Soldering Tragedy

[shponglefan]

Not sure which YouTube tutorials you watched, but I recommend this series (below):

I used these videos when learning how to solder and they were very helpful.  It also helps to have proper tools, and that's primarily a clean soldering tip.  If yours has oxidized over the years, you'll either need to clean it or replace it.

(edited to add: Reading through the thread, looks like you are getting a new station.  I ditto the recommendation for the Hakko FX-888D.  It`s a great soldering unit.)

[Le Chuck]

This thread has gone from Tragedy to Strategy.

Boom!  That's a freebie.

[yotsuya]

[hypernova]

If you don't plan on soldering a whole bunch, I wouldn't recommend buying a $100 iron.  Mine's a cheapy from Lowe's or somewhere.

These tips I would heartily second:

* If you don't have a soldering station, think about your cord placement before plugging in your iron. Make sure your cord will not overlap your work, and will not cause your iron to fall off the table.

* Those "helping hands" things can be awesome.

I recently acquired a set of helping hands this past Christmas.  Haven't soldered anything yet, but I can imagine the way it'll make it easier.  I solder something maybe once a year or so, which is why I don't get an expensive iron.  And it isn't that hard once you get used to it.  Braid works fine for me...I just have to be careful and hold it far away from the end so I don't burn my fingers.  Of course a cloth-like glove would probably help there as well, but I prefer unencumbered digits.

Don't even think you will get it down to where you can finely solder willy nilly a wire to one of those chips on a pcb board with a hundred legs coming out each side.  Those take a decent amount of practice to not screw up. 

I also tend to have a soaked paper towel (folded over multiple times) to occasionally wipe off the end of the iron.

[mgb]

Meh, my cheapy 15W Radio Shack soldering iron is still going strong, and I use it all the time.  Save your money.  It's more technique than it is a $100 iron.

I agree. I don't doubt that the high end solder stations are great but I've got a lot of miles on my radio shack 15 watt iron.
If I do happen to lose it, damage it or lodge it in a customers head, no big loss.
I also use the 40 watt rat shack de-solder tool. Heck sometimes I'll use that to solder. I probably use a solder sucker more than the de-solder iron.
I also have a butane iron because often I'm soldering something on the spot and I may not have an outlet handy.
I also use the helping hands when I remember they're at the bottom of my tool box.

[Howard_Casto]

I think I'll be the be the voice of reason on this one.  (That's never happened before.)

Don't buy a 100 dollar iron, but then again don't buy a 5 dollar one either.  Rat-shack will have a good temperature controlled selection of irons that you can get for under 30 bucks that'll allow you to change heads... that's what you want.  Being able to control the temperature isn't required for most things, but when you are trying to fix a ruined trace or solder something you really aren't supposed to fool with, having a digital read-out of the exact temperature is pretty handy.  Also they usually come with a nice little sponge tray for cleaning and a holder that won't fall over from the weight of the iron, which is always nice. 

[yotsuya]

I think I'll be the be the voice of reason on this one.  (That's never happened before.)

Don't buy a 100 dollar iron, but then again don't buy a 5 dollar one either.  Rat-shack will have a good temperature controlled selection of irons that you can get for under 30 bucks that'll allow you to change heads... that's what you want.  Being able to control the temperature isn't required for most things, but when you are trying to fix a ruined trace or solder something you really aren't supposed to fool with, having a digital read-out of the exact temperature is pretty handy.  Also they usually come with a nice little sponge tray for cleaning and a holder that won't fall over from the weight of the iron, which is always nice.

Good observation, Howard. Let me just add this - I've met a lot of locals in this hobby with the Hakko FX-888D, and not a single one of them has said they regretted buying it. 

[Howard_Casto]

I'm not knocking it.  I know a couple of people who have one and they are a good iron.  But a think it's one of those deals like ladies face creams. 

[things I shouldn't know]
Oil of Olay IS great. It's also identical in function and composition to the cold cream you get at your local discount store for significantly less.  Some people assume that it's better because you pay more, but that isn't necessarily the case. 
[/things I shouldn't know]

So yeah, it is good, but you can get something that costs less that's just as good.

