Archive for January, 2011

Cleaned It. What Now?

Friday, January 28th, 2011

Rotary crank telephone, dirty

People bring me the most wonderful things!

Rotary crank telephone, cleaned

Anyone have a favorite plastic polish?

Old telephone handset

I suppose I should build a VoIP phone system and get an analog terminal adapter, eh?

Does Used Tinnit Ever Work?

Friday, January 21st, 2011

The board being too long for my Pyrex dish and the overlap in the middle notwithstanding, this dull, mottled finish is typical of what I get every time I use TInnit other than the day I mix it.

PC board after tinning in used Tinnit

The precipitate never re-dissolves; and I’m guessing that the salts sitting directly on the board are what cause the mottling.

I find this curious, as I mixed this batch only two weeks ago, when it worked noticeably better than this … although now that I mention it, I think even then it produced duller results than it has in the past. Perhaps I exceeded the shelf life of the unopened package, so perhaps I’m being unduly hard on the Tinnit; but I’ve had the same problem before.

PC board after tinning in Tinnit and wet-sanding

I’ve been having good luck lately with scouring pads to shine up the boards; but tonight I had to resort to wet-sanding. Turned out fairly well.

No, that’s not how I typically lay out circuit boards.

Yes, I’ll be posting a lot more about what I’ve been doing for the last month as soon as Steve and I get his sculpture delivered to the gallery before 17:00 tomorrow.