Reading the values of SMD components.

What do people use for this. Tried magnifying glasses but most dont have enough magnification. Main problem is the very small SMD resistors which look like about 50X magnification is needed. Trying to fix a backlight Inverter board which is mostly SMDs and cant fit the board under a conventional microscope to read the values. Need something like a simple hand held microscope, but all I can find are USB based camera microscopes that cost hundreds of dollars.

Reply to
Mauried
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Type "hand held microscope" in ebay,loads of them . I have got one I bought years ago at tandy or somewhere.

Reply to
F Murtz

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Reply to
David Eather

Thanks all. Exactly what I need.

Reply to
Mauried

Ebay can be 2, 3,4or5 dollars postage included.

Reply to
F Murtz

I've got two jewellers loupes glued together, ie stacked. Works well. IIRC I had to cut the body one one back a bit to get the focus right.

Reply to
Dennis

Why bother - you probably won't be able to remove and replace the 801 resistor without damaging the multilayered board anyway. Even if you do, the fault is probably with a 64 or more pin SMD processor chip (maybe) which without the right rework equipment costing upward of $20K cannot be replaced - the in-house marked chip probably not obtainable as it's a proprietory component. So after maybe 10 hours and still not working, at lets say a modest $80 per hour = $800, why not just through the damn thing away and replace the board - better still, replace the whole damn piece of equipment!

Reply to
Grid Leak

I know exactly whats wrong as the board in question has a known design fault which causes a 1 Mohm smd resistor to go high over time. The fix is to simply solder a normal 1/4 W 1 Mohm resistor in parallel with the crook resistor, but the problem is that there are multiple versions of the board all electrically the same but the physical location of the resistor varies with the version. Without being able to read the values Im just guessing.

Reply to
Mauried

*Nonsense. Some patience, the right techniques, some practice and less than $1,000.00 worth of equipment, it can be done. I've replaced more of the suckers than I care to think about (I use a headband type magnifier, a Maggy lamp, an Ersa iron with a 0.1mm tip + a desoldering station and some SoderwickT - All up, less than a grand). It's a PITA and it requires great care, but it can be done. I got an amp in in December. The owner was told it was a write-off, since the daughter board was NLA. The chips (64 pin) were, however. $24.00 each, a few hours work and the guy had is expensive amp fully functional.

- the in-house marked chip

**Quite likely true.

So after

**Sometimes, that is not possible.
--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au
Reply to
Trevor Wilson

... me too - only difference is I need a couple of Scotch's to settle the

0.1mm soldering iron!
Reply to
SFD

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