VISION Big Boy Help!

Oh dear, sorry, I forgot to look last night.  I'll set an alarm so I don't forget when I get home tonight.

Figured out how to have an extra hand for the soldering of the cap to the solder nubs at the top of the board.  Taped the cap to the end of the alligator clip and positioned the ends on the nubs; put some yellow heat shrink over the nubs that I didn't want to touch; took the top of the blow down funnel off to give me more room; needed the QuadHands Helping Hands to help since I don't have the hands of a brain surgeon.  Now I am just waiting on the right size solder and solder tips to show up.  You can just barely see a cap lead tip resting on one of the nubs.  I will do the outside nub first to hold the cap in place.  See pictures.

I used .032" diameter 60/40 (3.3% flux) solder.  I had a 1.2 mm bevel point tip in my soldering iron, and it is currently set to 250 degrees C (480 F).  Don't know how accurate it is as it's a used unit I got for free and have no clue when it was last calibrated.  But I just did a lot of soldering with it this last weekend doing the before mentioned DCC install.

sinclair posted:

I used .032" diameter 60/40 (3.3% flux) solder.  I had a 1.2 mm bevel point tip in my soldering iron, and it is currently set to 250 degrees C (480 F).  Don't know how accurate it is as it's a used unit I got for free and have no clue when it was last calibrated.  But I just did a lot of soldering with it this last weekend doing the before mentioned DCC install.

Thanks Sinclair, you have helped out immensely!

GRJ, I have seen a bunch of Soldering Tip Thermometers on the Bay.  I noticed that you found a good one there; do you have a picture of it?

I bought the Chinese clone of the Hakko FG-100 calibrator, it's worked quite well for me.  The genuine article goes for $250 or so, but the clone set me back $20.  I've tested it's accuracy with my Fluke temperature probe, and it's quite accurate. It's a mystery how Hakko can charge $100 for the iron and $250 for this little calibrator!  The guts of the calibrator are very simple, it's just a K-Type thermocouple with a circuit to read the temperature and a feature to hold the max temperature.  Big deal!

There are several clones listed on eBay, here's one: eBay 122561208159, it's $20.  You can also just search for Hakko FG-100 and find several more.

Thanks GRJ; is yours Celsius or Fahrenheit??

Mine is in Celsius, at the time I couldn't find the Fahrenheit model.  I'd rather have that, but I make do with mine.  I think I saw one in Fahrenheit for a similar price.

Hi GunrunnerJohn; one last question for your patience; I am thinking about locating the cap rearward and over the motor as in the picture.  To do that, would soldering extensions of 20g wire to the caps leads (maybe max of 2 inches) decrease the caps effectiveness??

It shouldn't have any measurable effect, that would be fine.  I like that positioning better than lined up over the flywheel anyway.  I've seen too many wires ground down by flywheels, I like to keep wiring and components away from that problem.

GRJ, thanks, I am going to give that a shot; if something happens to the cap, it will be out of harms way.

Got the capacitor installed and now the Big Boy runs smooth thru all speed steps - go figure.  Many thanks to Gunrunnerjohn, CJack, Zachariah, Alex, StPaul, Sinclair for the info to do the job.  I soldered two 2 inch lengths of 20g wire to nubs 1 (red) and 3 (black) on the board and then the capacitor to those wires.  I located the finished assembly rearward over the motor.  I had to re route the collection or wires going forward over the motor to the left side of the motor.

Since I have never soldered before, I shielded the nubs on the board with heat shrink tubing and put a strip of tape just below the nubs to catch any debris and protect the board.  I did a bit of practicing on 20g wire with .8mm rosin core solder and a Hakko FX888D and a watched a few Youtube videos.  I found after a bit of experimentation the best temp was 585F, tinning the wire AND the solder nubs on the board AND using a long needle soldering tip with tinning worked the best.  Regarding soldering, I have the mind of an artist and the hands of a butcher; the result wasn't pretty but it worked.  If I ever take the shell off again, I might redo some of it.

You'll get better with practice with the soldering.  Lots of practice!

gunrunnerjohn posted:

You'll get better with practice with the soldering.  Lots of practice!

Truth!

Best advice I ever received was to tin everything, including the iron's tip.  Since then I have yet to over heat anything or melt wires like I used to.

Thanks for the encouragement gents; I spent nearly 2 hours soldering practice wire and gradually walked the temp up from 550F to 585F to arrive at the best temp.  At that temp, tinning the wire and the tip worked fine.  Attaching the wire to the dry nubs on the board did not work; finally got the idea to tin the nubs too.  Would not have gotten very far without the forum, Hakko, long needle point tip, heat sinks, Youtube, and the QuadHands gizmo.