Replace Broken Capacitor on Sound Card? (Soldering?)

[Jucius_Maximus]

I am a fool.

I was installing my Xonar into my new machine, and I screwed up. I ended up knocking a capacitor right off the sound card. This one capacitor pops right back into place, but I think it should be re-soldered back in.

Do you think this is too ambitious or risky a project? I do not have any soldering equipment, but it's not like I haven't spent my whole life dealing with computers and technology and stuff. (You'd think I would be experienced enough to avoid this kind of problem! )

 

[toast0]

Soldering a through-hole capacitor is not too hard, and I don't think you're going to mess the board up too much more than you already have, so risk is low. Also, if you use solder with lead in it (which is easier to work with), you'll de-RoHS the board, and that'll make environmentalists sad.

Did you break the lead, rip the lead out of the board or rip the lead out of the capacitor? You might need to get a new capacitor if the broken lead isn't long enough.

Be sure to practice on some old boards that you don't care about. Older is better, more through-hole components.

You'll want to buy a soldering iron (less watts is better for a learner, 10-15 is good, 25 is ok, more than that without temperature control and you'll burn up your boards really easy), a stand, rosin core solder, and solder wick/braid (helps remove solder). If you do get lead-free solder you might need the 25 watt iron (lead free solder melts at a higher temperature).

 

[Jucius_Maximus]

Thanks for your insight.

The leads on the capacitor itself are not broken. The whole cap, leads and all, were knocked right out of the PCB. When re-inserted, the leads protrude about 1.5mm below the bottom side of the PCB.

Can you recommend any particular type of tips needed on the soldering iron?

 

[XacTactX]

I don't know what type of sound card it is but if it's an STX or other high end card you should really take it to a computer shop with an experienced technician. They won't charge much to solder a single capacitor (my gut feeling is $10 tops) and you won't risk a > $100 sound card. You'll also have peace of mind since you have never soldered, better safe than sorry.

 

[Andyk5]

soldering is an easy art to learn but a hard one to master. The biggest problem you are going to run in to is overheating the component, overheating the board or using too much solder and shorting something else. The first couple happen quite often since in small components with thin leads the heat that is required to melt the solder is very close to a temperature where they may start getting ruined. So once the solder is melted you have a very short window to complete the solder, if the soldering iron is still there and solder solidifys before you can complete the connection and you reapply the iron again to melt the solder you are getting in to to overheating territory especially with high end electronics.

Using too much solder is also a common issue, usually if you are new you are probably going to need 10 times the amount of solder that a machine or an experienced electrician would use, to make the same connection, it could drip and short something else down on the board etc...

 

[toast0]

I think you'll want a 'pencil' tip, something in the middle of the sizes will be right (probably whatever comes with the iron). Smaller tips are important for doing surface mount stuff (which is a bad first soldering project), and larger tips are for when you want to really burn your boards.

Just thought about it some more, since the leads and all came out, it's possible the solder pads could have ripped off too, if you have a multimeter, you'll want to check for continuity between the pad and wherever it goes (if you can follow the traces)