I stacked my first last week, its not so bad. I did get a heat shunt from maplin, I dont know if its necessary, but their two quid, and helpful for holding the chips at least. You don’t have to solder the centre pin, its common to the heat tag at the top of the chip, I tinned the pins first too and used a 40w iron. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the tip.
I saw those heat shunts on ebay while looking at tweezers, but wondered what they were for.
I hold the new chip in place and bend the legs down until they almost touch the existing chip. With a tiny bit of flux the solder bridges that little gap. Seems easy to me (with a properly size soldering iron tip) and I’m not great w/ soldering…at all.
Will this stuff work, or is normal solder a better idea? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150960948127?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&\_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
it might. but a proper iron is more important, and solder core flux, or the tiniest amount of flux that you can put right on the leg is sufficient, imho
oh, and a magnifying glass can help.
I also find it helpful to have it set up so that my hand has something steady to rest on or push against - ie no shaking…
It should do, I just use normal rosin? Solder from maplin, I just realised your in Ireland, do you have one near by? Failing that, any electrical suppliers will carry the bits you need. For stuff like this, I prefer to go local tbh, just so I can have a butcher’s at what I’m getting.
Ok thanks.
I have one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/T1-Bulk-Portasol-Technic-Gas-Soldering-Iron-fitted-with-2-4mm-Tip-/220968332901?pt=UK_Home_Garden_PowerTools_SM&hash=item3372bd2e65
My electric soldering iron broke and went in the bin.
All good advice, its one of them, get the bits to make the job easy and you’ll be successful, try to hodge, you’ll struggle and maybe not be successful. Those helping hands are good, let me find a link to show you what I mean……
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?itemId=350684147438&index=0&nav=SEARCH&nid=25582586884
This kind of thing, I also have a little clamp on vise that I fasten to the dining table.
That looks like Edward scissor hands 
here’s a shot of my ghetto rigged helping hands, along with a driver w/ a some chips added
The helping hands thing is from harborfreight (~$3?) and it moved to easily when using it, so I cut the end off an empty propane bottle, hot glued that to a 5lb weight, then hot glued the helping hands to the bottle S) I also used heavy copper wire to add length to the arms.
That’s a nice setup.
thanks. it saves a lot of aggravation!
I expect you can find something similar locally for less than shipping, but for reference (and of course, you can spend a lot more, and get a lot more)
http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=helping+hands
Thanks for the link. I’ll have a look locally and see if i can find anything. I should have a few weeks before the chips arrive.
Cheers
Matt
My AMC 7135 chips arrived today, so i got to work on my Shadow SL3. I soldered 11 chips in. I left the 12th one for now as i’d had enough for one night, and the last one has the negative cable attached, so might have been too fiddly for this time of night.
The result :bigsmile: 9 Amp SL3
J) I need to get me one of these….
Yeah, it’s a beast. It should just about hit 10Amps with the 12th chip installed. So fiddly though soldering them. Took me hours.
Wow
that’s awesome!
i’m interested in hearing about how long you can run it before it is to hot to handle
I’ll do some testing tomorrow and let you know
Just an update.
I picked up the SL3 this morning, and it was on very dim like moonlight mode or something. Then it would intermittently turn on and off.
Un-screwing the head slightly stopped this for when the light isn’t in use.
Anybody any ideas why this might happen?
EDIT:
My SL3 is working perfectly on high mode, and is Really bright, but flickers on medium and low, and also flickers very dimly when turned off.
Not sure why this might happen?