[quote=ucodegen]
On that ribbon cable, your biggest problem is not going to be soldering the new on on.. it will be removing the old. This is generally done with a very specialized hot air gun (don’t try it with your run of the mill hot air gun).[/quote]
You don’t have to use hot air or infrared to do surface mount work unless you’re talking about BGA packages and the like. A regular vacuum desoldering station or even skillfully applied and good quality solder wick will get stuff off just fine. Likewise, soldering stuff back on isn’t rocket surgery and can be accomplished with a fine tip and steady hands. And there are specialty tips for just this purpose: split tips for two terminal devices, wide knife tips for QFPs, etc.–the list goes on and on.
Likewise, there’s no law that says you have to use solder paste for SMDs; rosin core solder will work fine as long as you get a bit on the pads first and then quickly reflow (and possibly add a smidge) to connect the leads.
If it was my instrument cluster, I’d just have at it since I have a rework station. Since it’s not, I wouldn’t want to take a chance on buying the whole thing from the OP if something went wrong–and that’s his dilemma since most other technodweebs have had a bad experience helping someone out.
[quote][quote]Some older timers who use to build Heathkit TV’s, Ham Radio’s etc could solder it for you.[/quote]
Nope.. don’t. The joints are much finer than these people have ever done. You want one of the assemblers that works currently at companies like Sony, Qualcomm, Cubic. They work with surface mount, the problem is that they don’t own their own tools and the tools are specialized.
[/quote]
Erm, ever see the cat’s whisker wires in small motors, loopstick antennas and the like? Those are a hell of a lot smaller and fussier than PCB traces and tinned leads.
