Hi guys, I hope this post is in the correct subforum...
I'm taking apart my NES because I saw that the little switch which controls the channel on RF seems to be broken. Since I use it with RCA I didn't saw it until recently. So I dissasembled the machine entirely and took the time to completely clean the shell and everything.
But the daughterboard where the switch is does not seem to allow separation. There are two covers up and down, and you only can take out the lower, where you can see the daughter board, but not the components (among them, the switch).
So, before I take the solder out... any of you have succesfully unattached and reattached the RF daughter board?
Thanks!
I haven't needed to try doing it myself yet, but I've seen it done. I'm pretty sure it requires more than one soldering iron (and not a weak one). It's bad enough desoldering something that's on a ground plane, but when it's a metal box soldered to a ground plane, the heat is not gonna stay where you want it.
My best shot at it would be to desolder some blobs of solder which seem to maintain the board attached to the box that contains it. It is readily accessible when you remove the bottom cover... but probably it's not going to work, because that would require to also desolder every contact it has with the motherboard.
I'm starting to consider bending the top cover... I just need access to the switch. It's not really broken, just bended and maybe with a little working space I can straight it up.
The best (perhaps easier) way of doing it is removing the solder that locks the board inside the metal cage. It would make easier if you removed the metal box from the mainboard first, but that's quite tricky to do and you would need to have an quite massive soldering iron for the GND points.
If you remove the box from the NES mainboard the top cover will pop out easily and you might be able to remove the switch without much trouble even without removing the board from the metal box.
And finally, be very careful with the four GND solders in the middle of the board and the three pins for the RCA connectors, should you decide to remove the board from the metal box...
I removed the daughter board from my NES. I did it with a single soldering iron and a solder sucker. Let me tell you, it's difficult, but possible.
Poping off the cover and trying to remove the board from the metal case didn't work out so well. I just applied a lot of heat and elbow grease to the connecting pins on the mainboard. That eventually worked.
However, it wasn't perfect by any means. I managed to overheat or otherwise destroy most of the vias the four (or was it five) pins that connect the two boards together on the mainboard. I was still able to solder the cable (by soldering to traces) I used to reconnect the boards together on, but it was messy.
Sounds like your better off to just bend up the top cover and bend it back when your done. Not pretty but better than a bunch of destroyed traces on the mobo...
Anyone tried the mini torch method? It sound like it may be better suited, lots of heat that you can apply to all contacts by constantly waving back and forth. Just make sure you wear gloves.
I've done two before. Both with solderwick and a regular soldering iron. The trick is to add NEW solder first to mix with the old.
Yeah, flux helps a ton. I'd get a can of it if you don't have it.
WhatULive4 wrote:
I've done two before. Both with solderwick and a regular soldering iron. The trick is to add NEW solder first to mix with the old.
I'm really willing to remove it, but in the best possible way... Biggest problem is that I don't really know where and how it's really attached at MB. I see that there are some solder points, but it feels very sturdy for just those little solder points... Is it also glued or something?
SaucJedi wrote:
I'm really willing to remove it, but in the best possible way... Biggest problem is that I don't really know where and how it's really attached at MB. I see that there are some solder points, but it feels very sturdy for just those little solder points... Is it also glued or something?
"little" soldering points?!?!
There are 4 LARGE ones for the chassis and 5 decent sized ones for the signal/power connections. All 9 of those massive solder points with half of them sinking to the ground plane is what makes it so sturdy and difficult to desolder.
I think this calls for some photos... I don't see those big soldering points... My wild guess is that I have never soldered/desoldered anything with big solder points. I'm sure I have them before my eyes and don't see them for what they are.
The five ones you mention do not seem to be so big... those are the ones I supposed were the power and A/V links from the daughterboard to the motherboard. Maybe if I get to desolder them I will realize they are not normal... but I don't want to start desoldering wildly.
If you look from the top of the mobo (non-component side) There are four large tabs where the case of the RF board is soldered to the mobo. (two of them near the giant power cap and regulator heatsink) I assumed you'd have to break those free in order to gain access like you need. But perhaps if you just desolder the 5 sig/pwr leads the RF board can be removed without desoldering the case and it's large tabs. Someone that's done it before would have to enlighten us...
the four solder points that bind the NES main board with the module box are MASSIVE and you will need an 60watt soldering iron to have a chance at removing it without fuxxxxxxoring everything around.
Also because a 60watt iron is quite powerful, it makes easy destroying the board. You know, with power comes great responsibility ...
Silly me, I only took note about the solder points which I knew were transmitting signals from one board to the other. I've seen the four solder points you guys are talking about... and yes, they seem to pierce the MB from side to side.
It's just solder which keeps both boards together or there is any other thing inside, like some clamps or something... If it's just solder... there is a hell of a lot...
It is only solder. It took me awhile to get the box off using 40W iron, 60W will be better like l_oliveira said.
I used a 40 watt. I think a desoldering iron would have been a better choice though. (Apparently they can be gotten at Radio Shack for about twenty bucks.)