere for cheap.
I can’t recommend getting a good flux enough as well. The one you used is okay but ends up leaving a lot of residue and doesn’t do the greatest job cleaning the joint as it’s flowing.
Leaded solder is king. A big roll will last you a long time.
When it comes to desoldering braid, if you apply flux to the braid as well as have a nice larger tip on your iron, it’ll do a lot better job sucking up the solder through surface tension.
Also, no need to spread out the ends of the solder wick :)
Also also, those tweezers could have saved your fingers when using the solder wick, or better, don’t cut it off the roll until a section has already been used.
Otherwise, good job getting that replaced! Glad you had that learning opportunity!
Very cool! I’ve always loved the idea of repurposing and repairing older tech, just seems like a great use of the resources available to us and helps keep just a little bit more e-waste out of the landfill. Currently working with a surplus Dell 5040 i7 SFF that I got from my local community college for a great deal. Using it as a NAS and Plex Server currently but there’s so much more I could do!
I had many of the same issues you ran into when I started working on my old monitor a few years ago. My results improved dramatically when I switched to a small 3,2 mm chisel tip. It's certainly cheaper than a new iron, so maybe try that first.
Soldering tips (no pun intended):
1) Speaking of Louis Rossman, he advised that the type of tip you used in this video should go straight into the trash. Use a chisel tip instead.
2) Don't trouble yourself with trimming the amount of Solder and wick that you're using. Just use it straight off of the spool. The solder will automatically shorten itself. The wick will need to be trimmed only of the used portion.
Other than those two things, you accomplished your goals. Good job! Keep that flow going (again, no pun intended).
Appreciate it thanks! I hadn't realized those tips were so bad and hated by the electronics community haha
From an amateur at soldering, I have some tips. I don't usually hold the wire when trying to remove the solder. Also, I tend to first try to remove the capacitor by wiggling it out and then getting the solder out. Another tip that helped me out is, if the solder isn't melting, try to rub the tip a bit
Good job! I can't offer any soldering advice with confidence as I'm waiting on my first welding station to arrive. I just know a buddy of mine says it's a combo of using the right tip, adequate heat, and flux is your friend.
I find that the best and easiest de-solderer to use, at least for me, is the type that have a squeeze bulb directly attached to the iron. You just compress the bulb with your finger and hold it that way until the iron melts the solder and then release the bulb to suck up the solder. The combo iron/bulb are cheap, easy to use, lasts a LONG time because the tip is metal not plastic/Teflon like the separate solder suckers and quite effective on de-soldering. I got mine many years ago from Radio Shack...when they still had stores you could actually shop in. I miss Radio Shack.....😕
PS: To make life a little easier, I use rosin core solder which is usually a mix of lead and tin to solder and also help to remove the harder silver solder when de-soldering. You don't have to worry about adding separate flux because it's already mixed into the center of the solder. Now with the anti-lead regulations, it will get harder and harder to get lead/tin solder I would imagine so maybe best to stock up on it when you find it. I may be wrong about that but you never know...🤔
I was yelling at you while you were soldering, just to hold the solder wick with a tool vs your fingers. I'm glad you fixed it though with something small like that, especially if the PS is more power efficient than the larger ones. As for a script, yeah, I found I ramble too, and that is why I voiceover most all of my work now. (Cartoon Goodmonkey is fun, but we will see how far I go with it).
Dude, no roasting never from me but I will tell you I was the same way and this is how I got better, I overcame by practicing more and more and more and I learned that the more you do soldering the better you get at it so never fear keep going you're doing good.
Appreciate it Eugenio!
Your soldering job looks nice -- an ideal solder joint on a lead should be solidly conical with slightly concave sides, like what you managed. Ideally, you want to minimize the amount of time you have the iron against the board/components to reduce the odds of heat damaging anything but, as with all things, you'll get better/faster with practice.
If you plan on soldering more frequently, I have one word for you: flux. It makes soldering jobs faster, neater, and reduces the the odds of bridging connections.
