X-Tronic 4000 (part 2)

Okay.. I was at home again today.  But at least this time my employer shut down for the bad weather.  So I'll only need to work on Saturday instead of the entire weekend.  :O)

Anyway.. I spent most of the day digging out and, for my wife's benefit, in -20F wind chill (hey I was used to it already from digging out) I moved my extra "wing" Dish Network (300 with a Dish Pro single LNBF hooked to input #4 on the leased 1000.2) dish from 61.5W to 72.7W to regain many of the channels we suddenly lost, including the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS World) because Dish moved it with... well... absolutely no notice.  Yeah I know it's because they lost transponders on 77W... but... still...

I also figured out the XM radio issue in my car is that the VW XM module is dead.  I guess I got lucky that it lasted 4.5 years.  I will cancel, since most (95%) of what I listen to is now on a local AM station (KXEL, Waterloo, IA) anyway!  A new module is something like $450..  Sad since I had XM for 7 years.. including before Sirius when it didn't suck.  So I'm almost caught up with work I'm behind on (fixing other people's screw-ups, yes...)

I did sneak in a couple of pictures and videos of the hot air in action.  I said I would.

Top display is hot air, set at 300 deg C for board preheat;  soldering iron set for right around 700 deg F (371 deg C). 

I think, especially on the hot air, I like the analog control better than I would a digital one.  Since I don't yet have a board preheater (but I might use a coffee warmer or a small griddle hooked to my Variac for the purpose) I've learned to use 300 deg C with a lot of air to preheat the component... then I turn down the air and up the heat for removal of IC's and chip components.

Here is a video of the removal of an IC close to an easy to melt 0.1" header:

...and... I didn't melt it. I could use the next smaller sized nozzle as you can tell from the video.

I also used this to remove difficult to remove SMA connectors through hole and on the edge.. here is a video of the removal of an "edge" SMA. I used the Hakko iron to help with removal, but the Hakko did very little of the work.

Here is a picture of the board after removing the through hole (on plated through hole) SMA's with the hot air... To remove big mass connectors, I cranked up the air to the maximum and the heat up to the maximum (about 502 deg C).. this could be part of the reason I browned the tantalums a little...

Notice that the board is far from damaged.. the only notable damage is the browning of the tantalum caps.. I could have removed them first and avoided that.  Good thing to learn on a practice board, eh?

Parts I took off of that practice board so far.  I've not yet damaged the board (any more than it was when I got it.)  Overall, this will be a very useful tool.. if it lasts...  A through hole pot.. came right off.. several SMA's (which would have been impossible any other way...) various chip crystals, capacitors, resistors, IC's.. etc..  fun stuff...

What can I say?  Hot air is as necessary now as a soldering iron is.  I'd even recommend a beginner get a hot air station, because it makes fixing mistakes much easier, also.  More and more stuff will be SMT, and I suspect solder paste and this thing would work great for mounting a SMT IC.  I'd like to try a QFN.  I'll have to see about a board and a sample part I can then use to verify I didn't fry it.  I think I could do it now though which is amazing.  BGA's might even be possible...

Next project will be to load the new version 1.01 software on to the SDR-Cube, just released.  I'm having a hard time keeping up with my own fun projects.. !!  :O)  I did get the new source to build successfully.. the instructions are exactly the same as for v1.0 so I won't repost them.

I need to get back to building the 100W amplifier.. maybe this weekend?