MichaelW
Well-known member
WHat's the "warning" bit? Is it supposed to be serious?
What's on the workbench?
- Thread starter PedalPCB
- Start date
MichaelW
Well-known member
Um....I do that with all my builds during the inspection phase. And if there isn't enough flow through to make me happy I'll reflow that one leg until I can at least see some solder poking through. Is that wrong? I always thought this was a "best practice...."
Big Monk
Well-known member
Wrong? No.
Best practice?
If you can visualize what the pad/through plating/pad structure is like, think a spool. If solder completely fills a pad on one side, you have continuity to the pad on the other.
In short, filling the whole “spool” with solder is not required for a long lasting, durable connection.
On the other hand, some may find it visualizing distracting to see inconsistency on the “fill”.
I’m not one of those people and as much as I’m trying to treat form and function equally, that seems like overkill.
MichaelW
Well-known member
I think for me I'm a bit paranoid about cold solder joints. There was a point (maybe 40 pedals ago hahaha) that I was reflowing every joint on the board by default just to ensure no cold joints. And this was because of a pedal I built early on that didn't work, then after reflowing all the joints it worked. Never did track down which joint the problem was. I've gotten a lot better at doing a good solder joint to begin with and have a lot more confidence in my inspection capabilities and knowing what I'm looking for, but I still like to see a little flow through, then I KNOW it's got a solid molecular bond to the pad.Wrong? No.
Best practice?
If you can visualize what the pad/through plating/pad structure is like, think a spool. If solder completely fills a pad on one side, you have continuity to the pad on the other.
In short, filling the whole “spool” with solder is not required for a long lasting, durable connection.
On the other hand, some may find it visualizing distracting to see inconsistency on the “fill”.
I’m not one of those people and as much as I’m trying to treat form and function equally, that seems like overkill.
The first time I got into building pedals was back in 2004/5. I was buying boards from Tonepad and they are etched with the trace on one side of the board. I feel like on those boards it was much easier to get cold joints or accidentally bridge two pads. The boards like PPCB makes are much easier to work with in my experience. With my bad eyesight I sometimes I wish the pads were a little bigger or not so tight but I never have a problem. They can also withstand a reasonable amount of desoldering and part removal when required.
Sometimes I might reflow some joints if they "look ugly" but I almost never attack the front side. It takes a lot of patience for me to try and not make things "perfect" and I find that when I start second guessing my work I end up actually creating a problem! I have no idea if my soldering technique is good but I've built so many pedals at this point I need to trust myself.
Ctrl4Smilerz
Well-known member
I count 13 boxes on your workbench, and 12 projects marked in progressNot yet, but I promise I won't let you down.
These are mostly verifications of the pending "Coming Soon" projects... although there is one on the way that goes "Brrrrrrrr".
Robert
Reverse Engineer
I count 13 boxes on your workbench, and 12 projects marked in progress
And to make matters worse, some of those boxes contain more than one, and two didn't come in a box.
fig
Village Idiot
It doesn't seem to be slowing you down
. You go gurl!
steviejr92
Authorized Vendor
Excuse me sir but i dont appreciate you having such a close relationship with my credit card....
Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
Damn. I love staggered pots. Not a Klonnoisseur, but I’ll build another just since that’s rad looking
Laundryroom David
Keyboard Cowboy 🤠
Me too!!
Ctrl4Smilerz
Well-known member
As always I look forward to see your latest creations. Great work, keep it going!
Harry Klippton
Well-known member
How about a Kliche XL that goes in a 1590DD?
Robert
Reverse Engineer
Nothing major or audio related, although I decided to improve the polarity protection in this one since it's a "Special Edition" ... The standard configuration has always haunted me.
We still have the usual 12V zener overvoltage protection for the charge pump, but I decided to add a series diode and current limiting resistor so the zener doesn't self-destruct in reverse polarity or overvoltage conditions.
I did make sure the box cap footprints were large enough for the Boneyard mod.
Fingolfen
Well-known member
... and it's even got a dinosaur!!! Perfect!
Robert
Reverse Engineer
... and it's even got a dinosaur!!! Perfect!
Those are for you.
They have an aardvark on them now.
There's also an extra set of LED pads because I couldn't decide if I liked the LED beside the top or center pot... so I just left both options in there.
