for the guys with 100's of Laptop DJ Jack repair under their belts

[16k_zx81]

IM thinking about learning DC jack repairs.

At the moment I outsource them, but it would be a lot more profitable to me to do them myself.

I own a hot air station and soldering setup, have seen the video tuts...

I also have a stack of old laptop motherboards I can practice on, so Im all set to learn.

Here's the thing;

The guy who does my soldering repairs says its actually incredibly hard to learn. He says that because of milti-layer pcb's its a very high skill job and is just as easy to break as to fix

So I guess what Im asking is, from those of you who are very experienced and skilled at this sort of soldering, and know all the ins and outs, whats your advice?:

- Should I spend my christmas break hunched over a hot air station trying to learn this, or should I continue to outsource?

- Is this a skill that can be self-taught? Am I likely to just make more hassles for myself and waste my own time? or is it a viable plan to sit down with the resources I have and spend a couple of weeks practicing with a view to having commercial-quality soldering skills ready for deployment next year?

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

- Should I spend my christmas break hunched over a hot air station trying to learn this, or should I continue to outsource?

Yes, practice.

- Is this a skill that can be self-taught? Am I likely to just make more hassles for myself and waste my own time? or is it a viable plan to sit down with the resources I have and spend a couple of weeks practicing with a view to having commercial-quality soldering skills ready for deployment next year?

It is fairly easy to pick up if you have basic soldering skills. I vote go for it. It's more money in your pocket in the long run. After you practice on what you have you can make the final decision of whether or not your comfortable with it. I have never had an issue of hurting or ruining a MB.

 

[tempusfugit]

I learned how to solder on DC jacks. Its not hard at all. Getting them out can be a pain at times, but that's probably a sign you need a hotter iron, or a new tip.

Also, around half of the DC jacks that I do are on a separate board that is usually 20-30 bucks on ebay even if you do mess up soldering the jack(and comes with a good working jack )

Maybe you could practice on the ones with a separate boards and continue to outsource the ones on the motherboard until you get more comfortable. In my experience the ones on the mobo can be a little tougher because they have alot more copper to sink heat into..

 

[4ycr]

I have seen them done in a variety of ways some need skill other are more brutal but work.

One way I have seen is to clip the old jack off with wore clippers and then use a soldering iron to remove the remaining solder and legs or just use the hot air station to do it all at once.

 

[mraikes]

You might discount my thoughts because I haven't done "hundreds", but I've done a bunch.

It's certainly not "incredibly hard to learn", although your current contractor has plenty of incentive to claim it is. It's easy to learn. But it can be nerve wracking until you get used to taking hot air and a soldering iron to a customer's expensive motherboard. Because of that, it's not necessarily for everyone.

When it comes to power jacks the "multi-layer" board issue really doesn't matter. It's not as if you have to establish an individual connection to each layer. Use heat to remove the jack. Clean out the holes. poke the new jack in and apply solder.

Practice on your scrap boards. Watch youtube videos on proper use of your hot air station, solder removal and solder application. Use flux. Take your time.

Yes, it's a skill that can be self taught (I did it, so can you). With a few scrap boards you can learn the basics in an afternoon and then spend the rest of the time developing a nice solder joint (practice makes perfect!).

By the way - you have a hot air station, a soldering iron and a stack of motherboards and you haven't already tore into them just to see what would happen?! You have more self control than I, my friend.

 

[CNS]

soldering

I have been repairing DC jacks for a while now. I began soldering in my electronics class and I caught on quick. I have never damaged a motherboard due to soldering....However I would definitely practice.

Many things can go wrong:
-Pin breaks and its hard to remove solder
-your are very confined in space and don't want to burn any component
etc....
-One TIP, buy a good quality solder and a good quality Solder Sucker.. You will need both

is it hard. No! Just practice and use common sense when soldering and you will be fine!

I am noticing that they are manufacturing the DJ jacks to be screwed in and not to rely on just the solder anymore. which is good.

Also, purchasing DJ Jacks are extremely cheap. i charge $100.00 for DJ jack repair.

Go for it.. you will be great and make more money for yourself!!!

 

[dgiles79]

You should definitely learn it.

It really is not hard if you have some basic soldering skills. The hardest part is getting the old DC jack off, but if you use hot air at around 450 degrees and a solder sucker, they usually come out pretty easy.

If there are too many other components around the jack, so you can't use hot air, a good soldering iron and wick should do it for you. One tip that helps me a lot, is to add a little bit of solder to each joint first, then try to remove it. Sometimes it is hard to get the old solder to flow, so adding some fresh solder makes it so much easier.

