Steve's Tips

Tip # 1 Storage of PCB cards. If for some reason you have PCB that have header Pins the easiest way to protect the PCB and header Pins is to put a connector on the header pins. Looks like this:

Tip #2 Never use silver solder on a 130xe PCB. For silver solder to flow it requires much more heat than the 60/40 lead tin solder. The higher temperatures required for silver solder to flow is higher temperature than the lamination glue. Good thing is you can still get 60/40 solder from here. If you are planning on doing any work on the Atari 130XE or 65XE.

Tip #3 Working on the Atari 130XE! Working on the Atari 130xe requires a temperature controlled soldering Iron. I would also recommend working on a bread board and make a few solders to get back in the swing of things before jumping right in the middle of the 130xe. If you are new to soldering get someone to teach you how to solder on a 130xe. the 130xe is a PCB that requires a light touch and good equipment.

Tip #4 Working on the Atari 130XE! Never use a soldering gun!

Tip #5 Working on the Atari 130XE! Never use solder wick

Tip #6 Working on the Atari 130XE! When desoldering chips use either a good devac pump or devac Iron. But be aware of the amount of heat you are putting into the PCB. With that in mind the devac iron from Radio Shack gets to hot for the Atari 130xe. I use an Ungar 9000 Iron and an Ungar 4024 Devac tool. If you are planning to do a lot of soldering proper tools are a must.

Tip #7 Read the documentation before asking questions! If the Author wrote documentation take the time to read them before asking a bunch of questions. Most Software Authors and Hardware designers get asked the same questions over and over because end users will not read the documentation until they have tried everything else.

Tip #8 What a bug is! A bug is an error in programming that results in a system crash! It is not a feature that you think should be in a program.

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