As I’m about to move my Aikido Preamp to a new ‘home’ (I mean, new chassis), then it’s time to fix all the components used there. Before, I have tested several components on different section and later then I got final conclusion to put what on where, etc. Below you can see one of the original parts used during my earlier testing stage. Now it’s time to finalize?

One most difficult thing is to unsolder all the components first. As you can see below, most of the parts are not yet fixed (long leads, hanging here hanging there, etc etc). Unsoldering them definitely would not be a nice evening job.

I spent several hours to unsolder those two PCBs. Approximately 3 hours each. After finishing the unsoldering process, we still have another job: to clean up those PCBs.

Clean them up, clean them up… 🙂

Detailed shoot of those dirty PCB. Can’t live with it definitely.

Now it’s clean. Very clean. All the solder pads have been recovered (re-holed). All the solder flux has been cleaned up from the PCB. All the remaining components (although only few, very few) have been re-soldered with WBT silver solder (already use WBT from the very beginning construction actually).

Next stage is to put new selected components one by one to populate the PCB. I also just remember that I’m still missing one set of resistor for the grid section. So I place another order then. Must wait several weeks to arrive 🙁

Below is one of my favorite, the Z201 or TX2575 resistor. Although claimed as 1% (not like its older sister, S102/S139 which has 0.01% tolerance), but still this 1% resistor shows its class. I order 330R, and I got exactly 330R. Hmm… nice! A little bit expensive though, or to be precise, one of the most expensive resistor after my Duelund CAST Resistor.