0201 rework / hand soldering 0201 LED

[@alan.schertz]

Thanks again Tim, I learned to solder in the 60’s from my dad who was an Electrical Engineer. But back in those days he studied physics and math and then turn that into his EE profession. My math skills never made it to his level, but I always took pride that he had me solder up any of his projects at home. This skill set came in handy when I had a systems technician job at the cyclotron at Indiana university in the 80s. I remember my boss at that gig said something like “so it says here you can solder, see the cable that nicked by a forklift, cut that plug off and reconnect it here”. it was a 128 connector control cable. I think it took me just about an hour and 1/2 to dress, solder, and repackage the encasement. I did my best with a continuity checker. But the “real” test was when the cable was used in the target room when it was used in the detector array. My boss could not believe that it all worked! But I’m a bit sad to say that I have come down with “essential tremors”. Makes soldering much more difficult. But I have learned some tricks and appreciate all you do and have done with all of your projects and willingness to share. You are still my favorite Artist/KZbinr! (And there is a lot of competition)

[@cheater00]

what tricks have you found to counter your tremors? the one thing i've found that helps a lot is taking a lot of magnesium glycinate. also, resting your wrists on something so that shakes have less freedom due to the geometry of movement being restricted at your wrist.

[@soosbot2244]

@@cheater00 What about propranolol and metoprolol? Surgeons take it to stop shaking during surgery.

[@notanimposter]

Learning how to hold two things with one hand is a soldering skill that Big Alligator Clip doesn’t want you to know. Sometimes I’ll hold solder, tweezers, board, and iron all in my hands, and it’s actually _easier_ than fiddling with work holding apparatus.

[@quasa0]

hahahahaha

[@hogandromgool2062]

Yup, learning to use the pinky and ring finger as a second pincher is a huge help in MANY areas of life. Easiest way to train it is to hold some thin thread in each set of pinchers and touch the tips together over and over. Trains your brain to think of the pinky and ring as it's own pincher rather than two separate fingers.

[@dave882]

Yeah sometimes. But sometimes you’re working with a tiny earring and don’t seem to own anything capable of clamping 😂 sorry I’ve done 02 soldering by hand. You need a solid mount. Breathing on those things sends em flying

[@redgrittybrick]

One of the factors hampering my use of this technique is that I only have two and a half pinchers per tentacle, what does one do with half a pincher?

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@hogandromgool2062 agreed. I find having long nails actually helps me too, they're like tweezers except with tactile feedback (unlike actual tweezers). Sometimes the end of a nail gets chipped-off and I'm uselessly miming at tiny objects I want to pick up for weeks, because my muscle-memory is still expecting the nails to be there.

[@sol_in.victus]

Completely insane that you went through with this because just by watching the video i got the urge to throw everything up in the air at least 4 times the patience is immaculate

[@dallaswilliams2883]

I'm so glad you decided to fix the one LED that went out😂

[@jrrarglblarg9241]

That’s like watching someone build legos with a shovel and a stick. Impressive.

[@StephenTack]

Riveting content! The king of holding 3 things to solder is Big Clive... it's a useful and impressive technique.

[@techheck3358]

not rivets, soldering 😜

[@benneboii8117]

A tip for working on things at this scale and it can help some with the problem you're having with the parts sticking to your tweezers is to make sure your tweezers are sharp. Like razorsharp with a sharp point. I've found when working on small things during watchmaking that the sharper your twezers the easier it's to handle the super small parts. Will probably help you with soldering small parts aswell.

[@RealNovgorod]

Good job, Tim and Alex. Now align them!

[@reddcube]

I like the trick of mounting the soldering iron in helping hands and using your hands to hold the wiring and solder.

[@robmckennie4203]

Same here, I'll usually just lay the iron on the bench, or use one of those folded sheet metal holder things to prop it up

[@MrDrakeSirlit]

The wiring tip near the end holding two things independently in one hand is something i do all the time. Dont need to get out helping hands all the time and can't always use helping hands where i want to solder.

[@cheater00]

never needed to do that, i just hold the solder in my teeth. works like a charm. i prefer the traditional stuff, the new lead-free has a weird taste to it that i just can't get used to.

