And now.......how NOT to solder !

[Level42]

This one came up on www.dragonslairfans.com and I watched it with amazement:



Great video because it clearly shows you how NOT to solder !

WAAAAAY too long heating (esp after he removes the tin, bubbling WTF ?!?!?!) plus way too much solder !

"You can see this is a nice strong joint" well no because he created a bubble instead of a Fuji.

The funny thing is that he _had_ a good soldering if he'd removed the tin and the iron exactly at 1.14-1.15. You can see it "popping" into a Fuji there but he goes on and add and add solder which is totally useless and in fact bad and after that he keeps "baking" the solder....

Amateur.

[SavannahLion]

"boiling off the impurities"

What impurities? Is he referring to the rosin or something on the pcb itself?

And what's that gold thing to the left of his cradle? At the end of the vidoe.

[Finchbyrd]

Yeah don't do that. Solder will hold just fine unless you're swinging it around over your head by the wires. Generally stuff that's soldered is kept in one place so I don't know why he tried to make a pool for it to sit in lol.

[Beretta]

i think so, ya i agree guys cooking it.

does look like he's using a lot of solder although the board he's working on has large traces and so in some cases thats ok.

but ya he's a little to happy with the iron.. you only need just a quick touch.

i try to use as little as possible.. neater job, to much solder can get you into trouble.. saves money too.

nice iron he's got though.. i just use a 15 watt from radio shack.. works fine.

now desoldering i hate.. i have destroyed traces that way if you put to much heat for to long they'll lift right off the board, usually without warning.. PITA to fix and the desoldering braid radio shacks sells now days SUCKS donkey kong balls.

[MaximRecoil]

"boiling off the impurities"

What impurities? Is he referring to the rosin or something on the pcb itself?

Yeah, that's the flux boiling off; not "impurities". I don't know where he came up with such a notion, probably something he made up himself. The heat from the iron can boil the flux (which is sometimes rosin, but not always) and burn it black. He's probably seeing these black particles of burnt flux rising to the surface and he thinks they are impurities boiling off. By keeping the iron on the joint for so long, he's actually creating the "impurities" that he's trying to get rid of; not to mention he is risking damage to the component and pad.

We soldered about 65 to 75 joints per minute at the PCB factory I worked at. You don't need to have the iron on the joint for ~30 seconds like he did; in fact; that is highly not recommended. He would have been reprimanded for such foolishness (not to mention time wasting) where I worked, probably by me (I trained new hires to solder there).

Also, his touching of the solder wire to the tip of his iron first, "just to start the heat conduction", was unnecessary, a waste of time, and didn't even make sense (the heat conduction started as soon as his iron contacted the pad and post). His poking and prodding around with the solder wire was also bad form, and again, a waste of time (the solder should be pushed into the joint in a single, quick, straight, smooth motion).

This guy is probably self-taught and shouldn't be trying to teach others to solder. There is nothing inherently wrong with being self-taught; as long as you taught yourself correctly; which he clearly didn't.

[Level42]

Maxim: 100% agreed. We need to make a proper video

Less than 1 second per soldering....yeah can be done if you're doing lot's of IC's and doing it every day. When you do this all the time you get into a certain rhythm. You learn to know exactly when the solder starts flowing and when it's set etc.

The only time I did production soldering was during the practice year in my electronics education but those were mostly descrete parts, ver little IC's. With all respect, I hated the work, way to repetetive, gets boring so quick.

Beretta: do you do the desoldering with that 15 W iron ? Since it's pretty low wattage, you probably don't get the heat build up quick enough on the solder and parts you wish to desolder. Following, you will  keep the iron longer (too long) on there and causing the traces to coil up. Get a proper station if you do it a lot. However, I do have an occasional trace coming up every once in a while too, sometimes you just can't prevent it on those 25+ year old PCBs.

[smalltownguy]

Someone PLEASE do make a proper video for this. I've gotten to the point now where I will most likely be tackling some small soldering tasks soon, and I'd really like to fix things, not break them, if you know what I mean 

[Level42]

Another thing: Most pro's don't use the sponge because it will lower the temperature of the tip and often it will not completely clear the tip of the exces tin.
Instead they "throw" off the extra tin on f.i. an old newspaper.

