• 126 Posts
  • 3.51K Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: August 15th, 2023

help-circle
  • Flux is important. If you aren’t using flux core solder, that could be part of the problem. Flux cleans the surface and it’s easier for the solder to stick. (Flux also comes separately and it a wide variety of formulations.)

    If flux isn’t the issue, then it absolutely is heat. I tried to Google for a picture of the “metal surrounding the CPU”, but I couldn’t find one. From your description, it sounds like that metal is still sinking too much heat away which also wouldn’t allow solder to flow.

    Soldering to larger metal pieces is always a challenge. You likely need a lot more heat applied for the shortest time possible. Another option is to heat up the entire board with a hot air gun first, but I suspect that is not an option for you.

    Big soldering tips can be used to flow as much heat into the part as fast as possible before the heat gets a chance to spread out.

    (A picture of your problem would be a nice-to-have. I am not familiar with your exact components, but I solder things quite a bit.)




  • I am atheist and my wife is Buddhist. While not exactly true, I view Buddhism more as a philosophy and it is more palatable in that regard. My tolerance for people practicing religion is also fairly high as long as they don’t try and “convert me”.

    As a result, I have been to plenty of ceremonies for things over the years and it doesn’t bother me. Of course, I don’t believe in any of that “magic” but there is usually loads of good food that comes attached, depending. (Also, there is a high probability of after-hours gambling and drinking which was cool when I did that stuff, at least with the Asian crowd I roll with.)

    +20 years married into a Buddhist family, if you were wondering about that.



  • The insulation between the windings was probably non-existent.

    Also… uh… TO-263 packages are surface mount and likely require heat dissipation of some kind. There is a chance that heat sinking isn’t required, but it’s standard practice to at least ground the tab. (Using the package like that for quick at home projects is fine. Putting it in a production power supply like that is just silly.)

    Throw the rest of those powes supplies you have directly in the bin. It’s not worth the risk with those shitty transformers and that poor design. It would really suck if a failure mode sent mains voltage through what you are powering. (It needs a full teardown to say for certain though.)








  • So I just took a small sample (outside of major business districts) with Google maps street view dropping random pins in L.A. and searching for American flags. 0/3.

    Same with Paris. 0/3.

    I guess I got lucky? People can do their own samples and will likely see the inverse of my results.

    Yeah, the pledge of allegiance is kinda stupid and has been cut from most schools at the start of the day. (That is likely regional though.) It’s still kinda weird that sports events still leverage national anthems too.

    Many people here see hyperpatriotism as kinda weird and is more closely associated with (the bad kind) of nationalism.

    To answer all questions like this, it depends on where you go. Some places are worse than others. Culturally important cities tend to be much more 'murica than others.