Hello, a little late to the party,
here are my thoughts:
I agree with most of the constructive comments, and you're not that bad at soldering (I've seen people doing a far worst kind of job when they're told how to solder to be their primary job)
for the solder wick, only cut the parts that are heavily soaked in solder, and to not burn your fingers, use a flat pair of tweezers or some small nose pliers. adding some flux before using it helps the wick to suck more solder.
Another thing to take seriously is the soldering Iron, you have the cheap style (I'm not against it, I have one like that in a small box for when i'm in the field), and it does the job, since it's an hakko tip style (900m series tips) either your set comes with other tips or you can order a set of different tips for cheap, in this case your tip was primarily for SMD of thin legged through hole components. The best Tip in your case would be knife style (angled large flat tip) or the biggest chisel Tip (Angled rounded tip). The tip you choose for a work is dependent to type of work, some basics to how to choose are already on the Web, and on UA-cam, by the most reputable brands. To help extract the capacitor, you can use a trick where you put a piece of copper wire, like that you can heat the two pads simultaneously ( but need a heavy mass tip like i mentioned above. a thing to consider, your capacitor was depleted, but if you redo this or someone else, if the power supply was tested short time before (and some times it's the same a week after), you need to discharge the capacitor, either the flashy way ( screwdriver trick) or by putting a high value resistor (like 500K or 1 M ohm), and checking the voltage is under 10V (safe voltage is under 50V but at that voltage, the current stored can tickle you)
You are way better than me at soldering, good job, nice video!
I had a similar soldering iron, and while it's OK for larger passive parts: THT capacitors, inductors and resistors. It's not suitable for SMD or active parts (anything that has silicon: transistors, diodes, ICs), as it's not temperature controlled - the dial controls the power of the iron, not the temperature, so it gets scorching during an extensive session, and will fry your smaller/sensitive components. (You might noticed it getting warmer on the handle)
For a replacement: I have heard a lot of great things about the USB-C powered digital irons, but I never tried one. It's not larger than the one in the video, like regular soldering stations (like the one I own). But go with whatever you can source for cheap and is not completely trash.
When repairing a PSU, I recommend using a PSU tester before working on it so you know what problems it is exhibiting, and test again after finishing repairs to ensure the PSU is working. A $9 PSU tester is easier item to replace vs. a motherboard and components that could get fried by a faulty PSU or because there were missteps in the PSU repair work.
But where is the excitement in that!? Haha no, that's a good point
You deserve 100k the video production is great and you can make even things I don’t like in tech like configuring servers interesting
Also I myself I’m an amateur at soldering and can say desoldering is kinda a pain
Thanks!
I am really bad at desoldering as well, especially i don't have any wick or sucker, just melt and pull. My immature suggestions: cut the lead of the dead component so it's no long a heat sink, use bigger hotter tip, and most of all "ADD MORE FLEX". Good video.
also, should have grounded the green wire first to see if the PSU starts/blows up before putting on system.
Yeah I thought about just powering it on, but I needed to make sure I didn't run into the same fault I had previously, which was slightly inconsistent. Probably would've been smart though... haha
Wow!!!!! That's so cool man! The electrical side of things is so far from anything I know, this was cool seeing the process! Makes me wanna mess around with it a bit. Maybe I can fix the power issue with my old Bass Amp! :) I'll pick your brain about it later. Another Great Video!
Solder wick needs lots of flux to work well, so that's probably why you never had "luck with it before" (ie you didn't add flux to whatever you were doing). Also, don't cut it off, use the container it comes in to hold it without burning your fingers.
With such large solder pads (especially when large traces or planes are involved) a bigger tip helps get more heat into the pad (ie more than the traces dissipate) - making soldering easier.
The solder sucker is the best way to remove solder with through hole components, but you don't usually remove the iron before letting it "suck".
For trickier things you can also wiggle the component out of its holes by melting the solder on one pin, pulling the part gently out a bit, then repeating on the other pad. Repeat the entire thing until the component comes out.
The pine 64 is a great soldering iron with plenty of power. I had cheaped out before and that was just frustrating.
