Yesterday morning, @hackaday posted the following on Twitter:
What was the one thing you learned that would change the way you solder forever more?
Here are some of the replies:
- Don’t use cheap soldering irons. A good one is not too expensive, and it a makes a great difference and makes it easier to learn how to solder.
- Use quality equipment.
- Get a temperature-controlled iron with as much wattage as you can afford.
- Chisel tip.
- Tip tinner.
- Use a fume extractor or fan.
- Get a magnifying lamp.
- Get multiple tips. There’s one for every job, and some are better suited than others for those tasks. Pencil-tips will only get you so far!
- Use good quality solder. Use leaded solder, if possible.
- Use 60/40 (tin/lead) solder. Much easier to work with than unleaded.
- Use thinner solder.
- Flux and plenty of it.
- Flux. If it isn’t working? Flux. Trying to get rid of excess solder? Flux. Soldering header pins? Flux. Trying to get a TQFP on a breakout board? You guessed it! Flux!
- Get some gel flux. Aside from the benefits that flux provides, the viscosity/tackiness of the gel helps hold components in place, especially if you’re hand soldering surface mount stuff.
- Keep it clean.
- Use a brass cleaner instead of a sponge for cleaning the iron tip.
- Heat the whole joint, not just the pins.
- Use a little solder on the iron tip to conduct heat onto the board.
- Heat the pad enough before applying solder.
- Put some solder on your iron before soldering. Solder conducts heat much better than air.
- Learn to use wicking braid.
- Invest in a good quality hand-held desoldering pump or desoldering station if you’re going to be doing a lot of repair or rework.’
You’ll find all the replies at https://twitter.com/hackaday/status/1430113280735936512.
Dave New, N8SBE says
Can’t emphasize enough the first point about getting a quality temperature-controlled soldering station. It’s not enough to just have a temperature ‘control’, it needs to be a closed feedback circuit that can hold the temperature to within a few degrees and that needs enough thermal mass and wattage to be able to perform that duty reliably.
A few years ago, I ended up doing a build-a-thon at Dayton and I didn’t have my home shack soldering station with me, so I bought a cheap one for $20 at a local flea market vendor. It was absolutely horrible, and I had to finish my build by borrowing a spare decent soldering station at the build-a-thon.
Next time, I got a really nice, compact station for a little over $100 from a much better vendor (EAE Sales), a refurbished station that has worked flawlessly.
Lesson learned – DON”T CHEAP UP ON YOUR SOLDERING STATION – It’s just not worth it,