New AXE200 damaged?

smssms

New Member
I just received my AXE200-5v (the old ones going cheap).

Straight out of the box it had


  • white powdery deposits over most of the solder joints
    brown/grey lump of stuff on one of the vias
    green (verdigris?) on a via and a resistor solder joint
    generally looks like quite poor quality soldering (wonky components, uneven amounts of solder and solder bridging gaps)

Has anyone else experienced these sort of problems or have I just got a wet Friday afternoon one?

I've emailed Tech Supplies but not got any reply yet...
 

smssms

New Member
28x2.jpg
Not a great picture, but you can see the white stuff all over the place, the green on the bottom-left resistor and the via near the crystal. Although it looks like there is a gap, under a 10x hand lens it looks like the solder is bridging the bottom of the 223 and 310 resistors(?).
Not had a chance to fire it up or test it yet...
 

srnet

Senior Member
mmm.

From the picture, I would say I get better SMT soldering results on my camping stove.
 

premelec

Senior Member
and don't eat powdered sugar donuts while soldering - I'd give it a good distilled water clean and then ethanol -
 

smssms

New Member
OK, I've only ever bought bare chips or self assembly stuff from Tech Supplies before.

Can I assume this is below the standard of pre-assembled kit I should have been expecting from them then?
 

srnet

Senior Member
I'd give it a good distilled water clean and then ethanol -
Indeed, its what old toothbrushes are for.

(Although do test the toothbrush first, some fall to bits in solvent, some do not - no need to ask how I know this)
 

Technical

Technical Support
Staff member
The image shows that after manufacture some of the flux was not correctly washed off and has subsequently oxidised during storage. The items are put through the equivalent of a 'dishwasher' after assembly, but due to the height of the connector it has probably 'shielded' that area of the PCB and stopped some of the flux being washed off. However it should not affect operation in any way, and as already stated would probably come off with an old tooth brush and some boiled/cooled water (let the module dry thoroughly before powering up!).

It is not what we would generally expect, our assembly sub contractors are generally very good, and can naturally be returned for a free exchange if you want to. However the remaining AXE200 are indeed old discontinued shelf stock (replaced by the AXE201), which is the reason they are heavily discounted to start with.
 
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