Thanks, I might look into it!
And here I was just stripping the copper out of them! I should've been listening to HH!
I know the video is about "soldering", but think about the physics involved.
1. The glue should have been attacked FIRST. It was bound to stop things moving!
2. The component being removed was in bad shape; it did not need its leads polishing with wick. Melt the joint and pull the component from the other side of the board. Do things quickly and you won't burn your fingers, but there such things as pliers!
3. Work on one lead at a time and rock the component so as to pull that lead at least partially through the board, then work on the other. Yes yu will stress the component, but in this case it was scrap anyway.
4. You are trying to get heat from the iron into the joint. Molten solder on the iron improves that transfer (it's called tinning). You were continually wiping it off on your cleaning pad, and all that time the thing you were trying to heat up was cooling down.
5. You would have been better with a bigger tip on your iron, but if it's all you have...
6. Once the component is out, THEN think about cleaning the joint with wick. It might not even be necessary with a large component like this.
I cringed a tiny bit at your solder skills but only because I see myself so many years ago also having no idea what I was doing basically ! Im not good by any means but I only got as far as I have now because I keept on trying and imporving and I commend you for that ! To show off that you arent a master like other youtubers who have been doing that stuff for years to show even a person with little experince can try to fix stuff ! Amazing. Keep up the great work and I havent watched it to the end yet but if you have failed projects in the future, upload them maybe show what you put into trying to fix something because at least for me, it hits really hard when you cant fix something whilst others on youtube do it with ease and its nice to see that not everything can be fixed / that maybe you havent had collected enough experince yet ( I had a Gamecube that I took apart when I was like 12 years old and now last year I finally put it back togehter again 10 years later ) Im sorry if my english is a bit broken cant wait to see what comes next
It takes balls to mess with a PSU , even cleaning out dust in my PSU i get nervous 🤣🤣
superb job man ❤️😍😎🤟
Haha, thanks Joshua
Some tips with wicks, flood the surface with more flux. That's what usually works for me. And also use some tweezers, to move around the wick, as you probably know the wick can get pretty hot. So there's my two cents. I'm not an expert my any means. Just some tips from a guy.
EDIT : Also for optimal soldering use a adjustable temperature soldering iron like a TS100 or a soldering station. Increase the temperature on huge ground planes or huge surfaces like high power traces. The solder will flow better that way. Also hold the solder more further away. Cause it heats up. I see your finger is uncomfortably close to the iron.
Great Video! Adamant IT's UA-cam has some wonderful videos on computer repair and diagnoses. I'd give his videos a watch to look at his technique and his understanding. It TREMOUNDOUSLY helped me on my solder and repair skills. I look forward to the future of your channel!
I will check it out, thanks for the recommendation!
Man, you should of seen me trying to solder on a inductor back onto a server motherboard with the cheapest 40 watt soldering iron you could ever buy lol, it worked!
Hello Haven This is your fan again hope you are good!!
i have a tip to check the power supply you could just short the black and green wire on the atx pin and the fan would turn on thats the indication that a power supply working without connecting the computer
Very interesting and thanks for the video.
No way i trust myself with repairing a power supply though. I know I'm not -great- not good at soldering and i don't want to fry other hardware or worse. I recently had a 12 yr HP EX495 media server 250W PSU die and i replaced it with a new 350W with extra molex and sas power for future upgrades. $70 shipped.
Looking at the old broken psu, i couldn't see anything obvious like capacitors but i did see charred metal shielding near a copper coiled thingy. Was so happy when the new PSU worked.
Thanks again for your videos.
6:17 Let them say it! Comments help the channel ;)
Here is some advice as like to friend. If you want to solder real good get a de soldering pump and get a little bigger chizzle (idk how to say it) for soldering iron and that's it and some practice. Love your videos.
Thanks for the tips!
Definitely needed either a different soldering iron or a bigger tip for a pad like that . The board will soak up a lot of heat and that pencil tip was having problems trying to melt the solder , it was struggling to transfer enough heat .
Bigclive is a good one to watch for soldering if you don't already know his channel .