[Lilwolf]

I can't remember who I bought my prehacked dreamcast controllers from... But he did a beaut of a job. 

if someone did a series on how to solder for hacking a controller, I think that would be great!

and yes, desoldering is the biggest pain in the butt...  I use a lot of desoldering tape myself... and a lot of swearing... and often heat it up way too long and it drops on other components below.

[MaximRecoil]

Maxim: 100% agreed. We need to make a proper video

I've thought about it, but I don't have anything to videotape with aside from a crappy webcam, which would be horrible (plus the cord wouldn't reach to the table where I solder).

Less than 1 second per soldering....yeah can be done if you're doing lot's of IC's and doing it every day. When you do this all the time you get into a certain rhythm. You learn to know exactly when the solder starts flowing and when it's set etc.

We did through-hole terminal blocks like these - link. Each board took about 50 terminal blocks (they were actually a bunch of small boards with two 2-position or 4-position terminal blocks each that were still all together as a single board; not yet broken apart into the smaller boards). We had a PCB holder that held the board while you placed all the terminal blocks into it; and then you would close the steel and foam lid and rotate it around and all the solder points would be right there layed out for you for easy soldering (the steel and foam lid held the terminal blocks firmly in place from underneath).

All of the ICs, as well as all of the other components on the boards were surface-mount, which were all placed and soldered automatically by the multi-million dollar Panasonic SMT machine, which was about as long as a football field. As such, we didn't usually have to deal with any of them, though we often had to replace other surface-mount components that failed the HP 3070 test. I replaced a few of the big, square surface mount ICs by hand too; the ones with about 100 tiny, closely spaced legs; but those weren't points of failure often; and they generally preferred to ditch the board rather than spend 10 minutes replacing one of those ICs by hand.

The only time I did production soldering was during the practice year in my electronics education but those were mostly descrete parts, ver little IC's. With all respect, I hated the work, way to repetetive, gets boring so quick.

I liked it actually. Like you said, you develop a rhythm; and for me, time flew when I was soldering. Plus I worked next to a few people that I got along with well, so that helped.

Another thing: Most pro's don't use the sponge because it will lower the temperature of the tip

Not with a Metcal  , not for more than an imperceptible fraction of a second anyway. Metcals have recovery time like you wouldn't believe; stone cold to operating temperature in 7 seconds. That's 100 degrees per second. Are you still looking for one? You really should buy one.

[MaximRecoil]

and yes, desoldering is the biggest pain in the butt...  I use a lot of desoldering tape myself... and a lot of swearing... and often heat it up way too long and it drops on other components below.

Get a good quality "solder sucker" (Edsyn Soldapullt DS017, DS017LS, and AS196 are the only ones worth buying in my opinion) and be sure to learn how to use it properly. Desoldering is easy with the right tool and know-how.

To desolder a through-hole joint, place the tip of your iron against the pad and post and the solder should melt very quickly. As soon as the solder is melted, place the tip of the solder sucker over the post of the joint and press it down to the pad, and push the trigger on the solder sucker. If done correctly, pretty much all of the solder will be gone the first time (i.e., there should be no need for a second attempt).

Don't be afraid to allow the plastic tip of the solder sucker to make contact with the tip of your iron; in fact, it has to make contact with the tip of your iron in order to do it properly, because your iron tip should still be on the pad and post, and pressing the solder sucker tip down over the post to the pad will inevitably cause contact between the iron tip and the solder sucker tip.

A lot of people go wrong here simply because they are afraid of letting the plastic tip of the solder sucker touch the hot tip of the iron, so they either trying to pull the iron away and move the solder sucker into place quickly, or they place the solder sucker's tip too far from the molten solder.

Don't worry about the solder sucker's tip melting. For one thing, they are replaceable. For another thing, they will melt some, but not a lot. They are designed to take more heat than typical plastic. The Edsyn Soldapullts that we used at work had melted and mangled tips from years of use, but they still worked fine. This is what the tip of my DS017LS looks like after years of factory use:



And it still works fine.

[Level42]

No I bought the Ersa RDS-80 station which is excellent really.