[BadMouth]

I'm a cheap bastard and skeptical about most things.

I have the older Hakko model with the manual knob temp control.
It heats and is ready for use almost immediately.  After about a year of use, the main tip I use hasn't corroded at all.
The holder for the iron is powder coated metal. 
Both it and the main base are heavy and have a high quality feel.

It's not for everyone.  It's probably a little more than I need, but I hope to get farther into the hobby in the future.
If someone is just soldering wires together or to tabs on switches a few times a year, there's no point in buying something that expensive.
...but it is better IMO.

Same goes for the Pana-Vice.  It rocks if you work on boards regularly.
It's not the type of thing you buy just to do one or two jobs though.

Only mildly related, but I used to work in the warehouse of an OEM automotive electronics supplier.
They had little old ladies working there that had been soldering 30 years and damn they were good.
A couple times I brought in car audio stuff with burnt mosfets or a damaged input of some sort. 
Those ladies could swap out the parts and hand them back to me in about 20 seconds.

[DaOld Man]

You crazy kids with all your fancy smancy soldering junkets.
Why in my day, we used a real mans soldering method.
The ole soldering pot and heat your irons in a real fire.

Jennifer listens all wide eyed, Just hang the gun from your Viking horn helmet???... Omg, at least fire had been invented.

Helmet? I don't need no stinking helmet! And yeah fire was invented by my next cave neighbor, Trog. A pretty nice guy once you get to know him, even though most cromagons are a real nuisance at the Rock Concerts, his only vice was howling at the moon, of course back then we all thought the moon was some kind of mystically god in the night sky, so I think he was just airing a few gripes.
 

[Louis Tully]

.

[jdbailey1206]

shponglefan - Those are perfect.  Thank you.  I'll post a picture of my iron tonight but like you said I have a feeling the tip has oxidized.  It was a cheapo I picked up 15 years ago and I only started using it this year.  My tip pretty much looks like this so I'm thinking before I spend money on a nice unit I'm gonna get a new tip from RS and practice on that.  And if I can't replace the tip I'll replace the pencil.

Le Chuck - Why do I feel you are just Van Wilder in disguise. 

This thread has gone from Tragedy to Strategy.

Boom!  Write that down.

hypernova - I bought a pair of helping hands and they are worth their weight in gold. 

Howard - Like I said I think I should just replace my tip and practice on that.  Then when I'm ready I may purchase one of the high end ones.  Like you said most of today's products are made by the same manufacturer but they all come from the same factory with different labels.  So in the end the it is just a marketing ploy with all the consumers money being funneled into the same place.  If  you look into Dewalt, which is supposedly a company in itself  you will see that it is actually owned by Black and Decker. 

BadMouth - I don't plan on soldering a lot but the Helping Hands are a god send.  I have no problem working big but when I work with smaller components I tend to shake.  The helping hands keep everything steady and the magnifier helps immensely since my eye sight is shot.
I'm glad you mentioned the older women working in the factory.  Hell if they can do it so can I.

In the end I think I am going to scour ebay and see if I can find a used Hakko.  Until that time I'm gonna either replace my tip, or the iron itself.  I plan on creating a work station in the basement like Chance did here.  Having my tools spread all over our computer room is getting annoying.  And I really don't want to scar up my good computer desk with tool marks and solder burns. 

[PL1]

fire was invented by my next cave neighbor, Trog. A pretty nice guy once you get to know him, even though most cromagons are a real nuisance at the Rock Concerts

I bet he loved this one.



Didn't Bertha live a few blocks over?


Scott

[jdbailey1206]

[lilshawn]

you can just file/sand the tip until you are back to nice metal again. then coat the whole thing in solder. that way your tip will work nicer.

make sure you don't accidentally leave it plugged in, or needlessly leave it on... the tip oxidises fast.