Thanks! I’ll check it out
Congratulations friend! I´m happy, that you made it. You didn´t made any horrible mistakes, I wasn´t good at soldering when I started with electronics too. I think the only thing you need is practice. And if you have still the Liteon psu from the AMD Compaq, I think you will be able to replace the IEC connector. Mayve you should try that in future video.
A bit of flux on the wick makes it eat up solder like nobody's business, a good thing to remember is if you want solder to flow somewhere hit it with flux first.
Congrats on fixing the PSU. Please next time get a fume extractor the smoke of solder is toxic. A couple of tips I’m sure other ppl mention them. Flux is your friend, a good solder puller is important get a Hako DS10 they are really good. You don’t have to cut the solder wick. Next time add more solder and move it around to mix the lead solder and the unleaded solder used in manufacturing. But over all you did a nice job, you will get better with time keep practicing.
Leave the solder wick on the roll, add some flux on the solder wik, heat up the solder, then place the wik over and heat them both, the flux will ensure that the solder gets melted onto the wik and do not add solder after that. Once the tip of the wik is full of solder, snip it off and add some flux and keep on going. Cringe ... but you learned and that is the main purpose of attempting something. Well done! There can be no learning without failing
Those capacitors can carry 325Volt DC at peek.
7:28 don't worry my man, everyone was bad at some point, you just have to make sure you use the temperature you prefer, and flux use, for desoldering stuff, i use a bit higher temperature: About 380C and for soldering, i use about 320C. You have to play arround with your tool you have. When you facing a project, at first glance, the procedure will be hours, but end of the day you realize, that you just got better. Nothing to worry about.
8:21 The mistake that some guys make that they applying heat for longer period of time with lower temperature (Like 5-10second on 300C on desoldering. Make the temperature higher, and the solder will melt in fraction of second, the board in that period of time will not be heated much, that means, that you unlikely to damage the board. )
I dont wanna offend you in any way, i do soldering for two year, im pretty confident when i grab my soldering tool, and i rock with the pcb/solderable board/pins etc...
My last project, it was a 10Watt Quasi class AB audio amplifier, that gave 32Watt output on 8ohm load (changed the circuit a bit, and raised the Rail voltage from 30Volts to 50Volts). Soldering quality came out pretty good, and im proud of myself.
17:10 Your soldering tool looks decent, just raise the temperature a bit if you're want the tin melt faster. Like 20-40 Celsius can do a great magic.
I do mostly amplification, i have smoked some amplifier IC's, one instance was that the Ic exploded in my hands due the IC was been not genuine, and i burned some transistors when i was playing arround making a proper amplifier, that i found some scematic on the internet.
If you want to improve your soldering skills it’s a good idea to get some broken electronics and practice de soldering and re soldering components, I did it on my parents broken sky+ box years ago when I was harvesting the hard drive, i was terrible at it but it’s amazing how quickly you improve and start getting a feel for things, then it doesn’t matter if you have to throw it away after
on the bigger solder joints like that capasitor one you should use a bigger tip on the iron, the tips ware out and the fine point ones are good to save for the tiny connections. also modern solder suckers are crap so what probably explains why you havent had much luck with them. i have a pretty good one but thats only cuz its from the 1980s lol
If I was you I would have checked if any of the voltage rails were shorted before plugging it into the PC after replacing the capacitor. I would have also checked if the cap you replaced was shorted or if you had an ESR (equivalent series resistance) meter, measure internal resistance or measure capacitance with a multimeter out of circuit. I would have also tested the PSU by tripping it on and loaded with a HDD or something to see if all voltage rails were present, before plugging it into the PC.
That's just a few thoughts I had, I'm still pretty much a novice. Anyways it was an entertaining video keep it up.
you're wrong. I don't always feel the need to correct people...😁
but for real, I love the attitude. this space can be a exciting place to lean if just try. we're all here to learn
I guess the best way to troubleshoot a PSU seems to be to test every single component, which may not even work and then you need to unsolder all of them, test them, and solder them back... the fast way of troubleshooting while the device is running is far to dangerous here, unless... the PSU's control circuit could maybe run on an external 5v supply so you can test that without connecting the power plug
Even if you did something wrong, I will not criticize you. The main thing is that you are trying to learn, and sooner or later you will learn. It's just a matter of experience.
