Warm Tube Clock
Assembly Instructions for the „IN-16 Nixie shield“
Document Version: 2011-01-05
www.elektronika.ba
-2-
Assembly
Heat up your soldering iron, take a deep breath and go for it. The assembly of this PCB is easier than
“main board” PCB since it has very small component count but requires a steady hand. Also, take
your time when soldering the Nixie tubes because you wouldn’t want to solder them crooked.
Step 1
First you need to solder the TLC59401 SMD IC (IC1). This IC should have came already soldered on
your shield PCB so you can skip this step, or read it FYI and see how easy it is to solder complicated
SMD parts at home.
1. Make sure the PCB pad where IC goes is clean from
grease. Rub it with some alcohol just in case.
2. Apply some amount of liquid solder paste. I can’t give
you the exact amount of solder paste to use, as this comes
with experience and pure sense.
Just put the amount you think that will be enough to
solder the entire bottom pad of the TLC59401 IC and not
too much to make a problem.
3. As you can see, it doesn’t look pretty and it doesn’t
have to! You can also put some solder paste on the pin’s
locations so you don’t have to use a soldering iron after
“hot-plating” the IC. You will see what “hot-plating” is
later on.
