[Folsom]

I got a second because I discovered my credit card was not charged how I thought it was so I had a little extra pretend-pay-back-money.

I tried to solder it up right. Well the pads lifted on both C16 and C20 with no effort at all.

The only way to make it work would be to solder directly to the DAC for the left channel, and find the right resistor to solder to that is between the opamp and C16. I suppose you could run off the opamp to a new resistor, then to the RCA.

However does anyone think it is at all possible to solder directly to the DAC, who sells anything that small?

AI think one mistake is just solid core wire. I am not sure why everything went so wrong with this. I am out $324 and do not have enough left to buy another one, on credit card, to mess up.

I want to listen to some music it really helps me tune out and relax, it is a lot healthier than alcohol and drugs while being far less costly (I have not changed speakers in over a year etc, and they were like $75 for both after construction). It would help if where I lived I could get a job easily, swinedering college towns, I guess I love it too much to care though.

[ctviggen]

It's possible to solder directly to the DAC, but it's not easy.  Way back when I was an enginerd, there was a woman who did all soldering for us, and I saw her use some small tips and wires.  It's a bear. 

[WGH]

What a bunch of bad luck. Maybe you could send both to Wayne at Boulder Cable and get a modded one back without another major expense. Of course this just might end up to be part of your education. I once worked with a great guy, but we had to take him aside and let him know construction was not his forte, he just fucked everything up. Sound familiar?

[TomS]

....I once worked with a great guy, but we had to take him aside and let him know construction was not his forte, he just fucked everything up. Sound familiar?

Hey Wayne, how did you know I was here on AC?    

DOS - so sorry to hear of your troubles.  I think we've all been there (over our heads and frustrated).  I vote for sending it to Bolder.

Tom

[timind]

What were you attempting? Was this info in an earlier thread?
It's always advisable to know exactly where you're going and how you're going to get there before heating up the iron. This is true no matter how skilled you are.

[Folsom]

Well it might be worth soldering to the DAC but it got more complicated, another pad came off as I was inspecting it all. I can not believe how easy the pads and tracing comes up on the new versions of the Squeezebox 3. They are not the same as the earlier Squeezebox 3's. They have one less capacitor for something, and another for something else, located right behind the toslink. I think the new one is for preventing noise, it connects into two of the 6 or 8 I think holes in the middle that are open on the old ones, if you are looking on the side of the screen. Also on the power side there is an added or subtracted IC, and a few different other things like a small transformer/choke. The new ones do come with KE DAC's though which is nice.

WGH if I could I would send my stuff to Wayne, have him do the new OPAMP mod and his general analog stuff. I would send all the necessary information and parts. However trouble here is I got $250 worth of credit, that is $336 short of a Squeezebox, $30 short of new opamp, $525 short of the basic analog mods, and $100 short of the extra charge for the OPAMP mod. Considering I have no job, as a college student, even though I have been applying at places, I have to wait till my dad has something to sell on Ebay (he gets some surplus stuff no one wants) or randomly come across some money some how. I do pretty good at getting by selling things on Ebay or randomly coming across some way to get a little cash, but only enough for food and if I am real lucky a CD. I did get some money around Christmas time, sold some books back, and made a good sell on Ebay, but that money is gone except for what I need for food. It paid for all my expenses with audio up until this point. Anyways I do not consider myself poor, but I can say I am wanting to run any direction I can to some sort of form of comfort for stress (not going into that). Winter is making it hard to run outside and impossible to bike much, but the truth is I am afraid of running a little bit right now because of how unhealthy (and fast) I got during the summer for running too much and eating too little, at speeds that did not burn fat but just made me more of an athlete (still over weight). I really would appreciate being able to listen to music again. The freaking Blackgates in all my stuff still got 152 hours to go for that matter too.

Timind I was attempting to put in a new OPAMP which worked out fine, that is easy even for me these days. What was difficult is the nearly impossible to de-mount surface mount capacitors, so that pads came up. They are the output capacitors, which are replaced by Blackgates running to my Cardas inside, but outside nut, mount RCA's (highly recommend, no melting, just have to turn soldering iron way up for the ground, and do the RCA side first). I removed the headphone IC and headphone jack, as I soon intend to put in a few more capacitors (well did). If you look in Gary's (GBB) recent post here you will see the full modification description.

