CD32 FMV Failure! This thing is a mess, can it be saved?

Head to www.squarespace.com/rmc... to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code RMC | In an era of failed console and computer releases the CD32 is up there. It had potential but ultimately was too little, too late. What's even more obscure than failed consoles is failed peripherals for failed consoles and this FMV module is just such an example. Costing nearly the same price as the console itself it promised smooth MPEG1 playback of videos. Looking at the condition of it however that's unlikely. Lets see if we can repair it.
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[@RMCRetro]

If you have a moment, I'm just about to launch a Kickstarter for something very cool to help me finish building The Cave and open it up to the public. If you're feeling kind enough to help out then check out www.kickstarter.com/projects/retroteabreaks/the-colouring-book-of-retro-computers - We go live later today. Thank you! Neil

[@tiagopereirasantossilva556]

the house is beautiful !!

[@markpage2779]

Can't wait to visit the Retro Computer & Console Exhibition. Exciting!

[@nielshkristensen1815]

worms do have fmv video to

[@bobbus_74]

backed.

[@worldofretrogameplay6963]

Someone ported the laserdisc game Time Gal to the CD32. Check it out, RMC: unofficial-cd32-ports.blogspot.com/2017/03/001-time-gal-reimagine.html?m=1

[@FatNorthernBigot]

"Cleaning this stuff up is impossible without any chemical assistance." Hey, we've all be there, bro.

[@GadgetUK164]

Ouch, what a state! Probably one of the coupling caps or perhaps one of the resistors that feeds the red or green out, or the resistors that terminate. I would suspect those 100uF AC coupling caps first if they havent already been swapped. You could bypass with a wire one at a time to rule them out, but that's just a temporary thing if you do that because they are blocking DC and you dont want a bias on there for any period of time. Nice work, you two seem joined at the hip recently lol

[@tim_buck_too9126]

I agree - check C250_2, C250_4, C250_6. Unlikely but still would check C250_1, C250_3 and C250_5. It is possible resistors R262,263 or 264 are not on their values of 470ohms. Same for R253, 255 and 257 which should be 75 ohm. I'd also check around CN1 for shorts. Pins 2,4 and 6 are ground. Pins 1,2 and 5 should not be shorted to the gnd. I would also check for continuity, shorts etc associated with signals AB, AG, AR, AB_EXT, AG_EXT and AR_EXT. These signals pass between the STV8438 DAC and to connections on the main bus connector that fits into the CD32 connection socket. Looking at the schematics I have, check pages 3 and 4 for detail of what I am referring to

[@timballam3675]

That soldering is making my eyes bleed....

[@francoisrevol7926]

"There's never enough flux!" I guess someone decided to challenge Louis Rossmann.

[@berrieds]

The bigger the blob, the better the job!

[@BoomBox02]

I was in Hong Kong late 2002and VCD's were everywhere. There was way more of a range of titles in the VCD format than DVD.I came back home with a heap of VCD's. There were a few scammers trying to sell bootleg copies of Dreamcast games for near full price, and a heap of annoying people trying to sell you watches or shirts.

[@TheFusedplug]

I'm blown away at just what a dab hand you are at soldering and the PATIENCE you have. It's inspired me to practice a lot more with a soldering iron + your knowledge on "schematics" you've really done your homework and it shows. Going that extra mile has saved a valuable piece of history lads WELL DONE ! All that Flux though ! Crazy eh?

[@crumplezone1]

You can upgrade the mpeg rom from the v40.22 to v40.30 via a 27c400 erasable rom and then you can play philips CDi digital cds. Also the FMV is in case upside down,when you open the case you should see the bottom of the board and it is normally covered with a see through plastic insulation sheet held down by the four screws, but the owner must have threw it away and so it may now short on something,the giveaway is that you normally see the test points through the square cut out on the top cover. And yes check the ceramic decoupling caps they are known to go bad with hairline cracks.

[@Dexter_GamingYTRoblox]

The games or the movies? As it was Green Book and white book mpeg standards

[@StevenOBrien]

"I genuinely can't believe how much flux is on this" Somewhere, up in heaven, Louis Rossmann is smiling.

[@HazewinDog]

they killed him?!

[@EasyMac308]

@@HazewinDog Surprised Apple and John Deere haven't gone in together on a hit man.

[@Grinder2112]

@@HazewinDog He's just up there to re-flow St Peter's 2012 (BCE) MacBook.

