Be VERY careful assembling beta boards ... I ruined mine

[kolban]

Howdy folks,
I received my beta board yesterday and it comes as two parts. A small module (similar to the ESP-12) and a mounting board. The module pin spacings are incredibly close together. While soldering the module to the mounting board, I managed to bridge two pads together (twice ... in two different locations). I am unable to recover from this having tried a solder sucker and an exacto knife, I seem to be just making things worse.

I suspect that someone in the electronic engineering profession may be used to such tiny assembly, but unfortunately I'm a software guy with bad eye sight and shaky hands ...

So ... let my misfortune be a warning to others ... be very, very careful. I thought I was ... but obviously I needed more skills than I possessed. My justification for the ESP32 was to port my book on ESP8266 to ESP32 and since I spoiled my ESP32, I think I'll be waiting for the general availability of the ESP32 devices before attempting that task.

[DAFlippers]

Use desoldering braid. Much easier than a solder sucker. Add some solder (I know it sounds counterintuitive) and wick it off.

https://www.chemtronics.com/c-271-desol ... -wick.aspx others are, of course, available. Get wider braid rather than narrow.

David

[martinayotte]

Yes, that is the trick !
Even with my old eyes and my shaking hands (yes, me too), I've managed to solder some LQFP64 and LQFP100, with some pain and magnifier, but I got them working.
(I hope I will receive my module too, maybe in the next few days)

[kolban]

Thanks guys, I'll order some on-line and post back the results when they arrive.

[WiFive]

Planning on using solder paste and hot air to avoid this problem.

[timathis]

Kolban

Great book!

There is a special low temp solder that can be used along solder wicking braid that should work.
Don't know brand name right now.
You actually add a little bit of the low temp solder which makes it easy for a small tip to melt the existing solder.

Good luck!

[a2retro]

Kolban, Add a little bit of flux as well, this will help the solder flow.

Your book is fantastic. Would love to see it peppered with more code examples. My brother and I made a IR heat probe to see if that cat is hiding in his outside box. Need to bring him in when the weather gets subzero. one esp-01 wakes up - sees if a temp request has been made - get the temps and reports back to the huzzah server inside the house.. Got stuck on a few things and your book really helped.

Glenn

[vlasov01]

There is a nice video how to solder this kind of components: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9FC9fAlfQE (if you don't have too much time start looking around at 19 minutes).

Good luck!

Sergey

[chrisfraser]

Give this method a bash. I had great success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcCAVX2RjZ4

[kolban]

Awesome news ... I made friends with an professional electronics engineer who took my ESP32 to his shop and with professional tools (I am told that microscopes and sub miniature scrapers were involved) that my instance is now operational!!! Now I can start my ESP32 journey and start writing up what I find.