I can't really say for sure that every one of my soldering connections is perfect, there may be one or a couple in there that are still flaky (which is all it would take, obviously). However as far as I can tell, I don't have a consistent problem with soldering. The connections are all shiny, solder flows from the component lead out to the edges of the pads, not in little balls (the few times I've had one of these happen I've taken care of it when it happened). I don't have an iron that I can specifically select a temperature on but it's a 50 watt iron that is adjustable - I have it set probably around 80-85% of full power. I've found if I go higher I actually tend to end up with discolored spots on boards at times - but I don't know the exact temperature. (I thought I vaguely remembered that a 50 watt iron usually was 800 degrees? Maybe not though.)
I've used two different types of solder in the process - the first was the end of a spool from Radio Shack that was 60/38/2 silver bearing, and the spool I'm on now is also Radio Shack but 60/40. I still really lean towards the fact that the problem reappeared at the exact same point, down to the precise button press (switching to 80 meters while in CAL FCTr), suggesting that there's a problem with a component. It just seems that since the problem didn't appear randomly along the way but at the same exact moment, it wouldn't just be a solder connection. A poor solder connection would be prone to going out at any moment and the odds of it doing it the exact same time? -- View this message in context: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/Info-080-message-started-with-RF-Alignment-and-Test-Part-II-tp7564545p7564673.html Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
