David, Steve was driving! I admit to being on the train with him, but honest, I was trying the entire time to get him to slow down and throw out the booze! Really! 
Is it just me, or does it always seem that the intricate parts (like 7135 chips and resistors) always come in after youāre tanked up with coffee? Why is that? Hard enough to solder those legs without caffeine!
^ trying to get the train back on the tracks 
Speaking of the tiny stuff, how do you all solder those lilā bitty chips and stuff? Magnifiers and muscle relaxers? :bigsmile:
I usually rest my wrist on something to get rid of the shakes, although a shot of your favorite drop usually helps 
The Small Sun ZY-T08 that I mentioned before where the driver failed is drawing 5.5A at the tail, on aluminium 
and I used it for 25 min last night, still working.
I thought I was driving the train, that will teach me to sleep on the job, hey now I can mod the wreck J)
Cheers David
You guys sure love your trains! Wish I had a clue what you were talking aboutā¦
I bought a magnified helping hands, never use it. Put my glasses aside and get in there up close and personal. Rest my elbow on the edge of the table with the soldering iron in that hand, hold a chip down with small hemostats manually held on top with the other. If Iāve had coffee sometimes Iāll stabilize the solder hand (right) with my left hand for the little legs on the chips. While itās not particularly hard, it is demanding of concentration. Very easy to solder things together that wouldnāt bode well if you connected a battery.
No drugs( well, maybe a beer or glass of wine) but good light and a magnifying lamp ( 6ā lens with ring bulb). That and a good temp controlled iron with multiple tips. I donāt have particularly steady hands either.
tallboybass, shhh, donāt tell anybodyā¦.I actually do this stuff with a nerve disorder. Shhhhhh. I donāt want anyone to know. That Iām a stubborn persistent opinionated old grump. 
Well, getting old. lol
Kidding aside, in all seriousness if I can do this, most anyone can do this. Just takes patience and determination. I do have a nerve disorder, but it attacks me at times, not always affected by it. Itās just ironic that sometimes I have no control of my body, and otherās Iām soldering resistors the size of pin heads. Like Scott says, a good iron is essential. I got a Hakko 888 station and it opened up a new world to me. Pretty much use one tip. I got a second one, itās the same as the first by mistake, so I filed the end down for a narrow screwdriver looking tip, use that for the chip legs. Get lazy and donāt take it off. I also have too much time, so I am free (mostly) to dedicate hours to doing a light or a single heat sink. Much to the chagrin of my wife. But she leaves it alone as thatās hours Iām not buggin her! When in the so-called āhuman latheā mode, I donāt like to stop for a new li-ion battery for the cordless drill, or to go to the restroom for that matter. Stopping to eat is a huge pain! I an spend 4-5 hours hunched over a copper rod making a heat sink/pill. No sense of time, or no sense, take your pick.
A 7/8ā diameter by 3ā long bar of copper, with a .45 Long Colt brass JB Welded to the end and partially filled with JB Weld to mount in my cordless drill. My ālatheā, I cut it with the dremel tool. Sitting at a glass patio table on the back porch, left elbow holding down the drill, right hand holding the dremel, left hand stabilizing the right hand. Thatās it. Hoursā¦
Iāve made two of those, and another in aluminum, a 4th in smaller scale in aluminum for the chopped AA mini mag Triple and a 5th in even smaller scale for a 10440 sized mini C8, also in aluminum. The aluminum ones I cut down from a 1ā bar of 6061. I also made a Nylatron GS insert for an old Brinkmann Legend LX to put a laser module in.
The Nylatron GS turned out to be much tougher than I expected, had I known how strong it is I probably would have made the above from aluminum. That bar is 32mm in diameter. Took a while. lol
Like quitting smoking, you make a decision then set about making things happen. When youāve made up your mind to do it, you do. Whatever it takes.
When I was a kid, my Dad owned a Lumber Yard. Our little side building that held Cement and Mortar had a 3-0 door on it, a pallet wouldnāt fit in. So every time we got a truckload of Cement/Mortar (400 bags of Cement, 600 bags of Mortar) every bag had to be hand carried and stacked in that little building. Every order that went out, had to be hand carried out to a pallet and hand unloaded off the truck at the job site. Cement is 94 lbs, Mortar is 69. It is what it is. You might not like it, but itās got to be done. So you have at it! I was stubborn even then. At 135 lbs, (most of my life) I could curl 50lbs with each hand and carry sheetrock, shingles, cement, whatever, all day every day. When faced with carrying 60 bags of mortar at 69 lbs a bag, Iād carry 2 at a time to get it over with.
Thatās the mindset I use to do some of these mods. I donāt have proper equipment. So by carefully using what I DO have, I make do.
Nice bit of work there Dale, I have a few bits of wood I can hammer together to make a frame to hold a drill, and I have a Dremel :beer:
Train is modded and running, and a bit bigger for more detail, and the doors are locked :p
What is a locomotive but a power supply for a very bright light ;)
I did these when I was frequenting the Trainz (a railroad sim) forums.
Ditto, I get all up in those lead fumes. The magnification is too disorienting for me. I lose depth perception and mess things up.
Iām only amazed if it works the first time testing out the ācompletedā mod. I learned to test just about everything possible at just about every stage, so now itās not really a surprise if it works or not. Iāve done too many tests for this not to work! Right? Wrong.
Uh, Pommie? Did you let Steve help you hook the cars back up? The Engineās backwards. Did you lock the doors before Steve got off?
We dropped off the cars, did some swapping for unloading ease, and headed back to see where Steve isā¦
I've been really lucky lately (knock on wood!). The past two weeks I have added over 100 AMC7135s to drivers, built over 50 zener mods, and built 12 complete lights. Only casualty so far was one qlite that I accidentally cooked a few of the resistors on. I have a feeling that it will revive itself once new resistors are in place. I am no expert and my stuff probably doesn't look as nice as some I've seen but it tests out and works like it's supposed to. I am still a little nervous every time I hook one up to test it, but get a big smile when everything lights up and the amps are where they are supposed to be.
The key for me is having a good rest for my arm and taking the time to set everything up the right way. Even with all that I've been doing I still mess up from time to time, good thing is that with solder you just suck it back up and start over again. A clean tip and lots of flux also helps a lot. Sometimes when you get stuck the best thing is to take a small break then come back to the project rested and with a clear head.
When I first started learning how to solder I was trying to do it with a $4 iron and cheap Chinese wire. It was much more difficult than it needed to be, simply switching to good wire and flux made a world of difference. Now I use an inexpensive soldering station which makes life easier but it really isn't necessary for most stuff. I think that the tip is more important than the iron. I have a reasonable amount of experience through my personal hobbies and prior employment with stick, MIG, TIG, and oxyacetylene welding but soldering is different than those and requires different technique. Watching some of the excellent videos on youtube as well as doing some reading really helped me become more proficient, along with lots of practice.
Building this stuff is a challenge but it is satisfying! I am still amazed at some of the builds I see here on this site. So far, I have been more of an imitator than an innovator. My hat goes off to those who come up with the really unique stuff.