ZXmore or the ZX80CORE follow-up

[Becky]

Thank you for the welcomes and for the explanations about the inductor. I'm looking forward to starting to build the kit in a week or two. I've been waiting for pay-day to buy a decent soldering iron and some Velleman type kits to practice on before tackling it. I've been able to solder for years, but it needs a bit of polishing.

Thanks,
Becky.

[PokeMon]

There are many components to practice with, resistors, capacitors and so on for exercise.
At then end after about 800 junctions including keyboard you should be expert again.

[Andy Rea]

ah the keyboard switches... of all the board these i found the most fiddly, my approach was to tin just one pad (on the board) then with tweezers place and solder that one pin of the switch once happy about the placement and centralization of that switch i move on to the next switch in that row once all placed in row ( 10 switches) i then solder the remaining 30 joints easily.

regards Andy

[Becky]

Pokemon,

I was never an expert. My background is not electronics, I am a nurse. I've only ever dabbled on and off over the years since I was about eight when my dad helped me build a Crystal Set radio from the Ladybird series of children's books. Your right though, by the time the ZXmore is up and running I will be more experienced at soldering than I ever was.

[PokeMon]

ah the keyboard switches... of all the board these i found the most fiddly, my approach was to tin just one pad (on the board) then with tweezers place and solder that one pin of the switch once happy about the placement and centralization of that switch i move on to the next switch in that row once all placed in row ( 10 switches) i then solder the remaining 30 joints easily.

regards Andy

Well that is for nearly every SMD component the same - as it moves in any direction it is recommended to hold it with a tweezer and fix just one end - if it is bigger it is recommended to fix two ends diagonally as it may easily move with one pin only when coming with the solder iron. But the switches are really big and the solder joints have a pitch of 5mm.

I wouldn't expect that this could be hard work for you as you finished the ULA2 ???

[1024MAK]

ah the keyboard switches... of all the board these i found the most fiddly, my approach was to tin just one pad (on the board) then with tweezers place and solder that one pin of the switch once happy about the placement and centralization of that switch i move on to the next switch in that row once all placed in row ( 10 switches) i then solder the remaining 30 joints easily.

That's more or less what I did, except I used a very small set of long nose piers. Use thin solder wire (22SWG 0.7mm) and apply just enough to cover the pad.

For construction of this board, I used a small soldering iron bit (1mm I think) to solder all the normal component legs, and a large bit for soldering the metalwork of the USB and phono /RCA/ cinch socket (the video output).

Mark

[Andy Rea]

I wouldn't expect that this could be hard work for you as you finished the ULA2 ???

ah no not hard, just a little fiddly and tedious,

@mark for my my preferd iron is my trusty mains Weller W61 1.6mm chisel tip No7, its a 60w iron and has enough thermal capacity for the slightly larger items

regards Andy

[1024MAK]

I am not sure what a washer is - this here ?

Yes. A Plain washer with M3 inside diameter, 6mm outside diameter. Steel material, bright zinc plated finish.
Like these.

Mark

[1024MAK]

I was thinking that a M3 Plain Nylon Washer may be okay, but I was not sure how hot the heatsink gets. Now that I have had my ZXmore running for 6 hours or so, and the heatsink barely gets warm, I think the nylon washer should be okay. But I have not checked it's thickness yet.

Mark

[PokeMon]

Okay - quite rough equipment, my friends.

I use normally a solder station with 0.8mm and have a second one with 0.5mm for the smaller SMD's.
My solder tin has 0.5mm only - I never use thicker tin except sombody order this part here:

http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/2738
For that I use 1.0mm solder tin but only the 0.8mm tip.


My very favourite soldering equipment is the nano station from JBC:
http://www.jbctools.com/nane-nano-solde ... enu-1.html

or at least this tip here:
http://www.jbctools.com/nt105-a-nano-ha ... nu-70.html

For now it is too expensive for me but one day I will have this, I am absolutely sure.