A metcal is too costly for me and I'm not doing series production work
You also don't find them here and they weigh a ton so shipping would add even more to the price.  I bought a couple of different tips for the Ersa and it works better than the previous simplistic magastat from Weller I had before.
The only thing that is worse is the cable from the station to the iron as it's pretty stiff. I may replace that.....if I find some time.

[MaximRecoil]

No I bought the Ersa RDS-80 station which is excellent really.

It looks like a nice iron. I've never used one or seen one (they may not be common in the US), but I just read a description of one and it says it has up to 290 Watts and reaches operating temperature in about 40 seconds. That's pretty fast for a conventional heating element based iron.

A metcal is too costly for me and I'm not doing series production work

Yeah, me neither; not anymore anyway. Fortunately I was able to get a good deal on mine.

You also don't find them here and they weigh a ton so shipping would add even more to the price. 

Yeah, that sucks. Even shipping within the U.S. is usually close to $20 for them.

The only thing that is worse is the cable from the station to the iron as it's pretty stiff. I may replace that.....if I find some time.

The cable on Metcals is very flexible and soft, and is designed to be very heat resistant (silicone rubber). But then, it is coax cable that carries RF, rather than wire that needs to carry significant electrical current, so that may allow Metcal to more easily make their cables so flexible.

[Blanka]

RS-Online also delivers an Esra station with their name on it, for much less. They also have a US partner selling stuff. Maybe they sell the iron too.
http://nl.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=getProduct&R=0186719&cm_sp=Merchandising-_-Featured-Product-_-0186719
Check the display, button layout and connector. Exactly the same as the Esra, but 60 euro's is a bargain 
I enjoy it very much.

[HaRuMaN]

I can't remember who I bought my prehacked dreamcast controllers from... But he did a beaut of a job. 

if someone did a series on how to solder for hacking a controller, I think that would be great!

and yes, desoldering is the biggest pain in the butt...  I use a lot of desoldering tape myself... and a lot of swearing... and often heat it up way too long and it drops on other components below.

That'd be me.  Glad you like them.

And... you can find my controller hack tutorial here:  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=64050.0  Not a video, but it has pics and a step by step.

[Level42]

RS-Online also delivers an Esra station with their name on it, for much less. They also have a US partner selling stuff. Maybe they sell the iron too.
http://nl.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=getProduct&R=0186719&cm_sp=Merchandising-_-Featured-Product-_-0186719
Check the display, button layout and connector. Exactly the same as the Esra, but 60 euro's is a bargain 
I enjoy it very much.

Sorry my friend, but it's NOT the same as the Ersa because it doesn't have the ERSA Iron and it cannot use the ERSA tips. BIG difference. And I only payed about 20 euro's more. Actually, the price you indicate is excluding VAT (which is 19% here)  by the way so it's about the same that I payed for the ERSA when it went on sale at Conrad.

Ersa is relatively well known here, it's a German builder of soldering equipment, everything up to the really large soldering machines. The RDS-80 is a Chinese station, but it's constructed very well indeed and, as mentioned, it does have a real ERSA iron.

And also, the station you indicate is only 50 Watts, the RDS-80 is.....not surprising, 80 Watts.

I'm not saying yours is a poor station, but it's _not_ the same as the Ersa.

[shardian]

What is the optimal temp for soldering on boards? I use 650 usually, and get excellent results.

[Beretta]

Beretta: do you do the desoldering with that 15 W iron ? Since it's pretty low wattage, you probably don't get the heat build up quick enough on the solder and parts you wish to desolder. Following, you will  keep the iron longer (too long) on there and causing the traces to coil up. Get a proper station if you do it a lot. However, I do have an occasional trace coming up every once in a while too, sometimes you just can't prevent it on those 25+ year old PCBs

does'nt happen very often, usually when im trying to desolder something with a lot of joints, and you have to go back and forth back and forth to try and wiggle it out.

really the 15 watter is fine for electrics work, i actually prefer it i had a butane soldering iron my sister bought me.. but i felt it was to much and did'nt wanna get my self in trouble with it.

15 watt iron is enough to do the job but less likely to damage something accidentally.
but you're right it's pretty low power so it does'nt work so great for anything big.

