Soldering Contact Points Flash Tutorial

[CthulhuLuke]

Hey all,
   just wanted to say I had a nice little experiment last night making a very quick, nitty gritty tutorial for those beginner soldering kids out there that need a little help on how exactly you solder to a contact point.  It's EXTREMELy simple, I did it in about 3 hours total *most of it was spent chatting/working*  Well enjoy.

    http://members.fortunecity.com/cthulhuluke/solder2.html

    -Luke

[TheTick]

I did that on my playstation once... evaporated the solder pad.
That a really bad way to solder. It may work alright on game pads with those thick contacts, but its a bad habit to get into.

The recommended way is to "tin" the lead. You apply the solder to the wire and allow it to even flow over it. Than you place the wire on the contact pad and let the soldering iron bond the two together.

Good idea for a tutorial though.

[CthulhuLuke]

Yah, I didn't leave any technical details in that tutorial, so if you have ABSOLUTELY not clue what you're doing when you solder, you'll get a Cold solder as BrenR so kindly pointed out.  Maybe I'll vamp it up to make it better, but I know this works great, because I did it on my psx hack and it hasn't stopped working yet.
    -Tin the wire
    -Dab a little solder onto the gun to get it nice and hot
    -Place the wire onto the contact point
    -Place the solder on the top part of the exposed wire
    -Place the gun tip on the bottom near the contact point
    -Heat up the wire, and let the solder flow throughout the wire and melt into the contact point
     -DONT hold the gun there for too long, and keep your hands VERY still after soldering, to let it cool down for about 20 seconds, so you don't make a bad connection by leaving a nice little air bubble in the solder joint.
 
    i guess I should have put all that in the tutorial, but it was the VERY VERy basics to soldering to a contact point, yes if you don't tin it, let the solder flow up the wire, leave the gun on the pad for too long, etc.  it will probably not work, but I guess I kinda go by feel when I solder anyways, so yah.
        -Luke

[Frostillicus]

I'd put something in there about using flux.  I worked in an electronics factory when I was a youngin' and soldering is all I did.  The only way to get a good joint with good flow is with flux.  It just takes a little dab.  

[CthulhuLuke]

Hmm..  I haven't used flux before, I bet it would really help beginner soldering people though.  I can solder to a board just fine with my overpowered soldering gun and radioshack solder, but every once in a while one of my joints will pop off if I put too much pressure on it and don't solder it correctly.  This might explain though why i've had a few problems with static build up causing the turbo to trigger on some buttons on my first pad, especially since I didn't solder THAT well to it.
     -Luke

[mj147]

Just from my view, it looks like you would have a cold solder joint.  
Also a gun will be overkill for these little circuit boards, specially in a hands of a beginner.

The right way to solder has been mentioned above. I do appreciate u taking ur time do something like this tho.


mj147

[SirPoonga]

Yeah, how cna oyu not use flux?  Makes life SOOOO much easier:)

[shmokes]

I once soldered a chip to the motherboard of my PSX, like seven points or something.  It was my first soldering job and everything actually looked perfect.

My Playstation never turned on again.