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Soldering is easy - 7 page comic book about how to solder

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Re: Soldering is easy - 7 page comic book about how to solder

#21

Post by calloc »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #19
calloc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't inhale solder and flux fumes ... you end up coughing up a lung or two, and if you do inhale enough of it (i've got some stupid friends) then your poop may turn black for a day or two. In other words, make sure you have some way of moving the fumes out of your workspace, preferably having a wide open area, and or a fume extractor (Weller makes a great one).

Not sure what flux is that. I use pure rosin (colophony, Greek pitch - it's just solid pine sap) exclusively, never used anything else, and it's not nearly as bad. It's no different from incense in any way. One reason to stick to colophony is that I kind of like the smell. Incense-smelling clothes and hair were a staple of my teen years. :) With proper technique, rosin is highly effective as flux. Once I did a trial…

I don't know exactly what the stuff was, we had it at uni. You inhaled the smoke and you instantly started coughing, it was bad...

Re: Soldering is easy - 7 page comic book about how to solder

#23

Post by tesseract »

calloc wrote: post #21
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what flux is that. I use pure rosin (colophony, Greek pitch - it's just solid pine sap) exclusively, never used anything else, and it's not nearly as bad. It's no different from incense in any way. One reason to stick to colophony is that I kind of like the smell. Incense-smelling clothes and hair were a staple of my teen years. :) With proper technique, rosin is highly effective as flux. Once I did a trial…

I don't know exactly what the stuff was, we had it at uni. You inhaled the smoke and you instantly started coughing, it was bad...

I've found that the newer no-clean and water-based fluxes give off some fairly nasty fumes. Rosin flux unless it's a very heavily activated type doesn't really bother me, although if I had a job that exposed me to it regularly I might start to worry about long term issues.

Re: Soldering is easy - 7 page comic book about how to solder

#24

Post by gamble »

Great little guide.

One thing that's rarely mentioned in soldering tutorials is temperature. With good temperature-controlled soldering stations like the Weller WES51 available for I put this question to one of the EE lab instructors at my university. Their choice is 700-750F for standard 60/40 solder. I use 750F at home with good results.

You need higher temperatures for lead-free solders, which is one of the reasons I avoid them.

Re: Soldering is easy - 7 page comic book about how to solder

#25

Post by gamble »

Natsu wrote: post #11

There's no mention of using desoldering braid (or even the suction bulbs) to fix bad joints? Sorry, but I don't like the "whack the circuit board on the table" method. Once you get used to doing it right, desoldering braid is awesome. I never did get the hang of those squeeze bulbs, though. The braid was always so much easier to use.

Yeah, I cringed at that part too.

The trick with desoldering is that sometimes you need to add more solder before you can remove it. If a joint won't desolder, the easiest solution is to add a bit more solder until it balls up, then suck it all away with a spring-loaded solder pump.

I find desoldering braid a bit tricker, but the secret there is to prime the braid with a bit of solder to improve heat transfer before holding it to the joint.

Re: Soldering is easy - 7 page comic book about how to solder

#26

Post by blahblahblah »

A couple other pointers.

1) Always tin the tip before soldering and tin it again before you put the soldering iron in the stand. This prevents oxidation of the tip.

2) Put some flux on the joint before soldering or desoldering. Always use a flux made for electronics, not the kind used for plumbing.

3) If the tip of the iron gets too much oxidation on it, you can generally restore the tip (do this when the tip is cold) by putting a bit of ammonia-based brass or silver polish on it and scrubbing it a bit with some steel wool and then wiping with a clean rag.

4) Whenever working with wire leads, tin the wires first before setting up the joint.

Re: Soldering is easy - 7 page comic book about how to solder

#27

Post by chaffneue »

It's a fun guide, but a couple of things irk me. Bending the leads out is a serious no-no - makes it very hard to desolder the component. if there are a lot of components, it' better to solder them in by height, so you can allow tricky parts like diodes, resistors and inductors to rest face down on the table/workstation pad. I think that the things sticking out of ics and semiconductors are usually "pins" not leads. Banging a board on the table can chip the board or get you burned by molten metal... it's better for the entire job to clean the pads of solder with a vacuum tool or desolder braid. Holding your hand over the excess while side cutting is going to hurt and having slivers of tin, copper, nickel and lead in your palm ain't worth it. They should have also had a little aside about wattage as starting with a 45 watt pencil iron is going to suck.

Re: Soldering is easy - 7 page comic book about how to solder

#28

Post by RevRal »

I feel really stupid about a mistake I made recently while soldering, and this is extremely obvious: don't get cocky about where you're soldering.

I've been soldering for years, and just once I thought "you know, I'll just solder right here on the carpet. I'll be careful not to knock the iron over," instead of moving to my work desk. I melted a hole in the carpet.

Re: Soldering is easy - 7 page comic book about how to solder

#29

Post by woadwarrior01 »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #19
calloc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't inhale solder and flux fumes ... you end up coughing up a lung or two, and if you do inhale enough of it (i've got some stupid friends) then your poop may turn black for a day or two. In other words, make sure you have some way of moving the fumes out of your workspace, preferably having a wide open area, and or a fume extractor (Weller makes a great one).

Not sure what flux is that. I use pure rosin (colophony, Greek pitch - it's just solid pine sap) exclusively, never used anything else, and it's not nearly as bad. It's no different from incense in any way. One reason to stick to colophony is that I kind of like the smell. Incense-smelling clothes and hair were a staple of my teen years. :) With proper technique, rosin is highly effective as flux. Once I did a trial…

Rosin works really well as a flux. I learnt it from my dad, who always used to have a lump of rosin on his workbench to clean the soldering bit.

Re: Soldering is easy - 7 page comic book about how to solder

#30

Post by Natsu »

Symmetry wrote: post #20
Natsu wrote: post #11

There's no mention of using desoldering braid (or even the suction bulbs) to fix bad joints? Sorry, but I don't like the "whack the circuit board on the table" method. Once you get used to doing it right, desoldering braid is awesome. I never did get the hang of those squeeze bulbs, though. The braid was always so much easier to use.

They're keeping it simple. No mention of microscopes, dental tools, hot air guns, flux pens, or solder paste either. But yeah, I'm not sure I'd try his desoldering method either.

I wouldn't complain if they didn't mention desoldering at all. But they do mention it and they only give one method for it, as if that's the only way to do it!

I've actually done more desoldering than soldering and I would have gone crazy if I had tried to do it that way. I find braid to be the easiest method by far, but that's just personal preference. I'm sure there are people other than me who can get the suction devices to work well and who don't have to buy braid all the time.

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