[RayB]

I have one of those cheap ones with a switch between 15w and 25w. 15w is too low and 25w is too hot, so I keep having to alternate. A good preheat is key though. Needs a good 10 minutes heating up before its hot enough to use.

[ChadTower]

What is the optimal temp for soldering on boards? I use 650 usually, and get excellent results.

Depends on context.  650 will work on small stuff but if you get a component directly connected to a large ground trace 650 will take 5 minutes.  I tend to stay around 700-725 and move it up when there's a need.

[Level42]

Geez guys, I usually only use 370 degrees.

[MaximRecoil]

What is the optimal temp for soldering on boards? I use 650 usually, and get excellent results.

Depends on context.  650 will work on small stuff but if you get a component directly connected to a large ground trace 650 will take 5 minutes.  I tend to stay around 700-725 and move it up when there's a need.

We used 700 degrees for everything at work, from through-hole terminal blocks to surface-mount components smaller than half a grain of rice.

Geez guys, I usually only use 370 degrees.

I think you need to increase that to 371.1111111111111 degrees. 

[Kevin Mullins]

Geez guys, I usually only use 370 degrees.

Silly Wabbit .....

[SavannahLion]

This is juicy info. PnR can take a dive into a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- hole for all I care if more threads like this crop up. Even MaximRecoil is really shining.

Back to the topic at hand....

Another thing: Most pro's don't use the sponge because it will lower the temperature of the tip and often it will not completely clear the tip of the exces tin.
Instead they "throw" off the extra tin on f.i. an old newspaper.

Clarify please. I have visions of millions of people trying to fling hot solder off their iron onto newspapers in millions of garages all around the world.

[Kevin Mullins]

Clarify please. I have visions of millions of people trying to fling hot solder off their iron onto newspapers in millions of garages all around the world.

Yup, exactly that. 

[MaximRecoil]

Clarify please. I have visions of millions of people trying to fling hot solder off their iron onto newspapers in millions of garages all around the world.

We all used damp sponges at work (like these) with the Metcals, but you do need an iron with a fast recovery time or you'll be waiting for the tip to get back to operating temperature every time you clean the tip with the sponge. With practice, one tends to develops a technique that gets all of the excess solder off the tip with a swipe combined with a twisting motion against the inside edge of the hole in the center of the sponge.

Flinging the solder off the tip works too. You simply hold the iron and hit the table or the palm of your other hand with your fist, or simply into the air like cracking a whip if you aren't too concerned about where the solder goes. I much prefer a sponge, but I used the flinging method at home before I bought my own Metcal, because the Radio Shack iron I had would take like a minute to heat back up if I used a sponge.

[SavannahLion]

Flinging the solder off the tip works too. You simply hold the iron and hit the table or the palm of your other hand with your fist, or simply into the air like cracking a whip if you aren't too concerned about where the solder goes. I much prefer a sponge, but I used the flinging method at home before I bought my own Metcal, because the Radio Shack iron I had would take like a minute to heat back up if I used a sponge.

Ah, so it is literal. Well, I guess I'll have to practice in the garage rather than in the room where I usually solder. There's quite a bit of flammable stuff I don't want destroyed as opposed to the flammable stuff in the garage which I don't really care about.

[Beretta]

ya flicking the table is good to get excess solder off, also keep a razor utility knife handy.

for tinning the tip i usually just use a folded damp paper towel, just throw it away when you're done.

[Level42]

Don't fling upwards......


This guy shows it very briefly:

[Level42]

I was always taught not to use external flux but I do find this technique pretty interesting:



Note that he uses a specail tip.

The result looks pretty good. But a real pro would solder a socket in there and THEN insert the IC

[protokatie]

May I ask a seemingly stupid question: Why do they not make copper coated solder-heads? Copper would have less of a corrosion problem and is much better at conducting heat. Is there a reason why it isn't used?

FTR: I suck at soldering, as the only tools I had to do it with was a wood burner and an "industrial" soldering gun (and this as a kid)

[Ummon]

Man, seeing that solder flow brings back memories of smoking rock. Next I'll start smelling and tasting it.....anyways, I'm no expert, but I didn't think that first vid was bad. Certainly the second vid was very good, and I don't know why I didn't think of twisting wires that way for an 'inline' joint...jeez.