I'm also going to state something that may have been repeated... but since this thread has gone WAY off track and I can't bring myself to read through everything...

make sure you are not using ACID flux (like the kind you would use for pipes) it will eat through your components and traces. use a flux made for electronics... or in a pinch "acid free" flux. Most acid free fluxes are water based, so be sure to thoroughly clean the joint after soldering to remove any trace of flux residue to prevent shorts and/or corrosion later on.

[Monkeyvoodoo]

You crazy kids with all your fancy smancy soldering junkets.
Why in my day, we used a real mans soldering method.
The ole soldering pot and heat your irons in a real fire.

Jennifer listens all wide eyed, Just hang the gun from your Viking horn helmet???... Omg, at least fire had been invented.

Helmet? I don't need no stinking helmet! And yeah fire was invented by my next cave neighbor, Trog. A pretty nice guy once you get to know him, even though most cromagons are a real nuisance at the Rock Concerts, his only vice was howling at the moon, of course back then we all thought the moon was some kind of mystically god in the night sky, so I think he was just airing a few gripes.
 

Don't feel too bad, I started with one of those irons  in shop class.

Although, the school was massively underfunded and out of date now that I think about it 

[Howard_Casto]

you can just file/sand the tip until you are back to nice metal again. then coat the whole thing in solder. that way your tip will work nicer.

Yeah just for the record, I coat the crap out of my tips with every use.  For lots of small repairs you don't even have to get the solder out that way, which is nice. 

[DaOld Man]

Ahhh those videos remind me of the good old days, when men were men and women were glad of it.

[ChadTower]

One important thing I haven't seen mentioned is that whenever possible the joint should be physically secure before you heat it up.  If you're soldering wires then twist them well.  If you're soldering to a switch, wrap the wire around the tab.  You should be able to give the connection a light tug without undoing it.  Once you do that the joint heats up better, the solder flows into the joint better, and the odds of the joint breaking physically are pretty much zero.  Even with components on a PCB it works better if you give the lead on the underside a bit of a bend to hold the part in place while you solder it.

I have a nice Panavise on my bench but honestly I only end up using it if I'm doing something really awkward.  Most of the time I just lay my stuff on a piece of cardboard and get to work. 

I completely agree with the suggestion to practice on old stuff.  Grab anything from the mid 90s or older and practice.  Most stuff newer than that will be too small for decent learning and you don't want to even think about mini devices until you're really good.

[lilshawn]

Dave hilariously posted this today...

[404]

Having been jelly of everyone on here that could solder I decided to give it a go last week.  As I had mentioned in my Fix It Felix build I ended up accidentally busting the male usb head off of the Minimus 32k AVR.  Feeling froggy I ordered 4 male usb heads from digikey.com and got to work.  It was ugly.  I ended up burning up the Minimus 32k AVR and barely got any solder to hold.  And that was just in the hooks connecting the head to the AVR.   

I have two questions.  Most of the area on my soldering tip was not hot.  Does this mean that the iron itself is bad?  I can understand if it is because I got the iron in a cheap kit from Comp USA 15 years ago.  And if my iron is bad can anyone recommend a good one for a newb?

My next question follows:  Does anyone know of anywhere I can get trained in soldering?  I tried the youtube videos but they get me no where.  Just some dude flying through soldering in under a minute repeating "It's just that easy."

Thanks for the help.

I feel like I just wrote a Dear Abbey letter.  I should have titled it Sadness in Soldering.   

Just dropped you a pm with the results of fixing up your minimus.

[SavannahLion]

+1 for Helping Hands. Got a cheap one on Amazon using some leftover gift card points. One thing I did on mine was put heat shrink tubing on the clamp ends to pad the teeth.

Good idea! I'm gonna have to do that one.

I've had mine for I have no idea how many years. I used to use it when building scale models when I used to detail the ultra tiny parts on the spru. It's a little rusty, somewhat funky now and the mirror shattered and went missing ages ago but it's still a permanent fixture on my tool bench. Not once did that idea ever cross my mind and I was just futzing with some resistors that wouldn't stay clamped in the teeth.

Looks like I'm going to do an upgrade on it.