I knew what I was doing per say. I understand the information I have to the circuitry etc... (limited due to SB2 schematic only and tracings run under stuff and layered)

I use to be a lot better at soldering, now I am sort of shaky, and maybe I need a new soldering iron tip or something. It would be nice to have a dual station for the surface mount capacitors because you tin the soldering iron ends (mine has had trouble with it lately, or at least with the poor solder on the new Squeezebox 3's) and apply to both sides, solder turns liquid, press together, and lift. I have done it before with a poor 25w ghetto beater soldering iron and my semi ok Weller adjustable, but the space constraints are to large, and most would say the 25w one is to large of tip, and it is. I have amazed myself at things I have done soldering though, like soldering small IC's like the DAC chip with my non-micro tip and sort of messy for small work solder. Whatever happened to me I am not nearly as good at soldering these days! I think it might be stress. I know that since I stopped drinking all together it has hurt my soldering. I use to consider the ultimate weapon in good soldering to be Red Stripe double sized beer, hell sometimes even another 12oz or another double. Really I could not tell you why beer makes me good at soldering, but I think if I wanted to get good again I would need it with less stress. I could totally go for a magnifying lens on an arm thing though.

[WGH]

Destroyer of Smiles,

Your writing would make Jack Kerouac smile.

[Folsom]

Thanks... I apologize for the language I used earlier in the post, and the ranting. It is just something has to come out. I think I have a fair amount of ideas for people that are looking to mod their own Squeezebox. I myself plan to stick to not doing another, if and when, I will have someone else work on anything this small.

I do actually like to write, the block for me is always what to write about because whenever I just attempt it for the sake of writing I fail.

Anyways ideas for anyone going to try any of this work that I recommend to have in thought.

Use really small solder, non-silver because the only possible silver components you might be using is Silver Mica's if you are doing the OPAMP modification. There is no need for silver otherwise. The silver solders do require a little extra heat. The WTB I use melts very easy but it is because of extra messy organic resin or something. It is too thick and too messy for me to recommend for this work. You have to clean the soldering iron tip off a lot with it.

Add a little solder to the pads to help remove the surface mount capacitors because the original solder on the later Squeezebox's does not melt very quickly, you can apply too much heat. The pads must be glued down, and heat will make them rise. However if they are solid and do not rise, and you solder a wire to it, they are pretty strong. On my old one out of curiosity of the difference between Squeezebox generations I tugged on the old wire and the wire busted before the pad did. It is all in the amount of heat issue. I can not recommend using two soldering irons enough on the newer Squeezebox's. It might almost be worth it to cut the capacitor off of it's surface mount stand with some cutters, just to have two free sides to unsolder if you do not have two soldering irons. If you have some trouble with removing something and have heated it a few times, come back to it later, let it cool down, so you do not remove the tracing or pads.

Do not use any solid core wire, it puts too much stress on the pads, and the soldering required is more heat. When you do choose your wire, it would not hurt to start with tinned wire, however the only reason being that you want the fastest, easiest solder connection you can get. If the wire you are using is not tinned, but stranded (I recommend 23awg or smaller) then tin it and heat it before you get it to the pads. The pads themselves do not take much heat at all once you have got the capacitor removed.

Forget about doing a DAC swap if your unit is unmodded or just has the output capacitors consider selling it and then just buying a new one with the new DAC in it (they all do now I guess, from Slimserver/Logitech anyhow). The new ones have a few other changes and appear to actually be better component wise on the power side, at least from what I can tell, I could be wrong. The new ones do have a Nichicon capacitor instead of Saxon or whatever is in the old ones, for the large 3300uf (that is the right size right, 16v?) capacitor, for example. If you do want to do the swap get a magnifying glass on an arm, consider things like solder paste and a heat pencil, and all that other expensive stuff. At the least you want a micro tip and ridiculously small solder. Steady hands would be key or get something that can hold it in place.

I still recommend the other things I have mentioned before, like Cardas RCA's are the best suited due to mounting, and running the shortest wires possible or you will get a lot of noise.

Anyways no one do what I did.