[@dandrehn]

@@cheater00 😂

[@RuiVascoMonteiro]

I particularly liked the "This Old Tony" vibes when that "hand shot" came in explaining the grip to hold three things. Keep it up! :)

[@SVanHutten]

The upside down ToT.

[@akiko009]

Nice. I have found microtips from Weller to be very effective at the same task. For this kind of work I use arm and wrist rests to elevate them in reference to the work piece, so that the hands are in a more natural position. That takes out a lot more of the natural shaking. A neat trick to make rework easier for bottom-pad-only components like these is to have the solder pad extend beyond the edges of the part, but cover it with solder mask (i.e. a partially mask defined pad). That way it's easy to reflow the pad by just touching the masked but exposed part with an iron. YMMV.

[@l3p3]

I am a proud owner of helping hands, 2 clamps I heavily use while soldering all the time. 😊

[@SadeN_0]

they can be pretty annoying to set up though, and more importantly the sharp teeth on the clips are rather unwieldily big and cut into plastic like wires and such. also they're conductive which can be a problem depending on the situation

[@skmgeek]

​@@SadeN_0the safety benefit greatly outweighs all that for some people :3 (myself included lol)

[@Jehty_]

​@@SadeN_0that's why you put heat-shrink tubing over the clips.

[@l3p3]

@@SadeN_0 I think they are very easy to set up, it probably comes with experience. And I have a piece of paper in one of the clamps so that I can clamp in wires.

[@dave_s_vids]

This just goes to show how amazing that pick and place machine is! Good job!

[@billmyke746]

You have the patience of a saint.

[@edgeeffect]

Speaking as someone who's kinda cackhanded at insane hand soldering of surface mount components.... it's always nice to watch the master at work.

[@vinco1]

Thank you for uploading this video. I was trying to solder a 0201 resistor on a game console I knocked off while doing a hardware mod. This was a year ago and I've given up since. But now you've given me hope it is actually possible to solder such a component by hand! I even have the same iron

[@V0R73X]

Thank goodness, I noticed the broken led and I’m so glad you made this video

[@jaedinalways1535]

I worked in SMT manufacturing as a inspector/rework operator for a few years. This scale of repair typically would have been done with a tacky flux and a hot air gun. The tacky flux would solve the problem of the component sticking to the tweezers as it sticks the component to the PCB. Solder is pre-applied to the PCB lands and surface tension draws the lands on the part and the board together.

[@iot_enthusiast]

very nicely done. I like the way you hold the soldering iron @0:38

[@wittythings]

Does anyone else find this oddly nerveracking?

[@pixstatic200]

I actually find it hard to watch 🫣 Gives me flashbacks to my horrible soldering jobs I’ve botched due to shaky hands XD

[@iaian7]

Yes, it seems to be anxiety inducing. But still captivating in a way?

[@TwoDaysFromRetirement]

Being able to hear him swallow makes this feel like bomb diffusal

[@Alkatross]

I feel like I'm going to knock over things around me. Like I'm too big

[@namewarvergeben]

@@TwoDaysFromRetirement "okay, the light just lit up...is that good or bad?"

[@artursmihelsons415]

Excellent job! Nice, that repair was successful! 👍 Smallest LED size, what I soldered manually was 0402..

[@nadca2]

I'm eager to see some 0202 RGB in a project

[@tiger12506]

Things sticking to the tweezers is a huge test of patience. My heart started racing when you had it in the right orientation, but then you had to hold it down while you soldered it. Been there many times (with much larger stuff)

[@GaitaPonto]

wow...the epoxi made it shine even more. nice job.

[@AZisk]

i was on the edge of my seat

[@armanelgtron4533]

you should probably scoot back a little, it'll be more comfortable

[@TheNotKnown0ne]

That's a job wonderfully done!

[@treelineresearch3387]

I've only gone down to 0402 levels of submini parts but the worst part by far is that EVERYTHING is sticky when you're dealing with things that weigh like a milligram.

