Solder jumpers can bite me

DIY STUFF
1

I have a board that uses a 3-pad solder jumper

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and I hate it. I’ve assembled two of these boards and I have been utterly unable to close the jumper.

I’ve watched a couple of YouTube videos that purport to show you how to do it. Basically the idea seems to be you heat it up with a soldering iron and put solder on it. Who knew?

But for the life of me I could not do it. The solder would not stay in the middle and make a connection between two pads. I just kept trying, heating it, adding more solder, testing for continuity and not getting it, until I just burned up the pads and had to resort to bodge wires.

Maybe I was using the wrong solder. Or the wrong temperature. Or not enough flux. Or too much flux. Or maybe the footprint sucks. Or maybe JLCPCB made it wrong. Or maybe I’m just incompetent.

Maybe I should just stick with pin header jumpers.

Solder jumpers can bite me.

2 Likes
2

I have used a two pad version and had no issues bridging the gap. I have not tried the three pad version.

3

It is easier to place the leg of a resistor across the pads and solder it on. I tend to keep the chopped component legs aside for this purpose.

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