Great video.
Great content.
Great channel.
Much appreciated!
You did well considering the tools you have, but testing a PSU in a computer was a big no no if it's something you didn't want to blow up, instead simply connect a jumper between PS_ON and ground (search for "power on atx psu" or the pinout if you don't know what that is), then check for 12v / 5v / 3.3v using a multimeter, if you don't have one, a super cheap one only costs like $4 or if you want it today, something like $10 or $15 at most hardware stores or in the car aisle of a supermarket.
Side note, not needed on modern PSUs but if it shows nothing then it may need a load attached before it outputs anything.
nice to see the channel evolving!
Great Video!! I don’t think I could ever do anything like this because of the horror stories I’ve heard about faulty PSUs. 😅 On another note, thanks to your videos I set up my own TrueNAS/Plex Server and got it up and running in no time!
Hahaha, as long as you know how to make sure the caps are all discharged and double check that, it's fairly safe.
And that's awesome! What are you running it on?
I'm running it on a Supermicro X10SLM+-F, Intel Xeon E3-1231v3, 32GB DDR3 Ram with a 2.5GBase-T PCIe Network Adapter in TrueNAS SCALE (because Linux lol). I haven't installed and so far not had to install a GPU but I'm very happy to have something other than scattered external hard drives to store my family's data.
Lovely video! Imo best video by far
Glad you think so!
Need large blade tip for soldering iron.
Turn up the heat
Use more flux... more more flux.
Low melt solder enables cheat mode for desoldering. Not for soldering, just desoldering.
What's the benefit/difference of using blade tip?
My cheapo iron was already maxed out haha
Will do!
I'll look into that as well!
Thanks!
@@HardwareHaven big tip mean more heat transfer to the solder point
@@HardwareHaven
Heat moves through the metal iron to the solder. More surface area = more heat able to move. Big tip for most jobs. Fine tip for hard to reach places. Blade tip for best of both.
Damn, forgot! When you are messing with Caps, always discharge them by shorting across the Positive and negative pins with a screw driver and be ready for a flash and a pop some times... Lol
LLAP
imo the tip you used is too sharp/small, having a larger tip helps melt the solder through the wick easier
pro tip: keep 2 different kinds of tips for your soldering iron; a sharp one for the small precise stuff and a bigger/duller "general purpose" one
Thanks!
@@HardwareHaven i end using the bigger tip almost all the time, i pretty much only use the smaller one for soldering connectors with a lotta pins onto PCBs and for extremely small wires
The desoldering wire is only for little solder pads and desoldering the bridges . If you want to desolder big solder pads you need to use a solder sucker. (im 13 but used the soldering iron and other stuff. Btw it was 2 ago.)
At partway through, I'm thinking.
1. What the hell kind of tip is that, the traditional chisel tip would be much better.
2. Don't cut braid, gold it by the spool and you won't burn your fingers.
PS. Got any Haven suggestions for me for a Veriton N281G (Atom D425, 4GB, one 2.5" drive capable)... 1x 2.5" file server? Kodi box? Not sure if it would have the punch for retro emulation
Appreciate the brutal honesty haha!
I'd say pfsense if it had dual NICs. Could be cool as a dedicated box for home assistant or wireguard
When using the solder braid, keep a good puddle of flux on the board
Amazing man!
You should have gone with Branded Capacitor.. like Nippon - Chemicon, Nichicon, or atleast Elite... That unbranded Cap doesn't looks good.. also I recommend to replace output side capacitors too.. to make pSU more little long lasting
I’m around 6 1/2 minutes into the video and I have a couple of thoughts.
A. Don’t ever let anybody tell you what to do. It’s your channel, it’s your safety, you do what you feel comfortable doing. End of story.
