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Post by animoose on Apr 10, 2016 16:48:02 GMT
What soldering iron did you use to attach the power wires to the MK3 heatbed? This might seem like an odd question, but my 25W iron won't provide enough heat, and the solder only melts as far as being a sort of sludge. I guess the heatbed is conducting the heat away too fast. Before I go out and buy or borrow a more powerful soldering iron (40W? 60W? more?), can anyone tell me what worked for them. BTW, the MK3 is from Anycubic (http://www.amazon.com/Anycubic-Reprap-Aluminum-Board-Heatbed/dp/B015369X80?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=od_aui_detailpages00)
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Post by godeman on Apr 10, 2016 21:17:52 GMT
I used a 40 watt iron and it didn't have the power needed. My solution was taking the "sludge" wire off the board and flux the contacts you are going to be using for 12 or 24 volt and tin the board 1st with the iron. Then I applied flux to the wires tinned them and then fluxed again and put the tip of my iron in the flame of one of the burners on my stove to get the extra heat I needed to solder the wires to the board. It worked but I can't guaranty you wont ruin your iron doing this or burn your house down. If you are worried about ruining your iron doing this I'm guessing any metal thats been tinned could be heated in the same way to get the job done. Again do this at your own risk.
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Post by scottadams on Apr 11, 2016 1:45:44 GMT
I used a 60 watt iron and still had troubles. That aluminum just sucks the heat out of everything! I just had to work at it for a while. I tried tinning the wires first, then the plate, then working them together with a bunch of heat. It still was difficult. I was using some thick 12 gauge wire though which was overkill but what I had on hand. Oh, and I probably cranked the temperature up to something like 700*F. The second wire was easier than the first though if that's any consolation.
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Post by animoose on Apr 12, 2016 1:34:15 GMT
Well, I bought a 60W iron, cranked it up to maximum temperature, and succeeded in getting the wires attached. It's not the prettiest soldering job I've done, but the resistance across the wires is right so it's probably making a good enough contact. If this hadn't worked my next steps would have been to borrow a heat gun or to put it in the toaster oven and then try soldering before it cooled too much.
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Post by 3DprintedLife on Apr 12, 2016 2:02:37 GMT
Yeah soldering to the bed can be a pain, but don't forget the bed is basically just a slab of aluminum with pcb traces on it so you don't have to worry much about damaging that with heat! For anyone else having troubles, using a heat gun/hairdryer in combination with a soldering iron should help. The hotter you get the bed, the less it will suck away heat from the soldering iron.
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