[@brylozketrzyn]

I used to manually assemble prototype batches with like one thousand of 0201 per single panel. You need a proper microscope, wrist rest, well aligned tweezers or even better - a vacuum pickup. Use solder paste or tacky flux (gel type, not that watery mistake). For reworks solder paste dispenser and short nozzles (plastic ones from Fisnar) work great too.

[@SpaghettiEnterprises]

@@brylozketrzyn Can you recommend a tweezer brand that is actually good? I feel like I've thrown away so much money on disappointing overpriced horrible tweezers

[@brylozketrzyn]

@@SpaghettiEnterprises generally anything from quick to Bernstein will be acceptable to good. Quick brand is unfortunately not very well ground, so some work with emery paper can be required. For smaller components use shortest tweezers, they are less prone to tips misalignment. Long nosed tweezers are pain for anything smaller than 0603

[@CG17LIFE]

5:49 I always do the same! I just used this method today while working on my project. Who needs clamps when you have fingers!

[@spasticmuse4262]

Excellent work! Haven't done work quite down to this level, but close. For me, I learned that if I knew I would be working at such levels on a particular day: NO CAFFEINE!! It'd cause microshakes that would make work much more difficult!

[@CallousCoder]

So happy because my OCD was tripping when I saw it yesterday 😂

[@l3p3]

OCD?

[@CallousCoder]

@@l3p3 obsessieve compulsive disorder. I need to hop on one leg miss the edges of the role, tap the door knob three times before opening the door 😜

[@davincidamaster5311]

@@CallousCoder Ha ha, I need to land a bottle flip 3 times and pour the water from the bottle into a glass from 1 metre up high, before chucking the bottle into the bin perfectly, before I get to drink the glass of water...

[@CallousCoder]

@@davincidamaster5311 Nice!

[@tomconnors8165]

I think you mean CDO. That is obsessive compulsive disorder abbreviated and then arranged in alphabetical order, as everything should be.

[@ConCorDesign]

Thank god. You made the world right with this video. Thank you!

[@sirskoootsch6091]

i would totally get one of those if they were ever to hit the market, its so cool

[@davelordy]

The closer you can get your hand/fingers to the tip of the soldering iron, the more accurate / controlled you can be, I use the same soldering iron, so for very fine work I made a metal sleeve that slides over the iron, and slides right up to the tip, which allows me to hold the iron right near the tip . . . so my hand is not controlling a tip 7cm away, but just a few mm away, it makes an enormous difference.

[@skmgeek]

OSHA approved 👍

[@davelordy]

@k Lol : ) What can I say, it works really well and is perfectly safe. Try this, write the letters A, B, C, D, E with your hand 1cm from the pen's writing end . . . then repeat this but holding it around 1cm from the other end (away from the tip), one is a neat line of letters, the second is a row of unhinged spiders.

[@skmgeek]

@@davelordy haha, I'd try it but I have dysgraphia, my handwriting is unreadable either way! 😅

[@davelordy]

@@skmgeek Well I recommend you hold the soldering iron right near the tip, with your teeth, what could go wrong ? 😙

[@dav1dsm1th]

A thicker flux could possibly have helped to temporarily glue the tiny components in place for soldering - but, of course, there's still a risk they'll run for the hills when they see the iron approaching... Thanks for the videos.

[@skmgeek]

and that makes it too easy! :3

[@yschroder]

This reminds me of the one time where a colleague wanted to order 0201 capacitors and accidentally ordered 0201 METRIC, which is 0.2 by 0.1 millimeters in size. Another colleague soldered on of them to the much too large 0201 footprint just to show off...

[@olliecook1982]

Ok im satisfied now. Great work!

[@landfillbaby]

yaay ! i was one of the people who asked about fixing it !!

[@Tristanschofield]

Vacuum tweezers might work quite well for placing such small LEDs. I worked in a lab where we used tiny syringe needles, cut and sanded flat, and connected them to the end of the vacuum tweezer tube to enable picking up particularly tiny samples. We worked with parts smaller than this, but it might still work.

