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

They must have started using different solder over the years. I got bored one night with my the new desoldering gun from Radioshack and had at the ATX power and Audio connectors which came off with ease. It was an older Socket A Gigabyte motherboard too.
I wish you the best of luck, as I would hate for something awful to happen this far into the mod on such nice equipment.

 

Worst case i replace the mobo... but I'll learn my errors in the process so I can do it successfully later.

Assuming that the torch+soldering iron trick fails. I'm going to head over to a friends workshop tomorrow, he's got some proper heat flow gear... hopefully we'll get results.

If I do break the board I wont be removing the plugs the 2nd time around. I'll just attach the wires to the bottom of the existing pins.

No worries, in the absolute worst case it will only be a minor setback.

 

I await your solution with eagerness! I've been at a standstill on replacing busted caps on a mac mobo because I couldn't melt the da*n things off. I believe it's due to the rest of the board's layered copper acting as a heatsink, and pulling away the heat from the solder tip before it can melt enough out to dislodge the pins. (and I've tried some serious soldering guns, too, not just my 20w pencil.) My next step is to try and drill out the pins. I would try the heatgun at high, but don't want to fry the board (or melt off other components I want to keep!)
Here's the site that I was using as a guide to repair the board, and he mentions using a dremel to grind away a polymer coating as well as drilling.
http://jimwarholic.com/2008/07/repairing-apple-imac-g5-motherboard.php


Good luck and keep us posted.

 

My butane torch has a pin-like attachment that I've used for desoldering. It works great to pull stuff apart (like pulling a plug off a board), but not so good at putting stuff back.


http://www.matcotools.com/Catalog/crossreference.jsp?cattype=T&cat=2449&si=49451&ut=

This can be found for less... I believe I paid about $70 for mine, but I try not to pay attention to how much things cost when I'm buying tools... I'd probably have a lot less tools.

What I usually do is turn the torch on, full-blast, and the tip will eventually get so hot it glows. Then, go to town on it. It runs through butane fast, so be sure you've got a few of the big cans (~$8 each).

 

If this ends up not working and you have to get a new motherboard and leave the plug on you could make a cover for it. Just use a motherboard connector and cover the back of it (where the pins go in) with copper or whatever. Would look cool I think.

 

I have a torch just like that altpimp - thanks!

Talladega, that's exactly what I was thinking. I had no intentions of attempting to remove the actual plug from the 2nd board if it comes down to that.

 

That is indeed the case. New equipment has to be soldered leed-free, which is why the solder doesn't melt as easy as a few years earlier.

You have to use much higher temperatures, but you have to be very carefull to not overheat the parts. I think it were max. 2 seconds heating per solderpoint.

Good luck!

 

looks like i posted too late, i was going to say use an old screw driver or iron, contact it with the pin and apply heat well above the pin on the iron, you may want to hold it with some grips.

Also be careful that the heat dosen't transfer too much into the board as that will ruin your day!

 

I've learned a few things:

The problem is 3 fold.

1. The board has 7+ layers, the solder has stuck to each of them - and it's very hard to reheat all the layers evenly to get the pins out

2. Because of the size of the board and ASUS's "Stack Cool" technology (an extra layer in the board made from a sheet of copper to help dissipate heat) the board just dissipates the heat across it's surface.

3. Due to new RoHS compliance the board is made from Lead-Free solder which melts at ~1000deg F when applied with the wave soldering method (normal solder melts between 400deg F and 800deg F)


I tried..

2 kinds of flux:
-acid flux
-acid free flux

6 different kinds of solder:
-lead
-silver
-tin
-rosnin core
-flux core
-chip quick.

6 soldering irons:
40Watt Weller pencil iron (SP40LK)
50Watt Weller temp controlled station (WES51)
260Watt Weller gun (D550)
40Watt Weller SMT station (WD2000M)
20Watt radioshack cheapo
Bernzomatic Butane Soldering Iron

1 clothes iron

1 torch:
Bernzomatic Butane torch

----

My 260Watt soldering gun got up to ~910deg F and that didn't cut it.
Solder normally melts between 400deg F and 800deg F.
The butane torch iron got red hot... 2200deg F.





My solution:
I'm just going to get a new board and leave the plugs in place. If I had of left the plugs in place from the get-to I wouldn't have had any problems at all. Serves me right... but to be honest I never would have foreseen such problems.

 

Oh man... what a pain in the arse... At least you can't say you didn't try.

 

Do you have a set of wire cutters with the teeth at 90 degrees to the handle? You could clip off the damaged bits flush, and solder to the bottom pins like in plan B.

I'm not sure how steady you are, but you could also try to hand drill the holes out. -either with a tiny drillbit, or a small precision screwdriver.

 

But I hacked up the ATX plug so could get at the pins with needle nose vise grips - I used these as a weight to pull from the other side while I heated.

I'm going to try dremeling off the connector on the top, then doing exactly what you said with the bottom.

 

I went to Lee Valley Tools today.
Amung other things I got this.

A 10LB BOX OF SAND PAPER FOR $15.00CAD!



Everything from 20gritt to 2000gritt.
Quite the amazing deal.

 

Um... That is a lot of sandpaper?

I saw the thread title and wondered for a moment exactly how complex something would have to be in order for you to fail at it, you seem to do everything else near to perfectly...

Sorry about the motherboard, hopefully your trusty dremel will prove a solution.

Then again, as % of total cost, a second motherboard is a pretty minor thing right?

Laz

 

That is a lot of sand paper, good price though, a real bargain.

 

So everyone waits in the total darkness to see a valiant Intel Core i7 motherboard shine from within the distant mist of fail...


i don't even know if that made sense...but is he just going to give up? just like that? or is he seriously going to get a new mobo? i don't want to see this mod go poof like that...it needs to go out with a loud bang!

 

I'm just going to get a new mobo... lol there is no "poof"

 

What will become of the old M3N-HT?

 

I must say that, beautiful as this mod is, I did wonder why you were going to try and do this. Sometimes you need to know where to draw the line. It is simply not practical to do this mod as one day you may want to upgrade/swap your mobo... trust me. I've learned with Metaversa that ease of upgradability is not an idle consideration.

Leave well enough alone. Just get the new mobo, and use the ATX connector where it is. You can always do something original with the cable (say, a 90 degree cable bend brace of copper or aluminium).

 

I don't plan on upgrading this system.

When it's complete I'll move on to a new project. The idea here was to push limits in design more than produce a PC. It's an exercise in product development for me.

Once the machine is done - it will remain in that state permanently, and I'll move on to something new.

My problem was not in the soldering of the cable, soldering the wires to the bottom of the board would have been a 15 min task. It was REMOVING the connectors is was caused me grief. The board still works the only reason I'm going to replace it is because the ATX connector is all chewed up and I can't remove it.

Also the cables are all modular at the PSU - so upgrading wouldn't be too tough considering that. This is not a machine designed for upgrading... not at all. The form is too proprietary.

Thanks for that though Nexxo, I do agree with you in the context of the PC... however my target career path is in the field of product and interface development - Prometheus is more of a living resume than anything else to me.