Case Mod - In Progress Project: PrometheusCU - Update #54 - May 28 2010 - Video Teaser

The cable gets soldered directly to the motherboard.

Those of you paying attention will notice that my PSU has a modular ATX plug - think of it as reverse modular.

 

this is a beautiful mod langer. I dont think you'll damage your board but the drinks can so close is kinda asking for it! lol!

 

I noticed that, and it's why I suggested the other solution. Won't it be a lot of trouble getting the motherboard out, when the wires are drawn? I'd still like to see what you're doing, sounds like a crazy idea, and very, very nice if you want to get rid of ugly cables

 

I can not wait for an update!

 

I'm out of desoldering braid, so I'll have to run out and get some more in a bit here.


I've made the necessary cuts to the motherboard tray.

Perhaps some of you will remember this illustration:



The cuts correspond with this plan.

 

If you are going out - be sure NOT to go to Starbucks! No shaky hands allowed in surgery.

john

 

Cant wait! I live that soldering iron you have. I need one of them things.

 

I love my Weller WES51 iron, It's a great unit but it's not getting hot enough. In fact none of my irons are working for me... even the massively overpowered 260WATT Weller D550, and the 40WATT Weller SP40LK.

Do motherboards use some kind of super high temp solder or something?
None of my irons get hot enough to make it properly workable, it just refuses to melt like one would expect it to.

Pumps, and braid have very little effect.

I've removed about %90 of the solder material from each joint but that last %10 wont budge, it wont even melt.

Any advice before I break out my little torch?

and I'm not buying a $600 hot air desoldering station - yet.

This is the first time I've ever had this much trouble desoldering - figures this happens to me on the first thing that I'd genuinely prefer not to destroy. haha

 

I've always had the same problem when desoldering broken power adapters on laptop mobos. Gets annoying when you spend half a day or more on 4 pins.

 

It would have been much simpler if I had of just left the plugs in place, and simply soldered the wires to the bottom of the pins... too late for that though - I've shredded the atx connector to get at the pins with my needle nose to help by pulling out the pins as I desolder.

 

I also found that you get the solder to melt and it seems to solidify almost instantly

 

Exactly what I'm getting, I've even tried using my solder to heat the factory solder... no dice.

Methinks I'll have to use a torch, but first I'm going to see if any of my contacts have any heat flow gear I could borrow.

I seem to recall a buddy of mine having a full blown turbine desoldering station.

 

Langer,
Most prototype circuit boards I helped design and manufacture for Bell Labs were wave soldered. The parts were inserted bare from the top, the board was coated with a flux solution where needed and almost literally dipped horizontally into a molten solder solution. I have seen people use flat electric skillets to heat the solder side and melt the solder enough to remove the parts. That's how some of the recycle shops heats the components.

Have you tried a clothes iron set on high and held against the solder side and pull the pins out from the insertion side?

john

 

Considering that all solder points are done by a machine I would say that they use a very strong solder. It would also lessen the possibility of the mobo's heat de-soldering key points.

 

Yeah I assumed it was wave soldered but I didn't think that they used kryptonite to do it.

I just plugged in my clothes iron and my IR thermometer says it's considerably colder than any of my soldering irons.

I think the only way I'm going to get this thing off is to use a soldering torch or a concentrated flow from my heatgun. I'm pretty sure both of these methods are quite likely to destroy the board though.

If that's the case then when I get a replacement mobo I'll leave the connectors in place and just solder the wires to the bottom of the pins.

I'm going to wait and see if anyone has any suggestions for me, I've posted this dilemma on about a 12 forums... I guess this will have to wait until tomorrow to see what my fellow geeks have to say.

Pain in the ass.

 

i dont know if this makes any sense but i used to do a little soldering in the past and i noticed that even when i got an extremely hot iron it wouldnt melt the pins unless it had the right type of solder on the tip! what i mean is i had a lead based solder on the tip but on the board it was lead free solder so it never used to really melt the solder on the board ! so try using a different solder to tin your tip! other suggestions would be that its heavily oxidized so try to get a steel wool or brush and rub off some layers.

 

Junimrox over at XS suggested that I use my torch to heat an old iron up, that way I get the heat AND the precision... I'm going to try that tomorrow.

 

That might do it. Grab an old MAPP gas torch for plumbing, use it to heat the precision tip to really hot, and apply to solder pads. Got 4 or 6 arms for this?
Let's see 1 for the torch, one for the precision point iron, one to run needle nose pliers to pull part leftovers out of hole, 1 to run de-solder wick to remove solder.

Sounds doable to me!

john

 

you said it before i got the chance. ive also noticed that sometimes you have to more than tin it. sometimes if you get a big gob of sodder on the tip, drop it on the pin thats being a pain in the a** let it cool, then reheat it, holding it long enough to melt the original sodder, then either pull the pin, or use a sodder sucker, i havent tried it with wicking wire so idk if that will work.
good luck, i hope you can get it outta there

 

I tried that as well tater salad - thanks though. All that my pump sucked up was the solder I layed down.