[@SelfIndulgentGamer]

I had one briefly for my CD32 and watched Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat, I was amazed by the quality :)

[@MarkFixesStuff]

Thanks for watching Neil and I mucking about with wires and old junk. I wanted to do a Back to the Future "Flux Capacitor" joke, but he said no. Thought I'd get that out there.

[@IkilledA0livebox]

4:14 that's not flux, that's just golden syrup!

[@SidneyCritic]

Isn't it one of the voltages for a colour channel being low, ie, being dragged low or not connected. Adrian's Digital Basement is kind-of an expert in channel signals. The cans don't have the cross of electrolytic, but it is from that era of bad electro's.

[@ms-dosman7722]

The CD32 is such a lovely looking machine! Hope you'll get it working fully again.

[@richardlincoln886]

TBH they were flakey from day 1 - I recall mine needed just the right amount of pressure on the edge connector/cart port to work sucessfully. My young self put up with it because FMV on a CD32 (Amiga fanboy) - was sooo cool. My today self has worked that out of my system - tech HAS to work now

[@dae6]

I keep getting distracted by the 3do Road Rash playing in the background. Love that game.

[@willyarma_uk]

I've found that using a single strand of wire from some flex can be used to do this kind of repair on fine pitch ICs too for anyone who dosen't have any varnished wire.

[@RicoElectrico]

For super fine bodge wires Rafał Bielawski (mostly iPhone repairs on his channel) uses single strands from micro coax shielding 😳

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@RicoElectrico hey that’s a great idea damn. Frayed shielding after you trim a piece is fairly plentiful if you’re not stretching a huge distance. Plus pulling a little bit out is a reasonable sacrifice if you’re using the coax for other things.

[@EngineeringVignettes]

I normally just use wire wrap wire... pre-tinned and strips easily, if you get the good stuff. A general tip for any wire really: Watch out for the copper coated aluminum "chineseum" stuff, that stuff is crap for soldering. Get your wire from a reputable dealer, not Aliexpress etc. Cheers,

[@dodgykebaab]

First time seeing your channel- really enjoyed this. Great stuff

[@preretro-gamingmitreini]

Thank you very much for repairing the CD32 Modul so far. I ever wanted one for my CD32 but its way too expensive and very rare.

[@carlkamuti]

4:38 Was that a Derek and Clive reference? 🤣

[@timballam3675]

I would be looking at C250_5 and C250_6 myself, also look at the possibility of a solder bridge to pin 5 of CN1 to a power rail (7:49) the 75R resister back to AR_EXT would give everything a red tinge.

[@timseguine2]

I like how you did the narration like you were having a conversation about troubleshooting it while doing it.

[@RMCRetro]

Thank you!

[@naviamiga]

Fantastic work saving a rare bit of Amiga Tech (especially late era Amiga stuff).

[@CastleFamilyThe]

Always worth trying a different riser, some of these homemade ones do differ in quality, obviously the official riser that would have come with it originally would be ideal!

[@Caroline_Tyler]

I had one of those MPEG-1 hardware decoding modules in my Philips CD-I

[@preferredimage]

4:39 "DOLLY! WILL YOU GET A POLAROID OF THAT?!"

[@MarkFixesStuff]

"I became the world's number 1... "

[@spankyblundell1]

Great video, I bought a 2nd hand CD32 back in the 90's, didn't realise until I got it home had that same FMV module fitted inside. Due to being a teenager only had enough pocket money to buy one Video CD which I probably watched every other day, Top Gun.

[@GarethNIreland]

Another great video guys

[@moomah5929]

A friend back then gave me Star Trek V on VCD because he couldn't play it. The Sega Saturn also had one of these MPEG cartridges but I didn't bother getting one. For something like this to get supported it would have had to be built into the system(s). Addon hardware doesn't work and even higher specced models of a system, like the Nintendo DSi and New 3DS were, didn't work out if the games had to specifically made for these systems and didn't simply offer extra functionality for the models like how PS4 Pro and XBox One X did. I can see the logic behind MS packing the Kinect with the XBox One but there the problem was, that only a relatively small number of people actually wanted to use something like this but had to pay for it anyway.

[@tullebob1683]

Awesome episode!