 

[cmonova]

Really would depend to me on just how much more profitable it would be for you. I used to do them and then started outsourcing them out and in terms of profit compared to what i'm paying to have them done now would make no sense.

To me it's too time consuming when I could be doing something else instead. I guess if you could do them extremely fast then it might make more sense.

 

[PR Tech]

I say go for it too. It is not difficult to do, however practice makes perfect. What kind of solder/hot air station did you pick up and plan to use? One of the previous posts mentioned that it can be frustrating if you do not get the iron hot enough to melt the solder properly. This is so very true. Here are a couple of items I can't do without when I am replacing DC Jacks:

http://store.curiousinventor.com/tools/helping-hands.html
http://store.curiousinventor.com/soldering/flux-alcohol-bottle.html
http://store.curiousinventor.com/surface-mount-soldering-smd-smt/dry-tip-cleaner.html
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062721
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6nnbmed

 

[dgast]

DC Jacks

Desoldering is the hardest part of that getting one of those done. It is tedious, but when you get good at it you can get some billable time from it.

 

[14049752]

Really would depend to me on just how much more profitable it would be for you.

I was going to say basically the same thing.

From a technical perspective, I think your guy is giving you a little bit of an exaggeration about how difficult it is. There are some where the solder pads are torn away from the board and some that are more difficult than others, but generally it's fairly easy.

From a business side of things, it wouldn't make sense for me to outsource. (Actually, I do dc jacks for other techs.) I can have most laptops apart, jack resoldered and reassembled in 20 minutes or so. If I were to outsource, the turn-around time wouldn't be as good and any cost would eat into my profits because of my pricing structure.

 

[MobileTechie]

IM thinking about learning DC jack repairs.

The guy who does my soldering repairs says its actually incredibly hard to learn. He says that because of milti-layer pcb's its a very high skill job and is just as easy to break as to fix

Well he would wouldn't he!?

He's right in that multilayered PCBs make it easier to ruin the mobo, however at the end of the day the difficulty is with desoldering and there is only so much skill to it.

What I would say is that I've come to the conclusion that hot air is the only way I will do this because other methods increase the risk too much, in my opinion.

The number one reason for damaging the mobo wafer is force. What you do not want to be doing is pulling, prying or pushing pins to get them out and the only really effective way of doing this is to heat all the pins simulataneously and for that you need hot air.

I have damaged boards in the past by using solder wick which has abraded resistant ink or roughed up a pad. I've also run into trouble with prying which has ended up either lifting a pad or detaching the collar. I've fixed them but it was a close thing and I don't want to do it again. So I only use hot air. However the problem with hot air is that it can desolder tiny components that are adjacent to the area you are heating. Learning to shield is vital. I find a couple of layers of heavy duty foil will shield and wick away heat quick enough to do the job. But sometimes, like when you have a micro-LED bang in the middle of the pins, you cannot effectively shield it. I had this recently. Since then I've started to remove such components in advance and then resolder them afterwards. It's better to desolder a component deliberately than accidentally.

If you get the shielding/heatsinking right, use plenty of flux and get the pins hot you should be able to remove the jack very easily. Most of the time it will drop off the board. For those that don't, check that the pins are not bent and if they are straighten them. For the rest a very gentle pull or pry is OK but beware using say a metal driver blade to pry which can scratch the board.

Overall I'd say it's pretty easy with the right kit. Disassembling the laptop is the hardest bit and you'll have done that enough times I'm sure. Go for it.

 

[Boston Pro Comp Serv LLC]

I echo everyone else, it's not all that difficult, a steady hand, FLUX is absolute.

 

[tminer]

If it was easy everyone would do it, but you've got most of the tools so give it a shot. Its not that hard.

I personally recommend using the solder sucker and flux with the hot air gun. It makes removing the old one easier and will just drop out usually. I use a wick to clean up the holes before applying the new jack, but the sucker will get most of it.

Also get some 91% alcohol and a toothbrush to clean/remove the flux residue after your done. A little flux goes a long way and will blow around with the hot air applied so use it lightly, i use the end of a pipe cleaner to put a very smal dab on the pins.

Alot of the newer ones im seeing dont even need to be soldered as they are attached to a cable and jack that just plugs into the mobo. This type costs a couple more bucks for the assembly but they work out about the same profit wise due to less bench time.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Lots of good advice already. Yeah, go for it, after lots of practice on a variety of scrap boards. The hardest/most time-consuming part is the complete laptop disassembly/re-assembly to remove/re-install the MB.

