Eggtimer Quark Destruction

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Dipstick

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Well, all I said was to myself was, at $15 a quark, I'm gonna give this a shot...

I screwed up on step two, and I think I know the answer to this, but the board is shot now with the silver pad burned off right? :) I attempted to attach the wrong component, and it was too a little too large, some solder trickled off into that ground as well...

I think I might try do the rest just to see if I can, and then reconsider putting these together myself lol

quark.jpg
 
Well, all I said was to myself was, at $15 a quark, I'm gonna give this a shot...

I screwed up on step two, and I think I know the answer to this, but the board is shot now with the silver pad burned off right? :) I attempted to attach the wrong component, and it was too a little too large, some solder trickled off into that ground as well...

I think I might try do the rest just to see if I can, and then reconsider putting these together myself lol

View attachment 402256

I would say it’s a goner. While you MIGHT be able to cobble the cap back in, I would not trust it to be reliable in a rocket of mine. However, you’ve got the right mindset: how can I get something out of this experience? That’s a mature outlook on what I’d term a “learning opportunity“. Practice away on this board in the spirit of nailing it on the next kit build.

In the meantime, get your replacement order in!
 
I fried my first Quark. Hooked battery up backward. Cris sent me a few replacement parts, still no go. For the price you can’t go wrong. Have built several more since.
 
If you had some magnet wire and good skills, you could expose some of the trace and use the magnet wire as a jumper. If you don't know how to do that then it's not the time to learn. New board is cheap.
 
I would complete the board as carefully as possible as an exercise in soldering.

It would be possible to re-solder the 0.1uF capacitor to the remaining pad on the left and obliquely across to the broad pcb track under the “0.1uF” text. If you carefully scrape a small area of the green resist coating from the track with a scalpel to expose fresh Copper, you can re-solder the cap in the new orientation.

You will also need to re-link the track to the top through-hole for the beeper. It is possible, but will require a steady hand, good lighting and magnification.

These sort of pcb operations are not unusual for an experienced solderer, but if you’re a little challenged in that area, then just use it as practise.

However, as G said above, you wouldn’t really trust the altimeter in one of your rockets, particularly if it was used for deployment. If it’s just used for non-critical reporting of altitude, then go for it!

Cris will advise you here.
 
Actually, the missing pad connects directly to the adjacent processor pin, and the broken trace below it is OK if broken (it goes to GND, but so does that missing pad since there's another via to GND by the processor pin). I'd try to fix it... but as Voyager1 said, if nothing else you'll get some soldering practice out of it.
 
Well, that was a lot of fun. Starting with a new tip made things even easier.

After wrapping up and creating the solder bridge recommend by Chris I got the unit on and beeping as it should. That was a little surprising to me [emoji16]

I kept going and got a nominal drogue test with ematch. At this point my ego was nicely inflated...then I tried the main test and don't get an ignition. Altimeter goes into test mode and gets to the 5 second beep before ignition, but no light. I tried several batteries and ematch to rule that out...any ideas Chris? Others?IMG_20200103_172259.jpeg
 
Aha, apparently I should have looked at the board before posting, see what I missed?

I'll report back once that has been rectified [emoji15]
 
You got it. A little embarrassing but hey, putting them on fixed my problem lol.

Glad to say my first egg timer build was a success. I actually feel quite confident to do more now [emoji3]

There appear to be a few empty pads to the left of the beeper.
 
Rather than starting another thread I figured I would give this one CPR and ask my questions right here. I have a Quark on the way so it makes sense to get ready for the build. The soldering part does not really scare me as I have soldered new wires on the control boards of the smallest RC servos they make. Actually my gliders were all hard wired meaning I soldered all my servos and my battery right into the the plane.

I am however looking at getting a swivel arm magnifier. I have a nice swivel arm lamp I use for projects so I am wondering if I need to look into a lighted magnifier or just get a good swivel arm magnifier. I wear reading glasses so I can pick up some with a stronger power as well for the really tight stuff.

I am looking forward to this project and flying the DD system I have been working on.
 
I am however looking at getting a swivel arm magnifier. I have a nice swivel arm lamp I use for projects so I am wondering if I need to look into a lighted magnifier or just get a good swivel arm magnifier.

I'm 43 and wear bifocals. I usually solder SMT stuff without a magnifier, although I tend to get fairly close to the board. That being said, I have a swivel arm lighted magnifier to check things over afterwards, or while debugging it.
 
Rather than starting another thread I figured I would give this one CPR and ask my questions right here. I have a Quark on the way so it makes sense to get ready for the build. The soldering part does not really scare me as I have soldered new wires on the control boards of the smallest RC servos they make. Actually my gliders were all hard wired meaning I soldered all my servos and my battery right into the the plane.

I am however looking at getting a swivel arm magnifier. I have a nice swivel arm lamp I use for projects so I am wondering if I need to look into a lighted magnifier or just get a good swivel arm magnifier. I wear reading glasses so I can pick up some with a stronger power as well for the really tight stuff.

I am looking forward to this project and flying the DD system I have been working on.

I wear reading glasses since I have lousy near-vision (hit in my mid-40's like it does for many others). I picked up this lighted magnifier at Rockler and like it.
 
My mother had an old lighted magnifier that she bought for cross-stitching years ago. It was collecting dust, so I borrowed it for this project. I wear glasses and don't have perfect vision, but I found that I could do most of it without the magnifier. I would look through it first to get familiarized, but had a bit of trouble adjusting to "super vision" while moving the soldering iron...having one available is certainly useful though.
 
