PCB Repair - soldering station advice

I have a Japanese Pachislo machine, with two boards damaged by corrosion.

The PCB’s are too rare to just buy a replacement, and the machine doesn’t command enough money to warrant paying a shop. The other issue is I won’t know until after repairing the boards if the reel step motors have any fault.

I have a couple other wannabe projects (pitch bend mods to toy musical keyboards) so I want to do it myself.

Been many years since I did ‘proper’ soldering beyond wire repairs on the motorbike. Maybe 10 years since I last looked inside the pinball machine.

Previously I used a soldering tip on an adjustable power vape module, for wireless hands-free work. For PCB I’d like more precision.

I’d like a soldering station. Any clues on what is a good value option? I’d prefer to pay more and buy once.

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No personal experience, but I’ve seen iFixIt (purveyors of a decent range of tooling for small electrical repairs to combat planned obsolescence and anti-consumer behaviour) have released a soldering iron station primarily designed for laptop/phone repairs but might be good for this use case as well. No idea if you can get it on the UK, I’ve seen mainly North American peeps speaking about it

https://www.ifixit.com/Tools/Soldering_Irons_Stations

If you stick with through-hole stuff like in your pictures you can go a long way with not too much equipment. The pinecil (https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-soldering-iron/) is a lot better than you'd expect for the price.
The Hakko FX888 looks like a Fisher-Price toy but it's excellent. (https://hakkousa.com/fx-888d). Also the Hakko FR301 desoldering gun is really good albeit very expensive.

My other top tip is that lead-free solder is a pain in the hole and leaded solder is a lot easier to work with.

Yea my driver set for ‘tinkering’ is an iFixit and it’s very nice. Not sure I believe the hype for a soldering station though.

That Pinecil looks like a less-ghetto version of my vape-module iron.

Hakko FX888 on a NYT article seemed to be a top pick.

Shame it’s double the cost it was (currently £180-odd on amazon).

That’s the kind of thing I was looking toward. I still have the hazy image in my mind of a big transformer box with dials, and a stinky old wired pencil.

Also agree, leaded solder is a dream after fighting with lead-free.

I have a couple

A Chinese unbranded that is damn good for the money. Had for 15 years, works fine and holds a good temp. Aoyue 936a would be a close equivalent. Has a good fine tip and have done surface mount soldering with a decent magnifier and set of helping hands (also copius flux!)

Also have a Weller, I think it's a wsd81. The tip on it is way too big really for PCB work but it's a workhorse.

Ignore the dials and displays and just check for melt, flow and burning on some test pieces.
Buy some decent flux and dig out decent leaded solder.

A Hakko is on my one day wishlist. But I could buy some more components and amplifier cases for the price of a hakko.

Came to recommend Aoyue solder station.

I'm going to end up seconding what a lot of people are saying but:

• it's a shame the Hakko FX888D is more expensive these days because it's a real workhorse, good quality, good tips. It's my desk-driver.
  
• The modern TS101/Pinecil types aren't bad, though you really want a laptop style power supply to get them at 20V. I wouldn't want to work on a large project for ages with one, but it's great to have something I can chuck in a bag that isn't a huge brick.
  
• Old Wellers or similar are great.
  
  

Regardless, though, some things will always apply, especially for repair/reflow work:

• Get some good quality braid for desoldering work.
  
• Get a good sucker, ideally, an Engineer SS-02. I used to think that the Solder Sucker as a concept was absolute junk and it turns out; no, I was using junk ones. The Engineer one, with a silicone tip that gets flush to stuff, is brilliant. Really well made, not expensive.
  
• Get a chisel-style tip (eg: a D24). More surface area = heat conducts more quickly - better for desoldering. Those fine-pointed needles that most irons come with by default are rubbish. I use a fat chisel for literally everything, including surface-mount work. Heat heat heat.
  
• By contrast, thin solder is the place to make things small. Big fat wires of it are no good for fine work.
  