[@garrukapex6693]

the partial solution I've found to "things stick to the tweezers" is I have a pair of fine titanium tweezers that i use only for placement of SMD components, the rest of the time they live in a little plastic tube. the very fine tip helps since they have less to stick to, and since they're only used for placement there isn't buildup or flux or anything on the tweezers themselves

[@chromerims]

Beautiful and amazing! 👍❤😎 A few of our artisan forebearers crafted detailed sculptures hewn from single grains of rice. Kindest regards, neighbours and friends.

[@putrid.p]

A masterclass, very awesome!

[@MikeStavola]

I use dedicated microsoldering gardware for this work. It's part of my job soldering 0201 (in imperial size, .6x.3mm) components. Your little iron add-on is excellent. I might try it!

[@gizelle-s]

I also do the multi holding soldering, but I started working with my dad's soldering iron when I was like 9

[@LifeGeneralist]

So much intricate

[@multiarray2320]

i was the first one who noticed it and wrote a comment :) the video was nervewracking to watch!

[@YaroslavDumin]

you could put a diffusor on top of it which keeps the light from the leds bleeding into other led areas. this way you would get sharp edges and a nice pixely look

[@steves.5868]

You may want to look into things like the Pixel Pump or similar hand held vacuum tools. They are pasically the head of a pick and place machine but handheld. It would vey much help with sticking issues. The pixel pump specifically can work on your 0201 components.

[@moeburn]

0:35 "This is probably a very simple problem to solve..." - yes, buy a fine point soldering iron tip - "...some sort of clamping device" lol

[@orphax1925]

I have the same sticky twizzers problem in jewelery and found that the least the area of contact is the least the problem us here, I'd recommend very very pointy twizzers and maybe even beding the tips a little bit inward to hold the led between only two points

[@ed.puckett]

Great video, thank you for all these good tips!

[@BESTvsWORST-vx2dg]

I love this content so much thank you so much you are a life enganser thank you from the bottom of my heart, you can have it, not the organ

[@Jett-n-gin]

I'm still think that sanding the epoxy or adding a diffuser film would soften the LEDs and make the sparkle effect visually pleasing. Still a great piece of tech!

[@AaronALAI]

I do the same double hold, when you concentrate a little it becomes natural and very effective.

[@phinok.m.628]

I know everything seems much easier when you look at someone else doing it, rather than doing it yourself. So far, I only had the pleasure to solder 0402 LEDs, with the solder pads on the sides. The tweezers sticking to everything is rather infuriating. And cleaning helps, for a few seconds until the tweezers touch flux. I can definitely relate to that. :D Anyway, in cases like these, I like to try to hold the part with tweezers, while soldering it down with the soldering iron. At least one side. And afterwards, maybe push down on it with the tweezers, while heating the pad(s) with the soldering iron. I know, I know... It's so much easier to say than to do. And presume, you could've probably come up with that brilliant idea as well, if it had been useful to you. But you know, just in case it helps anyone. There you go.

[@secondarycontainment4727]

Ok, but I still want CUFF LINKS!!! Lol Great work on this!

[@cheater00]

good video but you've missed a few tricks: 1. you're right that the amount of light is important, but what's also important is how parallel the light is and what its quality is. you will NOT find better light for miniature work than overcast daylight when working on your windowsill. that's ON the windowsill, not on a table BY the windowsill. huge difference. there's no amount of electrical lighting you can buy to match sunlight with regards to how well your eyes are going to resolve detail. 2. your hands are shaking. you want guiding rails for both hands. literally like a metal tube, like the kind you'd get on railings, sturdy and fixed to the table you're on, so your can rest your wrists on it. or do it like the watchmakers do it - have a table at the height of your face. but then using a microscope becomes difficult. anyways, with both tricks i was able to solder 01005 without any extra lighting or magnification. but i cheated by taking my glasses off, and i'm at -4.5 dioptries, so bear that in mind. Regarding the placement of the LEDs, you struggled quite a bit. what you want to do is you want to FIRST pre-tin the LED. grab it in a pair of tweezers, and slightly drag it against an already tinned soldering tip. the tip can't have a blob of solder on it, just a "sheen" of solder, otherwise the solder will want to swallow the device you're trying to tin. Next, make sure to pre-tin the pads the LED will be soldered to. In your case that was already done for you in the past, but it bears mentioning. Anyways, once that's all done, when soldering the LED to its pads, the LED will obviously "take" the joint much easier. You'll struggle much less this way. Ultimately it doesn't matter that the LED "sticks" to the tweezers. Just hold it in tweezers as you're soldering, once it's been soldered the joint will keep it in place much stronger than any adhesion to the tweezers could.