Use lots of heat but let it soak in -- the jack shell absourbs lots of it, so let it get up to temp before overheating the MB or trying to pull the jack from the board. If the MB starts to turn blackish, you've overheated it and it will delaminate if you go too far. I put Kapton tape over surrounding parts on both sides of the MB, to protect them and keep them from being de-soldered or moved.

I lay the MB on my bench with a weight on top of it, jack side down with the jack out over the edge of the bench, and gently wiggle the jack with a pair of needle-nose pliers after the solder begins to visibly flow around the jack's 4 mounting points. It should almost fall out by itself. Be very careful with the traces from the jack's power pins, as it is very easy to rip/lift a trace or lift a via on some boards.

Clean out the vacated holes with a solder sucker and/or solder wick after adding some solder and flux. You might have to use a dental tool to clear the holes; heat its tip to aid penetration, then twist it as it cools, leaving a smooth hole. Use flux when soldering in new jack, for a nice shiny joint.

 

[Cornerstone Technologies]

The guy who does my soldering repairs says its actually incredibly hard to learn. He says that because of milti-layer pcb's its a very high skill job and is just as easy to break as to fix

Something to consider, but maybe telling you its is hard to learn is just a line to ensure that you continue to outsource. It is not difficult to learn to solder. It does take patience and practice to solder well. Even when I first started, I wasn't quite so patient, so the end results usually were not ideal, though functional. As I progressed, my solder jobs are nearly where I want them to be.

 

[Bigj]

Its fairly easy if you have the proper tools. There are two stressful parts,

A - taking apart the darn laptops. You need to have a set way to lay out screws and how to remember what size screw goes where. Most laptops have small imprints with the screw size but some do not...

B - De-soldering the old jack. The proper equipment really comes in handy here. I use a Weller-WES51 soldering station which works for 90% of the jobs. A good station and a product called chip-quik should make any job do-able. "Side note about chip-quik, you must be very thorough to get all the left over solder off the board before putting the new jack in, as the chip-quik makes the solder have a MUCH lower melting point"

Then there are the dreaded machines like the old alienware laptops that have freakin 12awg prones going into the motherboard to support their 800watt power supply. Its almost impossible to heat the much metal and pull the jack out. I had to call on a close friend who owns a very expensive Infrared chip de-soldering/reballing station. Its amazing to see stuff like that work. Set the proper heat area by adjusting the height of the IR head and then all the solder within that area just... melts..... the jack falls right out... haha AMAZING I tell ya.

Pro-Tip - Before every job have a little bit of 200grit-400grit sand paper and give your soldering tip a good rub down and then re-tin the tip before you start. It will make your soldering jobs MUCH better, and easier.

 

[RichmondTech]

Really would depend to me on just how much more profitable it would be for you. I used to do them and then started outsourcing them out and in terms of profit compared to what i'm paying to have them done now would make no sense.

To me it's too time consuming when I could be doing something else instead. I guess if you could do them extremely fast then it might make more sense.

Naturally there are a lot of posts that suggest taking the time and resources to develop a skill. Not a fan of that myself.

Unless you have learning to solder DC jacks on your bucket list, I'd suggest you keep outsourcing it. If you do decide to do it yourself, you'll probably do an ok job and not get it job finished as quickly or as good as your current provider. I'd rather get a piece of something that doesn't require any work on my part than all of something that requires me to use labor. If you're doing all the DC jacks yourself, how many can you handle at one time in addition to all of the other jobs you have in? At least when you outsource the repairs you can handle an infinite amount of customers because you're not the one doing the work.

 

[Martyn]

Naturally there are a lot of posts that suggest taking the time and resources to develop a skill. Not a fan of that myself.

Unless you have learning to solder DC jacks on your bucket list, I'd suggest you keep outsourcing it. If you do decide to do it yourself, you'll probably do an ok job and not get it job finished as quickly or as good as your current provider. I'd rather get a piece of something that doesn't require any work on my part than all of something that requires me to use labor. If you're doing all the DC jacks yourself, how many can you handle at one time in addition to all of the other jobs you have in? At least when you outsource the repairs you can handle an infinite amount of customers because you're not the one doing the work.

+1 I was doing them myself but unless I am extremely quiet I outsource the jobs. When you are working on a power jack you can't work on anything else. Then sometimes you cannot source the jacks easily(and I have had a couple) and spend time doing that. Spend your time doing tune ups and virus removals 4 at a time or however many you have.

 

[joydivision]

I have decided myself not to bother going down this road, in fact I am moving away from PCs and laptops so I will continue to outsource.