[@GeVeBeGaming]

I brought a CD32 with some games at a car boot sale about 10 years ago for £17 (was raining and the guy just wanted to pack up and go home) low and behold it had an FMV card fitted inside, only after searching I realised how rare they were, listed just the card on ebay and got £170 ish pounds for it if I remember correctly.

[@coderspy]

You should contact Dave Haney of Commodore fame. He designed the module and might be able to give you some advice.

[@cowbutt6]

Dave Haynie is a regular on Quora: www.quora.com/profile/Dave-Haynie?ch=10&share=bdce27d7&srid=uqUn

[@darylh8657]

We were using the CD32 for VanCity's Home Banking system (the first in North America). We had some FMV modules and got to play CD-Rom movies, which was a big thing in those days. The one thing I noticed is that they ran really hot, and you could smell the burning schmoo, which sort of detracted from the video experience.

[@corty1980]

I had the CD32 back in the day, though my biggest regret was selling it soon after Commodore went bust. I never had an FMV module for it. Though like Mark I did have an FMV module for the original Playstation. Great to see you got the FMV module working and really hope you sort out the colour issue.

[@dlarge6502]

Being colourblind I found I actually preferred Cannon Fodder with the FMV module inserted. When removed the trees looked really bad. However, I could see the red cast in the FMV intro itself. Outside of that I saw no real difference.

[@FDCAFOK]

I loved my Amiga 500\1200 & the CD32, wished I still had a CD32.

[@LadyNicola]

I bought my CD32 on day of release in New Zealand. The shop is now a Spice shop. 😂 Just needs a bit of repair (cd not spinning) so I'll watch your other video.

[@trydowave]

great vid guys

[@spacedock873]

Maybe the cave should invest in an ultrasonic cleaning bath?

[@argent0r]

I have an idea for a drinking game: take a shot when solder pad is torn from PCB

[@Fuartianer]

I think this would end in a loop: Pad is Torn -> Drinking -> Pad is Torn -> Drinking -> Pad is Torn (selfmade) -> Drinking ->....

[@AppleReviews]

.......and then 10 pads lifted and........ drink 10 vodka shots and......... SOLDER!

[@wraithcadmus]

I'm now drunk enough to think the CD32 was a good idea.

[@DavePoo]

Take a shot whenever anyone replaces a capacitor. Take another if the removed capacitor doesn't fix anything.

[@trailersic]

@@wraithcadmus The CD32 is the C64-GS mark II. Take a C64/Amiga, remove the keyboard & Tape/Disk drive. Release as a console.

[@imalebowski]

Really good video. The back and forth is definitely a lot more RMC-oriented. It looks like the Red/Green voltage isn't getting all the way through somewhere, meaning it's probably either those capacitors, resistors (if there's any on the R/G lines) or DAC. I'd desolder the caps while you're waiting for new ones and test them. If they're not duff it's probably not the problem.

[@kevincozens6837]

I was looking at the schematic for the device. There are some electrolytics and some ceramic caps in the output circuit from U210 that provides the AR_EXT, AG_EXT, and AB_EXT signals which are connected to CN1. The electrolytics are more likely to be a problem as they can go bad over time. It would be worth checking them with an ESR meter if you can or just go ahead and replace them.

[@davehaigh4769]

I have had two of these. I have had the fault you have with one of the cards, it turned out to be a ceramic cap. But I replaced the DAC as well whilst I was there. I sold that around 2005 then bought another around 2008 after massive regrets. The carts never have screws in the side (at least neither of mine have). TBH a full recap is wise now as my last one which was perfect developed all manner of faults during 10 years of dry temp controlled storage. A recap brought it back to life and I sold my whole boxed with instructions CD32 collection about 3 years ago. AFAIK there is only Cannon Fodder as a game that uses it (and only for the FMV intro), and also the amiga advert which was on many CD32 cover discs at the time. If you left the cart out you got a postage stamp size CDXL version to view, pop in the cart and it was full screen. IMHO the CDi had the better FMV cart and that is how I watched all my VCD's at the time

[@broomeydj]

Hi Neil. I am fortunate enough to own my original FMV module. I am not very technical with the insides but it's in full working order. I think I still have the original riser board still, but it works fine with my SX32 riser board which has multiple video out options on the back. I doubt either of these would be the cause of your loss of red signal but would be prepared to lend you both for diagnostic purposes (I am going to check for those missing screws too!)