The key for SMT soldering is a very small tipped iron/pencil and good technique. Put a teeny tiny bit of solder on the tab, place component, reheat to tack component down (say a resistor), let cool, do the other side, let cool and reflow the original side if the tack looks like it needs a bit more solder. Works very time. Of course good light and magnification is a plus. I assemble inside a clear glass baking dish so if a component "jumps", good chance it stays in the dish for recovery. Kurt
 
can use the paste on the pads to stick it down then apply heat
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017RSGPI8
Yes, but I recommend using a known brand such as Kester, Chip Quik, or MG Chemicals. Zephyrtronics is good too, that's what I use... however, they have a $100 minimum, which is more solder paste they most of us will use in a lifetime. You'll need to either use a small oven of some kind (toaster ovens work fine, but buy one and dedicate it for this... you don't want to eat the flux/paste residue!) or a hot air rework tool.
 
+1 for the Chip Quik. I use that stuff for everything from hot air reworking (e.g. replacing the tristar chip in older iPads) to 14ga wire connections when crimps aren't enough. Excellent all-purpose flux.
 
You can pick up an 858d hot air rework station for 35-45$ on eBay or amazon...I just got through a practice board using the one I just purchased, and I can’t believe I haven’t owned one of these yet...makes soldering surface mount components mindless...tip: use way less solder paste then you think you may need...a little dab goes a long way. You can basically pre paste all the pads, lay out all the components, and go over the board with the air gun and your done. Altho I would go one by one until you are comfortable...amazing how much faster, and more professional hot air looks then iron soldering with even when your experienced at soldering.
 
Also, sra and kester are my two fav solder brands...although my iron melts sra 63/37 solder faster then the kester of the same diameter that I have, so I prefer it over the kester.
 
Take heart, I’ve dorked a couple of these kits. I believe some solder got under the Wifi chip on one project and whacked it. The voltage regulator burned up. Cris sent me a higher capacity regulator and it still didn’t work. Went into the junk drawer and didn’t think a bit about it. My fault and no big deal to me. It was a Quantum and I’ve built 3 more without issue. Stuff happens.

The worst thing is I built one of the first EggFinders and I was testing it on the windowsill with a LiPo battery.
It was working impeccably and then the wire flexed and it fell 4 feet on the floor!. GPS receiver antenna cracked off the base and that was it. That went into the junk drawer too. I resurrected it a couple of years later when I was able to solder off the GPS chip and soldered three wires to an outboard GPS chip with a circularly polarized antenna that makes this 2 part GPS tracker even more accurate than the stock chip.

Don’t get me wrong, the stock GPS chip is perfectly fine with finding a rocket as I’ve flown three stock EF’s and have had no problem getting them back. The outboard chip takes a larger bay and it’s accuracy to the point of absurdity and more of an academic exercise. I was kinda happy I was able to resurrect something out of the junk box! Keep practicing!! Kurt
 
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You can pick up an 858d hot air rework station for 35-45$ on eBay or amazon...I just got through a practice board using the one I just purchased, and I can’t believe I haven’t owned one of these yet...makes soldering surface mount components mindless...tip: use way less solder paste then you think you may need...a little dab goes a long way. You can basically pre paste all the pads, lay out all the components, and go over the board with the air gun and your done. Altho I would go one by one until you are comfortable...amazing how much faster, and more professional hot air looks then iron soldering with even when your experienced at soldering.
@Motocrossman24 I bought one of these for my last Eggtimer build. I couldn't believe how easy it made soldering SMDs. And I like that surface tension pulls the devices into position.

https://www.amazon.com/TXINLEI-8858...sr=1-37&swrs=C90CEECC7BDB9BC11A4253FBA81980DF
 
So with a rework station you can place a bit of solder on the SMD pad and the component against it, then point the hot air at it to solder everything together? First time I've seen this concept so I'm trying to get my head wrapped around it.

Edit - just watched the below video. Absolutely mind blowing to me. Might be informative to others as well:
 
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So with a rework station you can place a bit of solder on the SMD pad and the component against it, then point the hot air at it to solder everything together? First time I've seen this concept so I'm trying to get my head wrapped around it.

Edit - just watched the below video. Absolutely mind blowing to me. Might be informative to others as well:

@CalebJ It is pretty mind blowing, isn't it. :headspinning: The paste has microscopic balls of solder in it. I didn't use a mask like the guy did in the video, just the small tip that came with my syringe of paste. Don't need much on each pad. The nice thing about the paste is that it hold the component pretty much in place. And since you are using hot air instead of a soldering pen the component stays in place while you heat up the paste. And if the alignment is a little bit off the surface tension pulls it into alignment. Very cool. :cool:
 
Yea it’s pretty amazing, I can’t believe it took me this long to buy a hot air rework station, a lot of drone flight controllers went in the bin that could have had a voltage reg replaced in a few minutes. I’d even venture to say that anyone who got a cheap reflow station and a 5$ practice board could put together any eggtimer/finder immediately afterwards like they had been doing it for years.
 
If anyone wants a nice budget system, here’s one with the hot air gun and temp controlled iron solder iron.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/750W-Solde...166320?hash=item28935ef770:g:gcoAAOSw1bFer99t
And if you prefer digital
https://www.ebay.com/itm/8586-SMD-H...705373?hash=item3661d6dd9d:g:DQIAAOSwE0peo2xP
I have one of those, I only use it for the hot air tool. The soldering station isn't that great... my Velleman 60W unit works much better, plus Hakko tips fit it so they're easy to come by.
 
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