Quote:
Originally Posted by Starkler
Interestingly, if the desolder wick is any good for its intended purpose it wouldnt be suitable for this use . When hot the solder is meant to wick its way up the braid, and you would be left with a stiff section of braid.
My advice is to pre tin each resister leg and then be very sparing with the solder. A bit of pre practice will help.
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Yep, you've said it, and good point - be sparing with the solder.
I've managed to solder each resistor leg with a good wet joint without it propagating along the wick - but I've been building these sort of little electronics projects since the early 70's, so my soldering technique is pretty good. With 1.6cm spacing, I get maybe 2mm either side of each leg stiff with solder - leaving over a centimeter of virgin wick - as the pictures show. The secret is to do it QUICKLY and don't overdo it.
So yes, practice will help, but it really isn't difficult for those who want a go.
Just FYI - because these things get VERY warm if connected straight to a 12v DC supply, I've built the variable pulse-width heater controller described on this site:
http://www.backyard-astro.com/equipm...l#Anchor-49575 and the heaters are fully adjustable from luke warm to hot. These pulse-width controllers can put out a bit of RF noise, so be careful what you run in close proximity if you have equipment susceptible to this. I've never had problems with anything - including webcams and laptops. As an alternative, you might also try a simple DC motor speed controller from your favourite electronics store, and, as long as it was beefy enough (i.e. be capable of supplying at least 10 amps) then it'd do the same thing for you.
... and here's mine (still waiting for the 4th output plug to go in:
Cheers
Chris