B. PSU’s aren’t worth repairing, as there’s largely an inherent risk in getting hurt. Those FSP GROUP INC power supplies are so cheap, they’re E-waste from the get go.
Appreciate the input!
22:20 Why not, i would, maybe just mention it !? Never sought to find out if it is common in the world of electronics, seemed so to me from what i saw, but could be other substance, but once i get something to stick a little with solder, it is.... here comes the tons of glue. So far so good anyhow. (from holland, with defect spell checker).
I have a dead PSU in an Apple PowerMac G3, I would love to be able to fix that!
7:20 You're not bad at soldering, what happen is that you are not using the correct tip for that job. For desoldering large components, you need a big flat tip for the soldering iron, the one that you were using is better suited for small jobs, like soldering smd components. I speak from experience, because i said the same thing about my soldering skill, until i got advice and bought the proper equipment, after that, it wasnt that bad :D
Get a chisel tip for your iron. Narrow pointy tips are horrendous for heat transfer.
Hey Haven, I love your videoss so muchh, esspecially the mc server ones. So I am hoping you can see this and directly kinda help me if you can(and I apologise for my grammar and my English overall).Situation is that I have a spare Win7 PC(p43 chipset,xeon e5440, 6gb ddr2) and I want to use it remotely from my main pc, but my second pc lacks a GPU. I thought of installing my main pc's gpu in it and then instaling some software which could let me use the pc remotely and then swapping the GPU again, but I don't know whether that is possible or if I am supposed to use another OS(I am not so good software-wise). I plan to use the server just for MC for now and maybe for a NAS in the long run. Again absolutely love your videos!
I have about 20 dell psu’s that need fixing, maybe I’ll try the big ‘ol capacitor and see.
Your a good UA-camr, keep going
Thanks, will do!
Damn it. That intro draws me to the idea of creating a channel about my shit-tastics creations and repairs.
Apply a decent amount of flux when soldering on the new cap
@Hardware Haven Ah, I forgot to mention that it's also worth to check transistors at the input also, because when that so called tank cap goes bad, sometimes also transistors goes bad causing ded short on the input. It is also a good idea to test PSUs with Incandescent light bulb or halogen lamp in series, so you can simply replace the fuse with light bulb therefore if sth gets shorted, the light bulbt will act as a current limiter and will protect the circuit... Sometimes it works, sometimes not and for example transistor gets shorted anyways, but at least you will avoid blackouts caused by popped braker in ur breaker box.
Those tweezers hold solder wick very well. Js.
I never liked those wicks.. much prefer a solder sucker. Funny how experiences vary, isn't it?
psu repair turned into whole life story
pretty awesome
thank you for the video
The only reason the other pin was harder to do is because it was attached to ground, aka the point where the most components are attached sooner or later. This means it's literally the biggest hunk of metal on the board, and heating this up takes time. You put your iron nice and hot on the pad, but heat quickly escapes to the rest of the metal that's cold due to the difference in temperature and willing to equalize it. That's why solder wouldn't melt at first, why wick got stuck, etc. Plain and simple - bigger metal, need to wait longer until it heats up and solder melts. Yes it can take a minute, even a few minutes. A bigger surface area of the tip hels with faster heat transfer, so laying the tip flat like you did helps as well. As a semi-pro electronics repairer, I'd say you're overreacting - there's nothing that made me scream in the video, save for "that's pretty good, why does the guy beat himself up for it instead of just giving it a go". Soldering is like riding a bicycle - it's easy stuff that just about every monkey can do as long as you get some starting advice so you don't get stuck doing the same mistakes over and over, and you practice often. That's it. It's easy, and it's a fun superpower to wield. Go solder more and have fun!
OMG dis dude reminds me of David Van Driessen from Beavis and Butthead. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
7:00 im already walking towards the exit when buddys says were going to remove this by adding solder?! no no no my frien thats not what you do...and what you need is a hot air station instead of fiddling fkin around with soldering iron burnin the pcb and makin a mess.
Hot air for something that big..?
@Hardware Haven Without flux soldering sucks - remember. 😂😂