chip-killer-iron ?

[stryd_one]

are grounding problems possible? for example might it be that the plug in my wall is ungrounded ?

Problems with the ground plane seem likely, but I doubt it's the wall plug (the rect/ vreg oughta fix that). More likely you have a solder bridge somewhere or you've already cooked something. The ground plane is just a reference point for other voltages in the circuit... it doesn't need to be exactly related to the earth on the wall plug. I won't go too far into that, it's been covered before.

i don't have a meter just a unscaled pot. it has 50 watts but i use around half of it.

Half? as in, the pot is half way? Do you know that all-the-way-left is 0 and all-the-way-right is 50W?

i am very careful when soldering chips without sockets and try to heat up the legs only shortly.

How long is "shortly", roughly, in seconds?

but i guess temperature isn't an issue - before that i had a 40watt unregulated iron and no problems with it altough it burned tin like hell.

Did you use that iron an this board or parts before you got the new one?

[matrigs]

i have closed my old project with my old iron and now i did all the parts, ains dins and core with this new iron.

i cannot do the srio test as i don't have douts.

as i said - my newest din on which i used sockets works perfectly fine - so there must be in fact something in my engineering that causes all those bugs.

[matrigs]

half way meaning that i use like 25 watts for it. i it the moment when the tin gets so nic and sticky and doesn't jsut blop around when you have a too high temperature.

the time i tin my chips isn't even counted in seconds. just one "hit" and that's it. when i have to redo it i wait awhile.

cabling is out of question - i connected my new ain with sockets to my old core and it somehow works.

so probably there is something down on my new core. no idea really.

[stryd_one]

i cannot do the srio test as i don't have douts.

Yes you can :)

half way meaning that i use like 25 watts for it.

Answer the questions I asked not some other question ;) How do you know it's 25W?

the time i tin my chips isn't even counted in seconds. just one "hit" and that's it.

Maybe your iron is too hot, maybe you're rushing it... All time can be measured in seconds, that's what they're for. You should have to hold it there for a few hundred ms at least, to get things to flow right.

cabling is out of question - i connected my new ain with sockets to my old core and it somehow works.

No, it's not, that's why I asked. Inbetween your module and core is a cable. It can be a source of problems. If you swap the cores over and leave the same cable, your problem could stay. Etc etc.

If you don't feel like answering my questions then just say so, I won't mind... I just don't like to help people who don't want my help.

[matrigs]

i'm very grateful for your help ! i'll try to answer all questions.

i use the same cable for connecting the din to the cores - it's soldered permanently to the din and i solder it identically to the two cores.

i have no idea if i'm using my iron with 25watts. but i don't really care for the watts as long as the amount of heat i use seems sufficient. if i even sink the heat the tin starts to stick to my iron and i can't to anything so i guess the amount i use is about right.

with those seconds that's a weird question because it's very difficult for me to answer. i mean it sometimes takes more times simetimes less - never above like 5 secods for sure.

but as i said - i mean my soldering skill have surely increased and i use a much lower temperature than before so i mean everything should at least work if not better or am i false?

[stryd_one]

Argh you solder and desolder the cable every time? Do you test it with a multimeter when you're done? Because that's introducing a lot of room for error...

Sounds like this iron is OK, but you're skimping on IDC's and IC sockets and I don't think it's helping things... All that soldering and resoldering will cook the traces on the PCB.

[matrigs]

i thought that the heat won't reach the traces only soldering at the tip of each SIL pin. do you recommend using connectors?

okay pictures coming:

this is the core top:

- i cut the 4 legs of the can interface to make sure it won't make any problems. the lcd is in 4bit mode.

- as you see i grounded all the analog inputs but even with a bridge like that - i get massive junk from them.

core bottom:

- no problems here - even in the area j10 is without shorts - checked with multimeter

din top:

- the two cables that go down are connected to a simple push button

din bottom:

- i know thos caps aren't connected very sophysticated but this way i made sure that you can have a clear view that everything is ok.

[nILS]

Man, your soldering on the core looks wild :-X Why did you add the additional tin everywhere?!

[matrigs]

yeah the additional tin may seem wild but i'm not really comfotable with the new pcb's i got and some of the traces were broken. also i wanted to make the voltage flow a little better.

[stryd_one]

I often say something to the effect of, "if it looks good, it'll work good"...  There are so many potential errors on that board I don't know where to start... My recommendation would be to start over, and take it slow, make it nice, and fix one problem at a time. Sorry dude :(

[matrigs]

probably you're right. the look of the core actually ended like this about two days ago when i was totally exhausted and frustrated about this whole thing and started to search for errors everywhere and just soldering around the whole board desperately searching for an answer.

it just sucks - voltages are all ok, interconnections are perfectly fine with the other modules (all of them work with my old v2 core which QBAS made a long time ago for me) and all tests run smoothly besides all related to the din modules. it's totally frutrating.

as my bookings are starting to fill up for this year (first gigs in two weeks) i have to drop this thing i'm working on (it was a sid meant as a surprise present for my good friend) and concentrate on my ableton live controller based on my old board without which i cannot play my live-sets.

i'm very afraid about this project right now too because the fact that this new core doesn't work means that i'm making some major mistakes already at the moment of stuffing and soldering everything together. so i'm about 100% sure that when i launch my ableton controller there will be some major problems that i'll not be able to cope with. it's actually quite sad. i guess i will be able to do the "digital" side of my controller but having in mind how long i was fighting with the "analog" side (i lost a lot of hair before i got my last midi controller based on pots to stop sending midi garbage due to bad grounding).

i made a terrible mistake selling most of my midi gear too afford parts for my midiboxes. failure right now is not an option as i drained my money resources and am now completely dependend on what will come out of this.

again - i'm deeply thankful for all the help in all those threads i spread around the board about problems with my new projects and back off for some time to clear my head.

thanks. 

[/tilted/]

yeah the additional tin may seem wild but i'm not really comfotable with the new pcb's i got and some of the traces were broken. also i wanted to make the voltage flow a little better.

A few points here.

If you are going to 'plate' your PCBs by hand, I would recommend doing so before you begin mounting components.

Edit:  Also, you seem to have linked your Core board twice (underside view). ie neither of those solder-side pictures are of your DIN module, which I still think seems to be your main problem.

all tests run smoothly besides all related to the din modules.

Also, and this might be a bit of a long shot, but the look of some of those solder traces suggests one of two additional things to me:

1) your soldering iron is not quite hot enough.

or 2) your technique is slightly off.

By 2) I mean: do you

A) apply solder to your iron, then apply your iron to the board?

or do you

B) heat the board and parts gently with the iron, to the point where solder applied to the board or part (not to the iron tip) will flow across the join to be made?

[matrigs]

fixed the din bottom - but i guess i'll get the same answer...

my soldering ? it depends actually - i mostly add a bit of tin to the tip and then try to apply tin to my pins without actually touching them - so they won't get overheated. so basically it's rather applying tin to the soldering iron.

[nILS]

so basically it's rather applying tin to the soldering iron.

...which is not good. You want to heat up the component just enough to have the tin melt on it rather than melting the tin with the iron. What you do is glueing rather than soldering. Maybe you should check one of the soldering tutorials linked across the forum.

[stryd_one]

I would get a cheap project (or three..they're fun) from an electronics store and use that for practice...like a LED flasher or a 'spy bug' or AM/FM radio etc... Won't cost much, and if you kill it, it doesn't matter, and if you complete them you get a cool gizmo :)