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What is something you did for the first time recently?
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this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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Soldering. Anyone who tells you it's easy is wrong. :P
Was soldering a mod board to a Sega Mega Drive, but ended up getting solder on the cpu's contacts and needed to get a second one. And it was a pain getting the wires to bind to the traces.
And yes, I probably was doing everything wrong.
Soldering is easy if you have the right tools. Those old school solder irons with the ceramic element dangling inside a metal tube suck balls. Get yourself a direct heat iron like the pinecil and some flux and it’s SOOOOO much easier.
It sounds like you're talking about Weller style irons and the ones where the part you hold plugs directly into the wall are quite terrible. However, they are an industry standard and most soldering stations will use a Weller tip. I have a knock off Hakko 936 that's like 15 years old now and cost me $25 and it solders like a dream.
I'm talking about all of the older style soldering irons, including like that Hakko. The Pinecil is $25 AND solders better. Once I switched to a direct heat iron I can never go back. The difference is HUGE.
They are closer to $40-60 after shipping, not $25. I have been using a $10 Weller for a lot of years, with proper technique I have never been able to notice a difference in my joints or difficulty in soldering. I prefer my Weller for some jobs because it simply has more thermal mass. Stuff like repairing the connections on a 3D printer hotbed would be impossible with a Pinecil.
I've had tools, teachers, and time.
I can't solder or braze to save my fucking life, but I'll weld circles around you with oxy, stick, mig, or tig.
Doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me
I felt the same the first time I tried but it honestly takes a few tries to start getting it right. The kind of iron and solder matter a lot; the older ceramic core ones suck and the JBC/pinecil type are much superior. Part of the problem with the ceramic type ones is they have one setting - full blast - and not good temperature control. With a pinecil/JBC you can set the temperature to 300C and expect to get 300C. Too hot and it will boil off the flux before you're done soldering and you just get crud.
In terms of solder, leaded rosin core solder is the best. Don't worry about the lead, as long as you wash your hands. Use a brass sponge type thing to clean the tip frequently to remove crud
For through holes, I'd say get some veroboard off eBay and a bunch of cheap resistors and just start plugging away until you get better. Process is basically - have tip with a bit of solder, poke to pad and pin, put solder into joint and hold 1-3 seconds until solder flows onto pad and pin, remove tip. Putting some flux on in advance helps remove the oxides before soldering
For surface mount (side pads/pins), there are kits with cheap/obsolete/trash components you can just plug away at without fear of messing anything up. Soldering smt is a bit annoying but doable by hand without much training. the process is basically: tin one pad, use tweezers to place part and reheat the solder until the part is in place, solder the rest of the pads, reheat first pad to relieve stress.
Even for large parts, I used to have trouble with unsteady hands. If you are doing smt you really need a microscope or magnifying glass for anything smaller than 0805 - really helps with the visual feedback loop for hand positioning. A microscope significantly improved my dexterity and hand steadiness
Soldering is easy like writing is easy. Meaning it's pretty tricky actually, but after you've been doing it every day for years you forget how hard it was to learn.
Source: I'm actually pretty terrible at it, I have soldered stuff over the years but very rarely and never developed the skill. I got good enough to be able to say "I can solder" and I am confident enough to make attempts at tricky stuff, but I expect many failures along the way. Still, even with that it's easy to feel how more regular practice makes it feel like second nature.
I had to solder in design and technology in secondary school. I have dyspraxia which is a disability which affects hand eye coordination so it was bitch to solder.
I feel your pain. I just soldered my first solder adding an arcade joystick button as a killswitch on my guitar. It was not nearly as precise as soldering a board and it was still a PITA. Us humans just don't have enough hands.