[@tim_buck_too9126]

check C250_2, C250_4, C250_6. Unlikely but still would check C250_1, C250_3 and C250_5. It is possible resistors R262,263 or 264 are not on their values of 470ohms. Same for R253, 255 and 257 which should be 75 ohm. I'd also check around CN1 for shorts. Pins 2,4 and 6 are ground. Pins 1,2 and 5 should not be shorted to the gnd. I would also check for continuity, shorts etc associated with signals AB, AG, AR, AB_EXT, AG_EXT and AR_EXT. These signals pass between the STV8438 DAC and to connections on the main bus connector that fits into the CD32 connection socket. Looking at the schematics I have, check pages 3 and 4 for detail of what I am referring to

[@alexscarbro796]

I’d strongly recommend getting a ChipQuick kit. This uses a very low melting point solder that really helps lift chips and minimises the risk of lifting pads.

[@namakudamono]

I remember seeing a CD32 with the FMV add-on playing a Star Trek TNG movie at a “World of Amiga” show in London years ago. Great memories of those shows as a kid.

[@Mark-zj3xu]

Mmm CD32 goodness or in this case goeyness. Always wanted one when it first came out. Saw lots of potential, shame Commodore went to the wall not long after. Hopefully you and Mark will get the FMV up and running. Another little bit of history in the cave.

[@danielsmullen3223]

I'd never seen the Cannon Fodder intro on my PC, I had no idea it had a FMV sequence to start like that. What a blast from the past!

[@RetroJay1974]

I bought a huge A4000 and random Amiga bundle back in 2019 and very nearly got myself an FMV unit. The bloke had either sold it or frustratingly lost it! I did get a huge pile of original VCD movies that he found though.

[@StooCambridgeArtist]

Fixing CD32 Mpeg Cards has never been so much fun! (I should know better.. I'll get me coat...) - Great video by the way! What a strange problem.

[@CastleFamilyThe]

Did you have to buy yours back in the day? I believe Millennium were annoyed as they wanted to use it for Robocod/James Pond 3 intros but never got sent a FMV board!

[@ScottDuensing]

All collectors need a Mark. I sure do!

[@RMCRetro]

Wait until you meet Cathode Rob Tube...the man has changed my life

[@MrThairacer]

yeah ! love videos on my CD32 ! i will comment tomorrow !

[@nikeymikey1008]

Valerie, get the tape measure :P :P :P :P :P :P :P Superb. Another Derek and Clive fan there i see :)

[@hollybrereton3140]

Re-Cap but if you haven't already make sure that boards squeaky clean of that flux, the amount of boards I’ve built that had odd issues or damn right refused to boot until I’d given them an isopro-bath

[@MorganJustGames]

Never seen one of these before, only in magazines. Looks like its seen better days, much much better days. Hopefully the new chips solve the mystery of the evil pink.

[@iseptimus]

Backed. Good luck 🤞

[@spudhead169]

Very generous Mr Elkington.

[@mrsadrobot]

It's always the capacitors, I've seen this channel before! I always wanted a cd32 and mpeg board. I had a CD drive for my a1200 so could play some of the games, the basic ports without Akiko or mpeg support. I had to settle for that.

[@paulmathison2906]

Are there any buffer transistors on the output of the DAC, is it an RGB signal. One could possibly be leaky causing a shift in the dc level. Without seeing a circuit diagram it's difficult to know. It might be worth checking the dc voltages on the DAC pins as well.

[@James-fo8rf]

A very good video. A Very interesting product. Looking at the cd32 expansion pinout there’s pin to disable internal video, begs the question if the all RGB data is fed to the fmv card DAC. The expansion ports also have pins for analog RGB video which lead to me thoughts in the above. A Very interesting product indeed.

[@consty715]

Mark makes miracles.

[@video99couk]

An ultrasonic cleaning tank would have been useful.

[@RMCRetro]

It really would. If we can get to the bottom of this I'll put it through the tank in part 2

[@Storm_.]

I wonder if they were new capacitors on there. I'd swap them out first. Then make sure the main port connectors are clean. You should invest in a little ultrasonic cleaner.

[@envisageduk]

I used to chip the OG Playstation back in the day and doing so let you view VCD's on them amongst other things 😉

[@Darkuni]

I wish I hadn't sold mine. Word was there were 13,000 of these things made ... The greatest thing they did was sneak PhilipsCDI movie compatibility just before release.

[@lurkerrekrul]

I recall downloading a VCD copy of a movie once back in the early 2000s. While I'm sure having a movie on a disc was more convenient than VHS tapes, I thought the quality was terrible. I'd seen examples of good mpeg videos, but the level of compression used to fit the whole movie on a single CD made it look sub-VHS quality.

[@CastleFamilyThe]

I agree, any digital always starts worse than previous counterpart, VHS -Video CD, CD - MP3, Film Camera - Digital Camera, in some cases it takes 20 years for them to improve upon!

[@lurkerrekrul]

@@CastleFamilyThe The very first digital camera I ever saw was a cheap one my parents ordered from a mail order place for less than $30. It took horrible pictures. They were small (resolution), dark and grainy. That really gave me a negative impression of digital cameras. 2-3 years later, my mother got a Kodak Digital camera and the difference was amazing. I still use it today and about the only time it takes a bad photo is in low light. It has various settings you can use to compensate for that, but to be honest, I don't really know how to use them.

[@davidt-rex2062]

Loved my cd 32. It was in the living room with my a1200 in the bedroom

[@RobertPLWitek]

VCD was very popular in Poland. The movies was relatively cheap and picture quality sufficient (for better quality you were buying 2CD edition). And there was dozens magazines included VCD (most of then porn). I remeber that card but it cost absurd money.

[@bombjack1984]

LOL at Neil 'reacting' in the thumbnail!

[@MrButtonpresser]

I thought FMV was sorcery when I first saw it in a shop window display. LOL

[@plan7a]

Television and cinema are sorcery too - aren't they?

[@jediknight2350]

i used to play kate bush music disc on the cd32 find it was awesome. One Deadly Summer - MPEG Video for CDI PC Macintish Amiga CD32 VCD ADJANI 1983

[@JosiahGould]

Ooh... RMC-VCD's! Special edition compilations! Podcasts can go on vinyl, why not YT on VCD? Hell, I'll master it for ya - I used to be the guy you got your anime from in high school, lol.

[@thesixth2330]

You should be able to play CD-i discs on the Amiga CD32 with the FMV module in. Both use the MPEG-1 standard.

[@TrashfordKent]

World record for the longest trail of flux. Your D&C reference is safe with me;)

[@nikeymikey1008]

I spotted it too!! :)

[@solitairepilot]

This is yet another one example of the blender that connects between marketing and Product Design

[@LeftoverBeefcake]

Hopefully the DAC itself is not shot, I have an A1200 board with blue signals going into the DAC but no blue signals coming out. Good thing replacement chips are still available.

[@jameslewis2635]

I think that this pretty much points out that soldering is not welding and flux needs not to be applied via fire hose. Having seen many repairs of amplifiers, computers and other such older gear I know dodgy capacitors (especially cheaper ones like Commodore bought) tend to cause problems down the road. As long as you get the values correct, it's not like you can make the problem worse by shot-gunning them after all.

[@joandarc441]

Amazing

[@Darkuni]

BTW, the CD32 Demo Disk has some video available (depending on the version) that is only present if you have the FMV card installed.

[@linksmith1057]

I would love to dig into this thing. I do surface mount soldering with a microscope all the time.

[@BertGrink]

I have absolutely no experience with the CD32 or the FMV module, but i think Mark´s hypothesis about the capacitors has a lot of merit; Certainly it can do no harm to replace them with known working ones. In any case, interesting video - as always :D

[@johnknight9150]

Got a couple of Jackie Chan VCDs behind me. Got 'em in Chinatown when I was 17.

[@josephrowe2202]

There was so much flux on there that you probably need to change the flux capacitor. That'll correct the colors.

[@SchwachsinnProduzent]

I would try to recap the board, if you haven't already. Electrolytic capacitors hate getting too hot and they aren't young to begin with. Someone obviously soldered this board quite aggressively, maybe with high heat for too long at some places.

[@preferredimage]

Mark gets the soldering iron, you get the kettle on, thats the deal!

[@bruwin]

Consider putting the board through an ultrasonic cleaner with a pcb cleaner to get rid of *all* the Flux. If there's any left some might be conductive and shorting something.

[@bazza5699]

the temptation to say 'flux capacitor' must have been overwhelming.. did road avengers come out on the amiga? wasnt that fmv?

