replacing capacitors -- what kind of soldering iron?

[PsychoCrazy]

I'm going to try to take some capacitors off a donor motherboard and put them on a MSI 694D Pro (dual S370) which has leaky ones. I've read few articles on replacing caps, including this one here: link. But I was wondering if someone could tell me what kind of soldering iron and solder I should get. I think the one I have is way too big for this.

Thanks!

 

[DieHardware]

A 30 watt soldering iron with a fine tip, solder sucker or desoldering braid, and high quality rosin core solder will be needed.

 

[CraigRT]

I am going to be doing the same soon on one of my motherboards... does anyone know a good place to order one online? my soldering iron sucks, and I'd really like a good new one (and for a good price of course)

 

[PsychoCrazy]

Originally posted by: DieHardware
A 30 watt soldering iron with a fine tip, solder sucker or desoldering braid, and high quality rosin core solder will be needed.

Thanks!! That's the info I needed. I may try to get my brother to help me since he took an electronics class back in highschool.


If anyone has an answer to CraigRT's question, please let us know. I was wondering that too.

 

[Mem]

I am going to be doing the same soon on one of my motherboards... does anyone know a good place to order one online? my soldering iron sucks, and I'd really like a good new one (and for a good price of course)

I was in the same boat and went for a new motherboard(complete with a new 3 year warranty and a board with more features/upgrade options) also my soldering skills are very rusty.

I just thought that was the better option in the long run, so you might want to consider that.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: Mem

I am going to be doing the same soon on one of my motherboards... does anyone know a good place to order one online? my soldering iron sucks, and I'd really like a good new one (and for a good price of course)

I was in the same boat and went for a new motherboard(complete with a new 3 year warranty and a board with more features/upgrade options) also my soldering skills are very rusty.

I just thought that was the better option in the long run, so you might want to consider that.

I will get a new motherboard, but I want to fix this one if it's only gonna cost $5-10 bucks

I figure the worst that can happen is it will cease to work, which isn't so bad seeing as the caps are already leaking anyways.

 

[CraigRT]

an update for those who care:

I called the parts store, and to fix 6 caps on my motherboard will cost me around $10 Canadian (about $7 USD)

thats for:
5 3300uF caps
1 1000uF cap

 

[Jeff7]

I was informed that I would need low-ESR capacitors (equivalent series resistance) in order to give very clean power to the CPU and various other components - my 8RDA+ died a little while back and needed work.
Some advice quick:
You might need more than 30W. My 30W iron from Radio Shack couldn't do a thing to the solder; a cheap 35W I got with a toolkit barely could do the job. I finally bought a 40W soldering iron from Radio Shack - it did the job. Epox used some really high-temp solder on my board.

 

[Zepper]

It's not the solder, it's the fact that the heat from the sodldering iron is going into the ground plane or the +V bus, both of which are relatively large sheets of copper. You need to get the heat from the iron going into the leg of the cap as much as possible rather than the land around it.
. As I suggested to probably one of you who crossposted in another section (tsk, tsk - for shame) that you should pull out every stop in getting your mobo mfr to cover it. It's not worth the expense, effort to do this yourself. It will likely cost more than just buying a new mobo. You will need to replace ALL the caps, not just the leaking ones - unless you want to have to come back later and do it again. So lets say 10 very low ESR, high ripple tolerance, computer grade caps at a minimum of $3. each (since you're not buying in 10k lots), etc.

**** DO NOT TRANSPLANT CAPS FROM ANOTHER MOBO. THE HEAT TRAUMA FROM DESOLDERING/RESOLDERING WILL PROBABLY DAMAGE THEM. **** And they are likely not the same rating anyway. New caps have long legs onto which aluminum heat sinks should be clipped during soldering to draw as much excess heat that way rather than into the cap - and trimmed after all soldering is completed. The old caps will have NO legs (at many levels of meaning)...

.bh.

:moon:

 

[Topher]

I had to move some caps on my old socket A motherboard to make room for the heatsink. I just used a generic Radio Shack soldering iron. Worked fine since all I was doing was adding a bit of wire between the cap and the board, to make room for the heatsink. I used this article as a guide. I did have to file the tip down as it was way too fat for the job. I don't have very good soldering skills and I managed just fine.

 

[Zepper]

Well, if you insist on risking it, here is a link with good info: Linkage .
.bh.

 

[PsychoCrazy]

Thanks for the tips, guys. The motherboard I will be working on is one that I haven't used in about a year, so if I kill it, it's no big deal.

I like the guide for moving capacitors found here: link. Here's a quote:

"I have a 100 watt soldering iron and couldn't find it, so I elected the brute force method. I pushed each capacitor around a bit with my fingers to loosen them up, then grabbed the top with a pliers and yanked it off (collective gasp by many EEs). "

Pretty funny stuff, not that I'm going to try it that way though.