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Soldering 101 Most computer boards are "wave soldered". I am not sure when that process was started but this is the basics of it, the componets are placed on the board and the board is passed on the top of a hot melted solder vat and the solder only stickes to the cconnections not the board. When this doesn't work the electronic bussiness calls this a cold solder joint. Sometimes you can tell if it's a cold solder joint by looking at the solder. Cold joints are usually dull or gray looking. Good solder joints are silver or shiny. This is not allways the case but can help in finding them sometimes.. Also sometimes if you wiggle the connector from the bottom of the board and it moves, it will need to be resoldered. Most of the time you don't need extra solder, you just need to heat the wire or pin and let it heat up and remelt the solder. Also some rosen tinning paste(?) can help it melt and make a good conection. NOTE!!! DO NOT USE ACID BASED SOLDER OR TINNING PASTE. This is for radators and such not electrical wireing or componets. Tinning your wires and connectors can help make a good connection. This is just a overview but I have found out it usually doesn't hurt to resolder joints if all else fails.. Just dont use a "blow torch" or super hot solder gun. Use a pincel type soldering iron on electronics. You can use the big guns on wires and splices etc. FYI Richard Russ Wolfe wrote: > I think I have found someone who has the schematic diagrams for the ECU's > :=] But he has them in some boxes he has stored in the rafters in his > garage. I haven't convinced him yet to get up there and look for them. If I > can get them from him, this will be a good deal for the "List". > BTW, about 25 years ago, when I was at FI school, I asked the instructor, > "Why is a new control unit $300, and a rebuilt one was only $35?" The reply > was, that most failures were just solder connections that were bad, and with > the right equipment, they were not hard to fix. If you have ever had the > case off one of them, the circuit boards, are even marked off into grids. If > I understood it right, each grid was a function in the unit. Therefore, if > you know what the problem is, you can go right to the area of the board, and > fix it. > > Russ Wolfe > http://www.classicvw.org/ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > Unsubscribe? mailto:type3-request@vwtype3.org, Subject: unsubscribe