If you really want to do more hacking on the Touch one thing that can help a lot is magnifying goggles and a good light source. I bought mine at Harbor Freight for $5 years ago, I think they still carry them but the price might have gone up. It makes a BIG difference.
If you are going to be removing surface mount parts and soldering new ones in there are a few basic SMD tricks that help. The most important is to get the SMD removal kit from Chip Quik, this contains special low melting point solder that is great for removing parts. It also contains a syringe of flux, this is invaluable for both removing and putting in new parts. Using flux is the secret sauce that makes soldering SMD parts vastly easier. When soldering a new part on, use the syringe to put a little drop of flux on the pads, press the part down into the flux, put a drop of solder on the end of the iron and touch it to the pad (not the part) for a second or two, the flux melts and solder flows right off the tip and inbetween the part and the pad. The other useful tool is fine solder braid. After you remove the old part put some braid on the pad and put the iron on the braid, let it sit for 5-10 seconds, the iron heats up the braid and melts the solder on the pad, it wicks up into the braid and you are left with a nice flat pad ready for soldering a new part. Its also great for removing solder bridges if you accidently solder together two pads that were NOT supposed to be connected. BTW the SMD removal kit is around $12 at Mouser and DigiKey, I presume it is at other distributors. My local Fry's also carries it. Chip Quik has some videos that show how to use it. John S. -- JohnSwenson ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=83412 _______________________________________________ Touch mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
