exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Exxos: Do you think I have a cats chance in hell of getting my (internal) floppy working again after this shitshow?

Maybe if I'm lucky the external floppy will still work.

Can you recommend any afforable desoldering gear for next time I'm feeling "adventurous"?

danboid wrote: 12 Mar 2025 19:11 It would be good f someone could recommend a known good desoldering gun / station from AliExpress as they seem to be quite pricey from Amazon etc which is why I haven't invested in one until now but this has been the best motivation yet. I now know I got lucky with my previous usage of this heat gun.

I think the H5 is very cool and I'm glad that it exists although I don't think I can quite justify the price tag. I'd gladly pay £150+, probably up to about £300, for a Falcon reproduction board if I could source all the chips (yeah right) but I could probably get at least a couple of second hand ST(FM)s for the price of the H5. My STFM only cost me £50 thankfully but annoyingly it was in good condition before I violated it last night. :(

Hoho! Oh dear! That may be the worst real life example I've seen yet!

I doubt it's completely terminal, although I think you've got a hell of a time cleaning it up first. I can see a couple of poor traces floating in the air there, but I don't think that part of the board is especially trace dense otherwise.

Without another board next to you to compare side-by-side it would be hard to know you got everything, though.

The hot air stations that look like this are pretty ubiquitous and inexpensive:
It looks like "858D hot air" is the magic incantation to ebay, Aliexpress or Amazon.

BW

Thanks for the shopping tip Mr Wolf, I have ordered an 858D for about £20 on AliExpress. I should've ordered one of these years ago, if I had known wtf the magick incantation was. On Amazon they range from £30 to £300 yet they're all sold as 858Ds. Do the £300 ones inject a stream of liquid gold into the air? They all look identical so I fail to see how they can justify charging 10x the price. They're full of hot air, obviously.

I think the time has come to plug my poor abused STFM in and see how poorly it is.

My STFM still boots but both the internal and external floppy drives aren't working, nor does it seem to recognise my UltraSatan. I suppose that would be expected with one of the links removed even if I hadn't torched the mobo.

In an act of laughably ridiculous optimism I shall try to compete the mod when my desoldering station arrives although I suspect this is going to end up as a source of spares without serious surgery. Its no use to me otherwise without disk access.

Who is your avatar dude BW?

Everybody loves magical Trevor. The things that he does are ever so clever :)

Oh yes! Instant convert here.

Sounds like a cross between early Eno and the Pet Shop Boys.

We need more magical Trevor. Propa mascot.

danboid wrote: 12 Mar 2025 19:11 Here is what I done did. I've not dared turn it on since the abuse. What says ye Mr Wolf?

brutalised-board.jpg

Here's the implement of the destruction:

Exhibit-A.jpg

It would be good f someone could recommend a known good desoldering gun / station from AliExpress as they seem to be quite pricey from Amazon etc which is why I haven't invested in one until now but this has been the best motivation yet. I now know I got lucky with my previous usage of this heat gun.

I think the H5 is very cool and I'm glad that it exists although I don't think I can quite justify the price tag. I'd gladly pay £150+, probably up to about £300, for a Falcon reproduction board if I could source all the chips (yeah right) but I could probably get at least a couple of second hand ST(FM)s for the price of the H5. My STFM only cost me £50 thankfully but annoyingly it was in good condition before I violated it last night. :(

OK, so assessing the damage, aside from the burning, you have popcorning.

This is where air trapped in the PCB expands and pops the fibreglass layers apart. Short term it may be fine, long term I would call this probably a goner.

For anybody reading this, this is why if you aren't sure, ask, don't just take a paint stripper gun to any PCB. It's not designed for the purpose of hot air soldering and that aside, you need to use the correct technique to avoid hot spots, burning and popcorning.

I'd suggest that you may get the same results with the hot air set you're looking at simply because you don't have the techniques required to use it. It isn't a simple case of just heating up the board.

Why am I being harsh you ask? Because if you're considering buying an H5 and you don't have all the necessary techniques on your side, you could end up doing the same to that, and all the folks here would want you to succeed, not fail.

Buy SMD soldering test kits, they are cheap on eBay, watch videos on YouTube, but don't just jump into hot air soldering on something you care about. Your 'evidence' says you now know why.

I was thinking about the H5 yes but I think I'd be better putting that money towards building a Raven as I still have a working STe. I always favour open source projects projects. I know exxos has his doubts over the benefits of open source hardware whereas I am a big evangelist for it. I may end up buying another ST(FM) as it seems some software doesn't like the STe.

The paint stripper gun was simply the wrong tool for the job but one of the main reasons it was unsuitable was there was no way for me to tell what temperature it was set to using the dial on the side. I will have more control with the new one. I am sad about losing my STFM but by open about it here it will be a warning to others and its also led to me getting betting equipment and hopefully being more cautious in future.

I still want to try modding my STe with a drive swap switch but I don't want to mess with the YM chip and no paint stripper guns will be going near it.

With a lot of patience, bodge wires and continuity tests, I think your STF can be revived, the damage is only a limited area of the motherboard and the motherboard is not multi-layered.

I think your right Olivier. I should try and fix it and then it will turn into a notable win for me if I pull that off. It will be another good learning exercise like this whole thing has been.