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From: Steven.D.Ligett@mac.dartmouth.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: Hardware Problems
Message-ID: <1728559@mac.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 15 Jun 90 20:17:48 GMT
Sender: news@daver.bungi.com
Lines: 22
Approved: news@daver.bungi.com

--- Ian Dall wrote:
The power supply and ground pins need quite a lot more heat than the
signal pins due to the large amount of copper attached to them. I
noticed this when I was soldering but I guess I didn't quite give this
one enough.
--- end of quoted material ---
Congratulations!  I hope you've got it!

At Dartmouth, we build a lot of our own hardware for our communications
network.  The shop technicians build the boards at home for overtime. 
Usually, I just give them a bag of parts, a blank board, and a board to copy. 
My only instructions are "More heat; less solder."  You don't want joints with
blobs of solder, you want joints where the solder has wicked up into the hole.

If you're soldering sockets, it impossible to see how the joint looks on the
top.  If you're soldering chips straight into the board, you can look for a
hole filled with solder, and a fillet on the top and bottom side.  Frankly,
you probably can't do it consistently on the power and ground pins.  Or maybe,
frankly, *I* can't do it on a board with power and ground planes.

If a joint looks bad, don't just blob more solder on it, remove the old
solder, and try again.