[HAM] C3 rumbling

[David Anderson]

Andy,

A good question. I'd say it depends on your skill level. Personally, it's taken me a lot longer to get good at desoldering than soldering itself. Plus, with the AO-28, the way the parts are arranged, it can be tricky to get the parts out because their leads can be all tangled up around the solder turrets, and you have to be careful you're not damaging surrounding parts with excessive heating. It pays to have several heat-sink devices whether they're the little spring-loaded ones or just a few pairs of small hemostats.

It's also a great help with the AO-28 to have some soldering tools--the kind shaped like dental tools, not to mention some angled needle-nosed pliers.

Now, I'd say the proper way to do it is to desolder the old component completely, but it's not the end of the world to use old component leads. I would say if you're using old leads, give them a swipe with some 0000 steel wool to remove years of oxides.

For desoldering, I actually have a Shop-Vac rigged up with a teflon tip to suck most of the solder away from the joint. This has the added advantage of cooling the desoldered joint quickly. Then, I use desoldering braid if I have to. Some solder flux/resin on the braid can help get old solder off the joint.

I also advise practicing your soldering/desoldering technique on something disposable. 

David

-----Original Message-----
>From: Andrew Young <andrew at emailmv.com>

>Scott Hawthorn wrote:
>> the way the parts are packed in there and share many soldering 
>> lugs, it takes a considerable amount of time to refresh an AO-28. 
>
>Which brings up...
>when replacing parts in an AO-28/29, do you snip the resistor/capacitor close to the element, 
>leaving long leads to tack the new component on to?  Or, do you remove the entire component from the 
>lug?
>
>-Andy