iron is held on the side to get both top and bottom of soldered ends heated up at the same time
resistor is on the bottom (go full screen, easier to see)
if you want to fix unbalanced ones because the variation in voltage is a bit too high, then swap them out. Also if you want to change the color, then need to swap them
thank you Tom. Perhaps I could get fortunate and get that switch ring unscrewed. Then the board could come out far enuf. And someone could show where that resistor is, and could it be desoldered and another put it its place, or even solder another over the top off it. That other user, Antificus, said that the resistor was the problem. Perhaps this is something a modding noob could do? Don’t know where I would get a resistor though. I think he mentioned something like 15K? There is an electronics shop down the street but I don’t think u could buy 1 resistor?
just thinking for now.
thanks Tom. It’s rather amazing how u have kept up on your replies. I;m sure it’s much appreciated by all.
Monkey see, monkey do not so great I poorly copied what Tom E did.
First time modding. Spring bypass seemed easy enough, not with cheap solder iron though :innocent: Also drilled out the driver screw holes. Still need to clean driver ring and maybe sand smooth where the PCB contacts the “clover/body” This Q8 gets hot quick compared to my other Q8. Not sure if that’s good or bad. :person_facepalming:
The PCB lays flat after some smoothing out.
Alright folks, Whats a good cheap solder iron? Was bored and wanted to tinker, Used a cheap one I had from autozone or harbor freight, yeah I know :weary:
Amazon preferred, but banggood or other site is fine. Also good solder to get? What/anything else needed to have a ok set up?
I use a soldering iron I got from Harbor Freight for no more than $3 + a pack of 4 to 5 replacement tips from China. The stock one wore through the outer plating and started eroding away, but I’ve been using one of the replacement tips for 15+ uses already and it’s going strong. The most popular budget but decent quality iron I see recommended is a hakko fx-888d. As for solder I switched to some 63/37 solder and it works great.
Other random tools that are useful are copper desoldering braid, a desoldering tool, some flux, solder paste, soldering tweezers, a helping hand, and brass scouring pad to clean the tip are all things that can help make your life easier.
I’ve been using the same tip for years, I’m sure that’s causing issues as well. It’s all eroded/oxidized, When I scrape the tip with my knife I can get solder melting easy.
Was looking for something a bit cheaper But the rest of your list looks good. The only soldering I ever done was wires together. Never learned how to solder, like using flux, etc….
Thank you.
Edit: Just watched a couple youtube videos. Yup had no idea about tinning and flux.
You can do some searching around to find other people’s takes on it I’ve seen it discussed here a time or two.
You can always look for a Weller as an okay readily available stand alone iron. I’ve heard decent thoughts on the iron from Adafruit, the XY-258. Have a look around I’m sure others will weigh in.
edit to avoid double post:
I finally made some changes to my approximating shoe box to accommodate larger lights. Testing my MF01 and comparing to some others testings I got it about as dialed in as a phone + ceiling bounce app can be. I’m within 5-10% across all levels and that’s good enough for me :+1: . My Q8 isn’t fully charged and it’s reading about 6,000 lumens at startup and 5,800 at 30 seconds so at least I know the little bit of work I did on it meant something. Will report what I measure on full cells when the time comes to charge them.
Thanks for the video on swapping the leds djozz. You have far more skills than I soldering like you did. I may have to buy new speakers as I could only hear heavy breathing throughout and no cursing.
I did pop off 2 outer springs out of 20. They are a pain to re-solder since the coating seemed to have peeled off on the bottom, and without the coating, nothing to solder to.
Tom, you may be able to solder the steel springs (plating peeled off) quite easily using a strong active flux.
This is what I use, if I can’t get the solder to wet with this stuff, I give up. But having strong acid etc. you must wash it off afterwards, or at least clean thoroughly using e.g. IPA and a bristle brush (always good practice, even leaving “no-clean” flux on PCBs is all very well, but I like everything squeaky clean).
Definitely not to be used on electronic components, just metal parts:
Usually I junk the steel springs and use these “carobronze” springs instead, provided they fit (they are quite small). They perform very well, and don’t usually benefit much from a bypass:
Or you can use Lötöl-ST from Felder. It is spcially made to connect solder with steel. Works perfect! But be sure to clean the joints after you finnished. This stuff will corrode your joints it it stayes on.
These are just what I have bought myself and found good, but Fasttech are well stocked for many other such stuff and a good supplier. They also do sample packs of SMD resistors etc.
Wow, no idea flux like that even existed!! Too bad it's out of stock, but guess I know what to look for. I got a ton of those carobronze springs - yea, djozz tested, many times hard to find a usage because of the size, and they tend to collapse a little.
As I wrote earlier I’m testing my own firmware in the Q8. Didn’t intend to use the switch LED at all but out of curiosity I added some code for it. Different to Narsil I’m using this LED also in lock out. Made this work with sleep mode and watchdog timer and now the switch LED flashes for about 30 ms with an interval of 4 seconds. Power consumption is less than 50 uAh, little compared to the 115 uAh when constantly on in non lock out mode. Just FYI.
I’d like to chime in on working with solder. Honestly I’m quite an amateur and haven’t had much experience but after reading up on the matter I found a few issues that worked for me.
First, use a good solder. There’s tonnes of cheap solder available on ebay/aliexpress, etc but the problem is you don’t know what’s good and what’s not. Even a cheap solder that worked well for someone else that reviewed it a year ago could change or get copied and resold with an inferior substitute. I use Kester 44 rosin core solder (US brand). I bought 2 partially used rolls off of ebay and though they are years expired they work perfectly well.
I also use Kester flux. Acid flux cleans the components for the solder to stick to. It was so frustrating that when I heated up the components the solder would only pool on my iron tip and not stick to either the board or the component. (Lots of swearing involved). It may be a bit redundant since rosin core essentially means it has flux in the middle but I use it just in case. Make sure to clean it afterward since it does continue to work eating away at the metal I hear.
Someone else mentioned to clean off the existing solder, and that’s not a bad idea either. Their solder paste might be a good one time use with a hot air station but when you’re resoldering parts back on, it may not work as well as you’d hope. I always thought I was doing it wrong or it’s just me but in this case it is the tools you use. A good clean tip on the soldering iron helps too. I ended up replacing my worn out iron with a cheap chinese no name brand. I only spent $8 on it and bought some additional tips just in case (which I haven’t needed yet). A narrow tip of course helps since the components are so small. Good luck.
I poorly copied what Tom E did.
:weary:
