Thanks for the tip on bridging with a lower temp, I will try that
next time.
I did observe the possibility with bending a wire which could short
to the next trace, however, it also made me think about a more
sinister problem.
I figured if I didn't get the wire secured along it's entire lenght
it could cause noise problems. Is this a fair assumption on my part?
Chris
--- In
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Stefan Trethan"
<stefan_trethan@g...> wrote:
>
> Solder bridges can be made easier when the iron is set to a
cooler
> temperature.
> But still - if adjacent traces are nearer it ain't gonna work with
solder.
>
> The stranded wire thing works well, i usually take longer pieces
and fold
> them over the edge of the board or something, the excess is cut
off with a
> knife.
> If you use any length of wire - make sure you tack it all down,
otherwise
> someone might bend it shorting it to other traces.
>
> ST
>
>
> On Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:16:02 +0100, lcdpublishing
> <lcdpublishing@y...> wrote:
>
> > This weekend I etched some boards with .010" wide traces
with .010"
> >
> > wide spacing. After etching I found a couple of traces "broken"
so I
> >
> > had to repair them and with these old eyes, it wasn't easy but I
did
> >
> > get it.
> >
> >
> > I tinned the board using solder paste (plumbers paste) as I have
> >
> > been doing. I then extracted some strands of conductor from
> >
> > stranded wire and tinned that.
> >
> >
> > To make the "jumper", I laid the strand against the trace, and
> >
> > pressed down with the soldering iron tip and it held. It worked
> >
> > fine for all the breaks I had to fix.
> >
> >
> > I did try to drag solder over the gaps to bridge them, but
couldn't
> >
> > get that to work. Further complicating it was the small traces
and
> >
> > close proximity of the traces - I would end up shorting out
several
> >
> > traces together.
> >
> >
> > While not an ideal solution, it worked pretty good.
> >
> >
> > As to the reason for the breaks in the traces - just being in too
> >
> > much of a hurry. After doing the toner transfer, I inspected the
> >
> > boards very good and did notice the missing toner. Knowing that
the
> >
> > Sharpie pen is too blunt to patch the spot, I just went for the
> >
> > etching. I really should have cleaned the boards and tried the
> >
> > transfer process again - it would have been much faster and
easier.
> >
> >
> > Chris
>