[@th3d3wd3r]

Soon as I saw that output, knew it needed recapped

[@robwebster7406]

Thanks for the vid 👍 and that’s a big cart, my Sega Saturn card is a lot smaller. I don’t think that it did well in games using it as well 🤔

[@CastleFamilyThe]

Came out a couple of years later for the Saturn and PSX so probably found a way to reduce chip size, also 3DO one is a huge brick on the side of the console!

[@funkykoval2099]

Hi. For demo purpose there is video creator cd32 software that can overlay pictures on mpeg stream.

[@RetromanIE]

I have the same issue with the FMV module on the CD32. But, it only happens after about 10-20 mins of using it. So i have full colour for a while, then it turns red/pink. I did order a tray of the STV8438CV DAC chips years ago thinking it might be that. But i never got around to swapping it out, and it's more likely the caps anyway. If you need a DAC chip let me know and I can send a couple to you(I'm in Ireland). Worth mentioning that my module sure does get hot when playing back video cd's.

[@peterb8015]

My a1200 had a similar problem, i sent it to mutant caterpiller who fixed it really quickly and said one of the resistors had blown.

[@mikedrop4421]

I have never seen a cd32 here in the states. Looks pretty sweet

[@NozomuYume]

It was never released in the US due to the courts seizing the US-bound units in the Philippines due to Commodore's nonpayment of the XOR cursor patent to Cadtrak. The only North American/NTSC units that were sold by Commodore were a small number in Canada. A decade later the US units wound up somehow in China and were liquidated -- most NTSC CD32 units you find today are from this liquidation.

[@shadowtheimpure]

Decoupling caps are a very good guess. If the voltages on the analogue video colors aren't right, it can definitely cause this type of behavior.

[@bubbadmatt8124]

OK am I the only one thinking this? Mark is looking more and more like his resume recently included "shredding guitar" in a band with all that hair.

[@RMCRetro]

I'm not jealous. Honest

[@bubbadmatt8124]

Don't let get ya down. You got the look that says "yes, I shred bass" Or drums, take your pick.

[@DanPowersGoSubaruGoGoGo]

I'm surprised there wasn't any hot glue in there. But I guess with all that flux it would have never stuck!

[@TeionM83]

Hot glue? Why? Flux sticks better than that stuff!

[@jaekaelae]

Amateurs have bad habbit "securing" and covering wires in with hotglue.

[@SpearM3064]

@@jaekaelae I remember having to repair one computer where the owner had hotglued all the plugs and cable connections. Let's just say that I had a few words with him. Most of those words were not suitable for polite company, if you get my meaning. 😉

[@Ragnar8504]

@@SpearM3064 Hot glue is incredibly easy to remove with some IPA. No need for bad language!

[@dvuemedia]

Fun Fact: If you rip your CD32 Cannon Fodder game as a multi BIN file (BIN file per track). Rename 1st track to mpg, then you can play it on your PC. I'm sure I did it like that. You could also download it somewhere.

[@DavePoo]

7:40 - Played all the way to level 3 to get that footage. War was too much fun to stop.

[@alexscarbro796]

Assuming the DAC is OK (it likely isn’t), then it could be the outputs of the chip that generates the RGB signals that feed the DAC. Is there anyway you can generate & display a video test pattern (eg graduated colour bars). This would help determine if the problem is a “stuck” bit in the higher order bits of the red channel.

[@epremeaux]

I genuinely hate "repair pros" that use gel flux syringes like they are inoculating elephants. Esp the ones that teach those bad habits on youtube. Mark has better "flux control" than most. There is a minimum amount of flux to get the job done. Everything else is just lazy? Bravado? Lacking in training?. I use a flux pen for 95% of jobs. It applies just enough flux, at the point you want it, and it wont spread out that much. Sprits of alcohol and a few swipes with a brush and its gone. very rarely, I might have to bust out the gel with a needle tip. Heres a pro tip : If it takes longer to clean up the flux than It took to solder/desolder the part, you are doing it all wrong. "oh im just gonna put a bit of fleu'x on thar..." **gobs it on like toothpast**

[@SpearM3064]

To be fair, most people use far too much toothpaste, too (about the size of a pea is all you really need), but that's sort of getting off-topic. I agree, too much flux is a problem, and if the excess isn't cleaned, the residue it leaves behind is almost as bad as the layer of cigarette tar that I've seen in the computers of some chain smokers.