I started my first build today, an Eagle Eye X6 with three LEDs.
Having done some soldering before, I didn’t think it would be that difficult, but I wasn’t prepared for how small everything is.
I started with replacing the wires and managed to add way too much solder in the process, after that I overheated the entire driver and had a metal piece next to the + wire move out of place.
In the end I managed to put everything together and solder the LEDs without destroying them, but I do only get one mode (DD I guess) and sometimes it’s not turning on at all.
Right now I’m unsure if it’s even worth trying to fix the driver or if I should just order a new one.
The LEDs, pretty sure there’s nothing wrong here but took a picture anyway.
Yes it’s a mess. The metal piece I mentioned earlier would be seen to the left of the positive wire here if it wasn’t drowning in solder.
Bridged the connection for the negative to a rather large metal piece next to the chip seen here. I’d guess it’s a bad thing.
Also seems like a pin is bridged to the solder mess next to the negative connection as well.
If there’s any way to salvage this driver, I’m also going to need tips on how to remove the excess solder.
The outer metal ring on the driver is a negative contact ring. I think I see some solder at the red wire that may be contacting the negative ring. Looking closer there is a capacitor at the pos red wire and the outer ground ring.
Also the tiny resistor at that positive red wire connection has moved and may not be contacting well towards the outer edge.
Black wire looks as if its sitting on top of the blob, not really melted into the blob. Also that bridge you mentioned from neg to the metal thing (not outer ring) is actually Good thing. I do my wire replacements that way always.
A good iron helps a lot. You may not be getting enough heat to melt things properly. Flux is your friend. I have a no clean pen I use on everything before I start and sometimes more during. Alcohol helps clean things up after.
Solder wick can remove the excess solder but it requires even more heat to get the copper braid hot enough to wick up the solder.
Thanks for posting the decent pics, it helps to help you.
Remove the wires, if the excess solder doesn’t come with them use solder wick(always flux whenever you touch iron to work whether placing, removing, or wicking. There are some good utube videos on different SMD techniques.
May I ask what you use between the LED board and spacer? Thermal; compound, paste or epoxy will assure the heat gets drawn out of the MCPCB and away from the emitters. I ask because I do not see anything in the holes or on the wires. Stuff is messy and that looks too clean.
I might give it a try but I’m lacking quite a lot of basic equipment, I don’t have copper braid at home or even flux to be honest.
When I started I think I had a too weak iron, and it ended up in excess solder which I had problems removing. Later I switched to my other iron, it’s a lot thicker but might be my best bet for now.
And yes, you are correct in your observation. There’s nothing inbetween to aid heat transfer, as I had no faith in my driver anymore and expected to disassemble it quickly afterwards.
I have some paste I used for my computers CPU which I had planned to use, when/if I get it working properly.
Another thing I wish I had done differently is using a bit less thick wires, these are 20 AWG and I found them a bit hard to work with.
No offence taken. I’ve done a fair amount of research and watched a few videos, but I was still caught off-guard by the difficulty. I thought I had soldering figured out since I have built a few LED-panels for my plants, but that was stars and a few much larger drivers which didn’t cause me any troubles.
I might try practice some before attempting to salvage the driver.
I would say get a simple 35 Watt iron or 60 Watt with regulation with metal coated tip(s) and use Sn-Pb solder (with lead, that just works much better and easier than lead free) with flux core.
I’m not a big fan of solder wick to suck excess solder up, i also have a ‘solder sucker pump’.
But sometimes the wick is better (for the last bits when desoldering parts from a PCB).
20AWG is fine. But they will soak more heat out of the iron.
Keep the iron tip clean, I keep a wet sponge to wipe it as I set it down and before I use it again.
There are some decent reasonably priced Hakko clone soldering stations. I was fortunate to have a friend gift me a nice Weller digital that was used at his old job. But tips are expensive. I paid as much for a variety of tips as a Hakko clone station. Now I need a new tip retaining sleeve… $15.
I’m considering a new iron now, but I guess it’s not going to be inexpensive if I want a good one.
The solder I used is of decent quality, most likely what you are describing here. I’ll look up those solder pumps though.
Is there any benefits to using 20 AWG? I got 22 AWG too incase if it makes no real difference.
And do you have any suggestions for a new iron/station? I’m not sure how much I’m willing to invest yet. I’m living in the EU and usually order my stuff from China.
I checked the finer tip iron I have at home, and it’s supposed to be 40W. Shouldn’t that be enough? I still had problems transferring heat with it, but maybe it could be that the tip needs some cleaning, it hasn’t been taken care of very well.
