Furnace went out last night (oil-fired 'boiler'). A little debug showed
some sparking under a relay that controls the burner and circulation
pump.

Bad solder joint where the relay soldered to the circuit board. A small
contact lead going through a large hole, 1 sided circuit board, the
thru-hole wasn't plated. Minimal solder, no fillet.

Resoldered tyhe rest of the relay connections, needless to say.

Cheap *******s.

Honeywell Aquastat L8148A

Dave

On 18 Nov 2005 07:05:38 -0800, wrote:

Furnace went out last night (oil-fired 'boiler'). A little debug showed
some sparking under a relay that controls the burner and circulation
pump.

Bad solder joint where the relay soldered to the circuit board. A small
contact lead going through a large hole, 1 sided circuit board, the
thru-hole wasn't plated. Minimal solder, no fillet.

Resoldered tyhe rest of the relay connections, needless to say.

Cheap *******s.

Honeywell Aquastat L8148A

Dave

My dad's furnace quit a few years ago on Christmas Eve. Furnace guy
came out, said the controller boards was dead. He replaced it, then
waited around a bit just to be sure it was going to continue to work
ok since the old one was intermittent and he didn't want to be called
back the following morning. I looked at the old board and found a
cold solder joint, luckily I just so happened to have my pinball
machine reapir kit with me which had a soldering iron. Resoldered the
connection on the board and had him put it back in. Worked great. The
repairman was amazed, and dad was happy that he saved a couple hundred
on the part. Cold solder joints are a real problem with electronics
and it seems to have gotten worse in the past couple years with all
the korean and chinese made junk.

I'm seriously thinking of getting a good solder-sucker. I'm surrounded
by stuff just waiting to go belly-up.

Dave

On 18 Nov 2005 10:24:20 -0800, wrote:

I'm seriously thinking of getting a good solder-sucker. I'm surrounded
by stuff just waiting to go belly-up.

Dave

They are worth having. I just have one of the cheaper radio shack
suckers plus some desolder braid. I have a nice Weller temp
controlled soldering station for use at home, and an el-cheapo Radio
Shack pencil in the portable tool kit. You are right though, these
days we are surrounded by poorly soldered electronics stuff. Even
commercial and industrial stuff is built crappy these days, all the
new test equipment we get at work seems to be a card stuck in a little
pc running windows. Nothing like having to reboot your test equipment
in the middle of a repair.

wrote in message
ups.com...
Furnace went out last night (oil-fired 'boiler'). A little debug showed
some sparking under a relay that controls the burner and circulation
pump.

Bad solder joint where the relay soldered to the circuit board. A small
contact lead going through a large hole, 1 sided circuit board, the
thru-hole wasn't plated. Minimal solder, no fillet.

Resoldered tyhe rest of the relay connections, needless to say.

Cheap *******s.

Honeywell Aquastat L8148A

Dave


My initial reaction, I thought you were going to say it was a Carlin.

Bob

Each manufacturer is a cheap so-and-so these days.
A little more solder, or a plated hole, or a hole that wasn't so
oversized, and it'd last until the relay fried.

Dave

The lead-free solders are a problem, too. A lot of the techs trained
on lead-containing solders don't know how to use the mostly tin
replacements. Another problem with the newer ones is the formation of
tin whiskers, which I believe is a crystallization process over time,
leading to the degradation of the joint.
The cold solders vary in quality, the best are silver-powder
containing epoxies. Needless to say, most are worse, and many
manufacturers do not make the design changes necessary to accommodate
the different characteristics of cold solder. Ergo, defective
parts.-Jitney