[@werawerlnwerlnrlnelr]

Sage advice. I also find reverse tweezers invaluable, much less jitter from muscle tension that way. Another trick a friend recommended but I haven't tried myself is to use a tiny amount of super glue to attach the component to a needle

[@cheater00]

@@werawerlnwerlnrlnelrsuper glue is good for larger components when you want to orient them before soldering them down, but it's not great for leds because it makes the plastic cloudy

[@werawerlnwerlnrlnelr]

@@cheater00 absolutely, in this case I'd apply it to the side not the top. But that makes it more finicky for sure

[@cheater00]

@@werawerlnwerlnrlnelrno. anywhere you apply it will fuck up the whole thing. the complete volume of plastic will become cloudy, not just the surface where super glue is touching it.

[@werawerlnwerlnrlnelr]

@@cheater00 good to know, thanks!

[@vpikooorka]

Це виглядає круто, дійсно ювелірна робота, я захоплююсь вашою роботою

[@TapticDigital]

May sure your tweezers are non-magnetic and demagnetized, and consider using a tacky flux that will help hold the part in place while you work! Depending on your soldering set up you can also get interchangeable tips meant for much smaller and finer work.

[@ilSySTeMli]

I recommend trying Teflon tip Tweezers , They Usually have less Sticktion ... (Awesome hand Soldering job BTW)

[@CristiNeagu]

I mean, we spotted it, but I personally didn't care if you changed it or not. The proof of concept was successful. The thing worked. And the project was very impressive. A rebel LED in there didn't really take away from the achievement.

[@purepix_fr]

impressive... as always !

[@hazonku]

AMAZING work!

[@TexZeTech]

As someone who can make things from metal. I would be making a mechanical motion system to do something that small. I don't have the patients for that. I will steal the wire wrap trick though. Thanks for the vod.

[@justDIY]

Wow, well done. Do you do neurosurgery on the side as well? Excellent work on a tiny scale 👍

[@SodaWithoutSparkles]

Try using those ceramic tipped tweezers. I found them to be less sticky and easier to clean.

[@suncrafterspielt9479]

Could you maybe use a solder stencil with all the leds cut out, elevate that a bit off of the pcb and put the leds in there? Wouldnt that make all the leds more aligned and easier to place and solder? I hope one can understand what I mean.

[@electrontic]

In my experience from trying that idea on similar projects, it's basically impossible to evenly lift the stencil up without knocking off a part or two.

[@gsck5499]

You wouldnt be able to solder it then, since the leds are so small youd need to have the stencil pretty tight against the leds to keep them orientated correctly at which point you wouldnt be able to get to the pads to solder them

[@suncrafterspielt9479]

I imagined that problem too, but do you maybe know how they perfectly align these tiny components in the industry?

[@gsck5499]

@@suncrafterspielt9479 they just use a pick and place machine like he did, and instead of using a hot air gun they use a hot air reflow oven which doesnt have quite a strong gust of wind as the hot air gun does.

[@suncrafterspielt9479]

Oh, thats enough to hold them in the right position? I thought the surface tension of the molten solder plays also an important role. But I guess in the industry they dispense solder more precisely so it cancels out again?

[@devjock]

Bi-pod with a very VERY sharp needle on it (or literally anything that can stand on 2 "legs", I use a piece of wood with a "v"-cutout on one side, and a screw on the other end), the point of which leans on the part that needs to be soldered will fix all your positioning problems.

[@superdau]

Another huge benefit of "holding two things in one hand" is that all the tremors in your arm and wrist (they are always there, especially after a coffee break ;) ) don't really matter. If only I I had teflon or stainless steel fingers as well, so nothing sticks to them or the heat wouldn't matter.