[2wo]

I wonder if they went to lead free REOS (or whatever) solder on there boards. That stuff sucks. Your plan of adding a little solder, then going at it makes sense...John 

[Folsom]

I wonder if they went to lead free REOS (or whatever) solder on there boards. That stuff sucks. Your plan of adding a little solder, then going at it makes sense...John 

It makes more sense when you do it the first time around instead of heating stuff off the PCB like I guess I did . I thought maybe I was not touching it right or something.

[audioferret]

Don't feel so bad.  I melted my Perptual Technologies P3b DAC this way.  All I was trying to do was change out the OPAMPS.  Lets just say we aren't going to try that again - very expensive mistake.  Also, a hot soldering iron will burn through capacitors faster than you think...   

[Ferdi]

Hi DOS, sorry to hear about your mishap with the SB3. So far I have not tried to mod any of mine although I have an RWA modded SB3.

Here is a suggestion: if you have no other options, I may be interested in one of your SB3 if the display is still good. My SB3 has a display problem after a lightning strike last year.

Good luck with sorting this out properly though. Having at least one SB3 working right is much preferred!

[Wayne1]

DOS is going to send his SB3s down here for me to look over. I will critique his work and hopefully he will learn a bit about working on SMD boards. My goal is for him to learn and to get him back at least one working unit.

The SB3 has gone through at least three changes to the circuit board. The early one's were fairly easy to work on. This changed when they made the unit Rohs compatible. The non-leaded solder had a very high melting point and would easily lift traces when trying to usolder components. I had to completely change my procedures to work on these boards. The latest units coming in with the Logitech brand name on them are easier, but they still use the no-lead solder.

If you have never worked on Rohs compliant circuit, I highly suggest you experiment on something less expensive to get the hang of what temps to use and what techniques work best before you do any work on a SB3

[JoshK]

non-leaded solder sucks!  To me the RoHS compliance is a stupid legislation, but that is a whole 'nother topic.  I haven't done any smd work with non-leaded circuits, and your experience is going to make me more cautious.

I am also looking at the hot air smd rework stations.  The hot-air is suppose to be a nice way to work on smd circuits, don't know about the non-leaded though.

[miklorsmith]

What a great gesture, Wayne.  It's easy to see why folks are so enamored with you and your work.   

[Folsom]

Hi DOS, sorry to hear about your mishap with the SB3. So far I have not tried to mod any of mine although I have an RWA modded SB3.

Here is a suggestion: if you have no other options, I may be interested in one of your SB3 if the display is still good. My SB3 has a display problem after a lightning strike last year.

Good luck with sorting this out properly though. Having at least one SB3 working right is much preferred!

Well we we see what Wayne thinks. If I have one to give it will go straight to you!

[mgalusha]

Slightly off topic but useful for future reference. A company called Chip Quik makes a SMD rework kit that includes a very low melting point alloy. The idea is to add this to the existing solder and lower the melting point to about 150* F, way below the temperature where the pads delaminate from the board. I have not tried it yet but have some on order. For $13 (DigiKey) I figured it was worth a shot.

For a reasonably priced hot air rework station give Spark Fun (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=76) a look. While $175 might not seem reasonable, it's downright cheap compared to most hot air tools. They have some nice tutorials on SMD rework on their site as well.

If you are ever forced to solder directly to a SMD chip, get some 30GA wire wrap wire. It's small and flexible enough to pull this off. Guess how I know this...

Mike

[Folsom]

No that is quiet handy Mike. I think that adding stuff is exactly what I probably needed.

The rework station actually at its price is so reasonable I would wonder if it is really any good. All the prices I have seen are so high I figured I would never think about even saving up for one.

I should try to pick up some practice boards or something perhaps in the future if I got a rework station.

[JoshK]

That one looks like the one I was thinking of...

From MPJA

[mgalusha]

I should try to pick up some practice boards or something perhaps in the future if I got a rework station.

Old PC motherboards or cards are a great practice tool. Hit the computer lab at school, they might have some old crap they would love to get rid of just to get the space back.

Looking at the videos on the SparkFun site it appears to work well.

Josh - the one from MPJA looks to be the same piece. Likely from the same Chinese factory.