Wavebird/Reciever SMT LED replacement - WTF?!?!

[nonzero]

I got hold of some 0603 LEDs to replace the standard ones in the wavebird and reciever and opened them up to do the mod...

Boy oh boy are they small - any tips from someone who has done this mod would be greatly appreciated (duey2k ;))

[Duey2k]

they sure are small...so some tips....

Use a low rated iron (about 15watt) or you will melt the led
Usea new tip, the stock ones work fine. they make fine tip ones but i actually find them harder.

pay close attention to the polarity as you will have to match it.

to get the leds off the board i carefuly stick a exactor or razor blade under the miffle of the led while using the iron on 1 soldier point. Dont pry too hard as you could pull the traces of the pcb and that is really hard to fix.

then use soldier braid to remove and excess soldier. then i add a smal amount of soldier to 1 side and put the led ontop of it. hold it in place with some kinda tiny pliars. then heat up the 1 side so it sticks then do the other.....kinda hard to explain w/o pics but they is the just of it.

[nonzero]

superb - ive got a 15 watt iron with a nice tip and am going to attempt this mod :D

ill say it again though - boy are the LEDs small, Im not a novice in the soldering department but its the first time ive played around with SMTs.

One question I do have though is how do you hold the replacement LED in position when you are soldering it to the board?

It seems to small to tape/blu tack in place (what I used to do with the d0 on XBoxs) whilst you solder.

[ROFLMyWaffle]

i think he was saying some needle nose plyers. I think I'm going to attempt this too because I got ahold of a lot of 100 smt blue leds on ebay for around 7 bucks. I have a 30 watt soldering iron, but I can still do this because it has a switch to switch it between 30 and 15 :D . Thanks for the tips. Btw, I found this pic (http://www.duey2k.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=0) and this pic (http://www.duey2k.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=16&pos=3) of duey's after products so you can see what it'll look like. You should have posted these. They look really good.

[nonzero]

Yes indeed - they do look grand.

I've gone with UV purple on my silver Cube - should look spanky :D

Will post up some pics when I'm done.

[ROFLMyWaffle]

Ohh! UV. Sounds cool. Make sure you don't damage your eyes. You only get one set (unless this is Minority Report).