Flux and stuff: in junior high industrial arts class, we not only had to use flux, we had little gas furnaces that we had to heat up our irons in. Man they sucked.

[MaximRecoil]

May I ask a seemingly stupid question: Why do they not make copper coated solder-heads? Copper would have less of a corrosion problem and is much better at conducting heat. Is there a reason why it isn't used?

Metcal tips have a copper core with an iron plating, which is commonly done with high quality tips. Here is a brief explanation from one of Metcal's patents:

The main body 21 of tip 20 is preferably made from copper, or any other suitable thermal conductor. Preferably, at least the distal end of main body 21 is iron plated. Such iron plating protects the copper core of tip 20 from dissolving in the solder during use. Iron plating a copper core soldering iron tip is common in the art.

Here is an explanation and illustration (also from Metcal) of how a tip can fail if the plating cracks and the solder reaches the copper core:

[Blanka]

I use the ERSA tips/irons on the RS station. ERSA makes the stations for RS. Just need to hack a little thing (i made a din-din adapter, so that both irons work), but internally they are the same (except the power is a little less, but that only affects heating time). Great deal if you had the ERSA for 80 euro. It now costs 155 at Conrad. For 80 bucks I would have got the original too I guess.

[ChadTower]

Don't fling the solder if you keep any other boards on your bench... wouldn't do to fling solder blobs all over a PCB.   

Also don't fling it where it might land on you.  It burns right through your pants, shirt, skin, pretty much whatever it lands on. 

I have never had an issue with using a sponge.  Wipe it quickly as described above and unless you have a true garbage iron, or if you need to do 20 joints a minute, you're fine for what we do.

[MonMotha]

Well, I'll weigh in.

I usually stick to 310-325C for leaded solder, but I'll kick it up to 350-375C if necessary for the lead free crap. When soldering enameled wire (magnet wire), you have to really crank things (435-450C) to melt the enamel while soldering.

I don't generally flip solder off the tip.  Too many worries about where it ends up, and I never got the motion right (probably due to disinterest and corresponding lack of practice).  My iron (Weller WESD-51) has pretty good recovery time and power (65W, IIRC), so a sponge is quite fine.  You don't want the thing soaking wet, just damp.  That will lessen tip cooling.  And yes, there is a motion that tends to result in near complete removal of gunk without much time in contact with the sponge.

Depending on what you're doing, you may not need a "clean" iron.  If you're doing 0402 passives, it's almost mandatory, though eventually you'll figure out how to largely keep things in check so you can do several pieces before you need to clean things off.

As for adding a little solder to the tip before touching the joint, it can help heat transfer when working on an old, corroded, or oddly shaped joint.  The molten solder on the tip will conform to the joint you're touching, resulting in more surface area in contact.  More surface contact usually results in faster heat transfer.

Fancy Metcal irons are really nice for small stuff, but I prefer the directly heated stuff like my Weller for larger work.  The Weller was a lot cheaper than a Metcal, too

I do use flux in some cases, but often the flux core is sufficient.  The big times I find flux useful is when drag soldering QFPs.  Flux the pads, place the part (the flux will somewhat hold it in place), tack a couple corners, then drag.  For normal repair type work and certainly through-hole stuff, I don't find it necessary.

I think one of the big issues many people face is lack of experience combined with crappy radio shack soldering irons.  If you plan on doing much work at all, buy a cheap temp controlled station.  I see stuff that works OK online for like $45 all the time.  This is about 4x the cost of a cheapo radio shack, yes, but the temp control is really nice.  The radio shack tips are also awful.  They simply won't take solder for some reason, probably bad plating.

[Kevin Mullins]

Why everybody gotta knock us cheap ---daisies--- that still run the el' cheapo radio shack crap ?
 

Ooh..... I gotta get a pic of my "spatter wall" too.
It's all in the technique, fwap, fwap. 