[@satibel]

For the tweezers I wonder if ceramic tweezers would be less sticky? Also you might want to consider sanding the epoxy to diffuse the light.

[@sepitbeats]

You have hands of a surgeon

[@daddust]

A brilliant career in brain or eye surgery could have been a different path for our pal here. Fine motor skills 99.99% people don’t have.

[@rocketman5004]

try holding things down with a sewing needle when they stick to the tweezers. the tiny tip makes it, so that nearly nothing sticks well to it.

[@karlking1995]

I found nylon or Ceramic tiped twizzers help with the sticking, its not a massive improvment but it sure helps

[@Typical.Anomaly]

Tape a tiny vibrating motor to the tweezers so you can pulse it to let go of the object?

[@Diabl0pl]

and yeet it across the desk. ;D

[@thePavuk]

Somebody: Hey, what are you watching? Me: Pain.

[@davidhawley1132]

I often press my clippy octopus into a hold down for the small boards I work on, and then the non dominant hand holds down the chip with a stylus. I'm thinking of making a mounted hold down with pogo pins.

[@Saiful_Holmes]

I do hold two or more things in one hand during soldering 😅

[@nickcaruso]

two questions: would putting solder between the tip of the soldering iron and the copper wire be beneficial? second, could you have used a hot air tool to do this?

[@SAHILKHAN91972]

Hey you can get your tweezers coated with fluorine so maybe they wont stick to leds bcs some scissors and blade are coated with them to make them non stick

[@iDoPew]

ultra fine precision tweezers could help a lot here. Mechanic TI-15 for example.

[@technikchaot]

5:57 I started it under the model railway system of my Grandfather at the age of 8 or less don't remember exactly. He didn't want to connect the wires of the signals to the control panel because this hurted his knees and back. And I was small enough that I just could knee on a soft pillow and reach everything without bowing my back to much. And because the only task was to tin wire and to connect wires. Every time 3 things in two hands above the height of the head.

[@kreterakete]

Use paper in the vertical and horizontal.. to align it easy. ❤😊

[@Abhishek__Parihar]

wow, didn't knew about this trick to use copper wire, I bought expensive soldering iron with multiple size bits to do microsoldering, when I was working at mobile repair center

[@quasa0]

thanks that was interesting! i wonder if cheap robotic arms exist that can help you with precision when doing such repairs

[@somedudewithakeyboard]

Nice skills 👍

[@morgans.5190]

i do the same double wire hold with rope and string and floppier wires. been doing it since i learned to tie my shoes

[@iGrave]

Teflon tweezers? Not sure if they work, but might help with the sticking? Just a guess.

[@ripper132212]

i said it on the last video but i'd love to see what some (perhaps uv-cure, and applied with a pipette?) black resin between the LEDs to reduce light bleed would do for legibility

[@y0shidino]

diamond hands 💎🙌

[@AnupKS]

Crazy steady hand 👌 i guess a hot air soldering gun would damage the LED's? Have u thought of adding a LED Difuser layer, maybe something like a removable silicon cover, it will improve protection and having the LED's diffuse can improve the appearance.

[@jkobain]

05:40 - Clive Mitchell told me we can (and should) do so.

[@__Mr.Long__]

A potential solution to parts sticking to tweezers would maybe be ceramic tweezers? I'm not sure but they can be found for cheap and it's maybe worth the try

[@EverydayNormieMadafacka]

wow! Nice skills, ty for video

[@pixitha]

I wonder if grounding the tweezers would help with the static/sticking?

[@Ds-ii3bg]

soldering iron with hypodermic needle tip ? Teflon tape on the tip of the tweezers maybe? i have no clue :) go crasy

[@dineshvyas]

Use a piece of teflon tubs. PTFE tube. It works.

[@artantme]

finally, resoldering

[@adamnowak8876]

Have you ever heard about pointy tiny angled soldering tips instead of doing a gettho solution?

[@anon_y_mousse]

I'm thinking that I need to design some helping hands that can translate big movements into tiny movements so people can do micro-soldering cleanly.

[@rvowles99]

Smurf poo (Blue Tack) is a wonderful adhesive