These Weller WT1 soldering stations are excellent. Can recommend but I expect they’re pricy. You can probably pick up the older ones with the red LED readout for not much though 👍

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Weller WT1 looks amazing but out of budget, definitely can’t do that justice (or justify the spend).

Unless I find a kindly retired electrician, with a Weller goldmine, maybe I should go for the Aoyue!

I listed the Pachislo on ebay just to see if someone buys it to save me the hassle of repair. If it doesn’t sell by the time I decide on an iron, I’ll be needing some good solder.

Trace repair jump wire. Assuming thinner is better. All the posts online are talking in gauge, which gives me a rash.

You want 30-gauge kynar wire-wrap wire for bodge wires on circuit boards: solid core, heat resistant insulation, thin. Available all over ebay and amazon and the like in lots of colours for not much cash.

Isn't @Kimmo into this kinda stuff.

I've been toying with the idea of retraining for work and this kind of stuff tickles my pickle.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/116367579219?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=FbQmcOebRz-&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=0tDWRzuIQui&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

https://www.tme.eu/gb/details/tmt-2000s-km/soldering-stations/thermaltronics/

The local makerspace recently got this, I know nothing about these things but I am sure they would have done due diligence

That's the red LED one I mentioned. We had those before and they're just as good as the new ones.

I have had this one going on ten years now - https://www.circuitspecialists.eu/csi-premier75w-digital-temperature-controlled-solder-station-with-75w-soldering-iron

It was recommended by NwAvGuy for soldering together a headphone amplifier and DAC, so I guess it should be suitable for PCB work.

I wonder how high it will sell for…

Very tempted by that one @exteroceptive just linked to. The price is right…

Just make sure you get a chisel tip!

Yes!

Looks like that set of 10 extra tips has a few chisel and blade types that should do for most jobs.

I just bit the bullet on the CSI 75W... fingers crossed!

Best of luck with your projects.

I hate this wire, so it was a good test for practice. Need more practice to get back into it!

I’ve spent too long doing big blob joins on large stuff.

Did a few badly to see how it copes reflowing, and seems fine with the MG chems leaded solder.

Soldering station is good, holds 300°C pretty steady which is great. At least my VC97 is beeping for continuity on all the gammy joins.

Waiting on 30 gauge jump wire to arrive (probably midnight, knowing amazon) and then I can see how I feel with soldering the thinner stuff.

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Isn't @Kimmo into this kinda stuff.

Yeah whoops, looks like I'm too late to give a massive +1 to the Pinecil, with its highly configurable firmware, wide variety of tips which include the heating element (so the thing should last basically forever), game-changing portability when connected to your cordless power tool battery of choice via an aftermarket battery clip (or just to a PD power bank via USB), and cheap price. There's a setting in the firmware where you can set a boost temperature it quickly rises to when you hold a button; mine (a TS100* which is the iron the Pinecil is an open-source copy of, which can run the same firmware) goes from 350 to 420 for stuff like battery terminals and fat wires.

I'll never bother with another mains iron.

• My iron is a bit old, it only has micro USB for a data connection - the current ones can be powered pretty heavily via PD USB-C, or just use the traditional DC jack.
  

I prefer a bit hotter than 300°C!

We tend to have them set at 360°C at work but I sometimes prefer up to 390°C so you can get in and get out really quickly. Sounds counterintuitive, but a hotter iron sometimes puts less heat into the joint 👍

Seconding lead solder here. We struggled away with lead-free for a while at work but it was affecting the quality of our wiring. Eventually we just binned it off and went back to leaded.

Not sure I’d like to present my work, but the soldering iron is good.

Having mapped and soldered up nearly 10 broken traces (going straight to the component legs), I hate the wire off Amazon. Must be some AliExpress shit.

Anyway.

I now have a 50% improvement in that project, in that I’ve gone from 1 of three reels spinning to 2 of 3. Continuity with multimeter checks out across all the bodges, but no idea where the next problem is in the PCB. Maybe a component is fubar.