Well one just cracked a very important pcb. one thought all one should do was sodder new wires were the printed ones were well didnt work,so one was going to recreat the whole board again but the buttons were to thick so one just learned one can solder back together the wires sorta,but ones sodder will not "stick to the metal even if flux is used the sodder is 40 tin/60 lead acid core,should one be using a different sodder,what elts will make it "stick".Thanks.
One should certainly never use acid-cored solder on electronics stuff. Sounds like you're using plumbers solder, you need 60% tin, 40% lead.
YA I was kinda wandering why wonderingwhy it made my board look and feel wierd,still should work once I get it back together so 60 tin 40 led will make it stick better.thanks
Many boards also have a protective coating sprayed onto them after they are made. If this is the case, it will need cleaning off before you can solder the board properly. If the tracks you are trying to repair are not a shiny copper colour in apperarance, you probably won't get very far no matter what solder you use. The coating can usually be cleaned off through careful use of a craft knife to scratch it off, and use of a PCB cleaning block.
I aint that stupid,OF coarse I cleaned off the coating. On saturday I am just going to go and get one of those pens that have metal filings in them.And just youse it.
Sorry jtggg, I didn't mean to insult you, but I've seen mistakes like that (and much worse ones) done before. By 'pens with metal filings', do you mean one of those conductive paint pens? If so then it should work, but any flexing in the board may break the tracks again. Also, these conductive paints often have higher resistance than normal copper track, so it can affect the performance of the circuit. imho, solder (and short bits of wire if necessary) make far more reliable connections when done properly.
I wasn't tring to be mean,just a smart ass . well its the board that holds the bottons on it so it shouldn't matter that much but the solder just wont grip to the board,it sticks to the soddering iron like a bubble. it connected small breaks in the line but bigger breaks it just wont stick to both sides.And when I try to heat just the wire and try to melt the solder on it like normal but the wire or whatever it is corectly called wont heat.Eny sugestions.
I know what you mean, solder can be a pain like that sometimes. For larger breaks, I usually use a strand or two of copper wire to help make a bridge for the solder. However, even this doesn't work sometimes. If the solder reamins stuck to the iron, it is usually for one of three reasons: 1) The target board is dirty. (Not the case here, I know you cleaned it) 2) The soldering iron has not heated up the tracks on the board enough. Be careful though; if the tracks get too hot, they can peel away from the pcb and make the problem worse! 3) The solder has been on the iron for a while, so all the flux has burned out of it, or the solder had no flux to start with. The solder I use is 60% tin, 40% lead, (as cpemma said) with a 'rosin' flux built - in. The best way to get a good join is to apply the soldering iron to the track and get it hot, then apply the solder. Also, if you're new to soldering, I would avoid the new 'lead free' solders, as they are harder to use. As a final note, since the PCB is just a push - button board, you will probably be fine using conductive paint. As you said the board was important, it's probably best to fix it using the method you are most comfortable with. You can always solder it later if it doesn't work.