(seriously, I have a corner of sheetrock I tap the iron on to clear the excess solder)

[MaximRecoil]

Fancy Metcal irons are really nice for small stuff, but I prefer the directly heated stuff like my Weller for larger work.  The Weller was a lot cheaper than a Metcal, too

Can your Weller do this?

The clever thing about the [Metcal] design is the method of heating.  The
"station" consist of high power rf generator enclosed in well shielded
case.  The power is delivered to the tip via a coaxial cable.  The tip
is so constructed that it absorbs the energy at the working end and
heats up until it reaches a curie point temperature at which it
becomes high impedance. This transition is very sharp, meaning that
the tip is always at the correct temperature.  The response is
phenomenal.  It will hit operating temperature in seven seconds and
3/32" tip can solder a penny to a copper clad circuit board without
overheating anything. I had it feed through a SWR meter and could see
the needle jump  moment the tip touched the workpiece. The selection
of tips is large and replacement is easy as they just pull out of the
handle.

Boris Mohar

Emphasis mine

For bigger jobs you need more power and/or efficiency, which translates to the faster recovery times needed to maintain operating temperature during the excessive heat dumps of large solder joints; and that's where Metcals excel. Because of its incredible recovery time, smaller tips can do larger jobs, and larger tips can do very large jobs.

Metcals are very popular for assembly lines in factories, which is a big job, even if each individual joint is not necessarily that big (in my case I soldered terminal blocks, which made for larger joints than the typical through-hole IC, capacitor, or resistor joints on an old arcade board). The fact that so many joints are being soldered in succession in such a short time (less than 1 second per joint for hundreds of joints in a row; no stopping) means that it takes a very strong iron to keep up; i.e., not dump its heat into the solder joints faster than it can recover.

We had large commercial-grade Wellers at the factory left over from before they switched to Metcals. They collected dust in boxes under the benches; though anyone was free to use them if they wanted to.

[MonMotha]

My Weller hits temp from cold (room temp) start in about 15-20 seconds.  The Metcals at work take 7-10 usually.  Yes, they are quicker.  However, we also have a Weller laying around for doing "big stuff" like trying to solder the tabs on heatsinks.  The Metcal just doesn't have the power to do it.  The temp control on the Metcal is exquisite.  Apparently the high-end Metcal stations are even capable of adjusting power output upon sensing when solder actually flows (vs. when the tip is simply in contact).  The easy tip change is also quite nice.

I'd love to have one, but I wouldn't dump my Weller in the trash for one.  However, I simply can't justify the expense for hobby usage (note that I use my soldering iron for more than just arcade related stuff).

I'll have to get a picture of my "soldering tile" some time.  I keep the solder station on a chunk of ceramic tile that I can use when I need to have a hot work object sitting directly on the table for some reason.  The tile is caked in flux goo, solder splashes, etc.

[MaximRecoil]

My Weller hits temp from cold (room temp) start in about 15-20 seconds.  The Metcals at work take 7-10 usually.  Yes, they are quicker.  However, we also have a Weller laying around for doing "big stuff" like trying to solder the tabs on heatsinks.  The Metcal just doesn't have the power to do it. 

What tip cartridge are you using with the Metcal, and which particular base unit are you using (e.g., RFG-30, PS2E-01, MX-500)? Also, how old is the tip cartridge / how much usage has it seen? In my experience, Metcal tip cartridges only perform at their absolute best for about 80 hours of soldering.

Metcal makes a huge variety of tip sizes and styles, along with a few different temperatures. For soldering tabs on a heatsink, you'd want one of the larger blunt tips in one of the higher temperatures; for example, the STTC-117 "extra large chisel" .20" (5.0mm) 700°F degree tip (or STTC-817 if you want the 800°F version). That tip dwarfs a typical Metcal tip used for general purpose PCB soldering. Here is a comparison of it to the tip I normally use:

I'd love to have one, but I wouldn't dump my Weller in the trash for one.  However, I simply can't justify the expense for hobby usage (note that I use my soldering iron for more than just arcade related stuff).

I payed less than $40 shipped for mine (used, working, eBay); and it included the base unit, the correct stand, the RM3E handpiece, and a used, working STTC-125 tip cartridge. My preference is the STTC-126 tip cartridge for general purpose PCB soldering, so I bought a new one.