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Boardmaker instructions Page - 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 To follow along with these pages you should go here and print out the layout diagram for the 5F6A Bassman board. |
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Now we are going to lace the circuit board.
Lacing is the process where lugs are joined
together in a buss. A buss may be just two
lugs or a buss can be several lugs joined
together. Lacing lugs together is how lugs are
joined together electrically. For example on
most of my boards there are several lugs that
all must be grounded. Instead of running a
separate wire from each lug to ground, the
lugs are all laced together and then one large
wire is connected to ground which lets all of
the lugs go to ground. |
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The circuit board needs to be screwed down to
a bench top or held solid while you lace the
circuit board. I use two screws and screw the
board to my bench through two of the mounting
holes. First take a fine pair of bent needle nose pliers and make a 3/4 loop on the end of the buss wire. These pliers are Snap on model E704ACG and work the best of any tool I have tried. |
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Hook the 3/4 loop you made above around a lug
at the end of a buss and then hold the loop
tight against the lug with the pliers. Take
the buss wire and pull it back and forth
between the lugs that you want to join
together. If you have a large gap to span make
a 360 degree loop around a lug before you
continue on to the next lug. If you are just
joining two lugs that are next to each other,
you do not have to make a double 360 degree
loop. Continue to lace all lugs together by
looking at the layout diagram to see which
lugs get joined. The top photo shows how the buss spans large gaps. Notice the double loops around the lugs. The bottom photo shows two lugs joined side by side. |
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Push all buss
wire loops down so that they as close to the
board surface as possible. I use a small
dental tool I found at a flea market. It has a
small 90 degree hook at the end of the dental
tool. Here you can see the right end of a board that has been laced. Notice there are lugs everywhere that have been joined together on a buss. Some busses are just two lugs and some busses have as many as 7 lugs joined together.
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Now it's time
to solder all the lugs that have been laced.
Put the tip of your soldering iron against the
lug and touch the solder to the lug lacing at
the same time. The solder will start to melt
and you must make the solder flow around the
lug so that the buss wire has solder all the
way around the lug. You do not need a ton of
solder. Do not flood the lug with solder.
Soldering is an art and takes time to get good
at it. Use some sort of small fan to suck the solder fumes away from you. If any buss wire pops up from the heat you can reheat the lug and hold the buss wire down with some sort of tool. |
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This step is
not necessary, but I think it makes the boards
look much better. On the longer buss wire
spans I will take two pairs of pliers and
pinch together the buss wire so that the two
wires are grouped together side by side. I
only do this on lugs that are 3 or more lugs
apart from each other.
See the before photo above. |
| When you
solder the lugs, small spots of resin will
spray onto the board surface, this is normal.
The resin is inside the solder and helps the
solder flow properly when the solder is
melting. The resin is soft and gooey at first
but will firm up if you wait a few minutes.
The cooler the room temperature the quicker
the resin will firm up. After the resin hardens, I take a small flat object and scrape the board clean of all these resin spots. If you scrape the resin spots before they firm up, the resin will just spread around the board and make a mess that is hard to clean up without some sort of very strong chemical. I don't use any chemical to clean my boards. I don't want to breath the fumes from a strong chemical in my shop. |
| Now all the lugs with lacing should be soldered and you should have a clean board with no solder resin spots. |
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