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Soldering Wires – Here's a different way

instructables.com

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Re: Soldering Wires – Here's a different way

#171

Post by gw99 »

linker3000 wrote: post #117
gw99 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s some terrible advice in there which is merely cargo cult thinking. The whole thing needs garbage collecting. The final straw was when I saw someone using a wire brush on a Metcal tip after reading one of these mil spec guides. I was production engineer defence sector for a few years.

Best I saw during my apprenticeship days in the 1980s was when we had some EE degree students on work placement. We worked in R&D and all (Multibus II) boards were hand-soldered and had to be visually inspected by a supervisor before testing. One chap presented his board for checking and, after a visual and touch inspection, our supervisor said that some of the joints were a bit 'pointy' and would need fixing. So off…

Oh just reading that hurts!

Re: Soldering Wires – Here's a different way

#173

Post by gw99 »

buescher wrote: post #120
gw99 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should even really do that. There are loads of nice solder in crimp terminations now that you can use for wires. Or wire to board connectors. Just stay away from any Molex crap. Tends to charcoal itself.

There are some really cool surface mount IDC things too, and push-in terminators for solid wire. Solid wire through holes is OK if the wire is never going to flex. Otherwise the stranded wire lapped to surface mount pads, or soldered into through holes, with a big blob of hot glue or epoxy for maybe-sorta "strain relief" is a great pet peeve of mine - it's ugly and it breaks. Never had a problem with Molex, myself.

It's the .154" Molex stuff that tends to melt after 20 years spontaneously. Not sure what plating they use bit it turns into a power dissipating resistor after a bit which is not good when you're shoving a few amps through it.

Re: Soldering Wires – Here's a different way

#174

Post by gw99 »

buescher wrote: post #112
gw99 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please not the flux over everything argument. This is completely wrong. Buy a decent iron (metcal - get a second hand one off eBay) and some decent solder (felder 62/36/2) and you don’t need it. Also don’t use a toothbrush with isopropyl. They tend to dissolve and leave crap all over the board.

Agreed on the flux, agreed on the metcal. And oh yes, silver bearing solder is really nice. I only use it for repairs of solder joints that have failed mechanically. If you use it for everything, that solves that problem... but a little rich for my blood. Hobbyists and technicians get obsessed with cleaning off flux. Hobbyists have no business cleaning flux off boards. It's very easy to wind up freeing corrosive salt…

Yep. To be honest a lot of stuff we didn't clean flux off professionally. Anything which was solvent safe would be soldered on, the board cleaned, then anything not solvent safe would be soldered on and it'd be left.

Re: Soldering Wires – Here's a different way

#175

Post by gw99 »

thrway3344444 wrote: post #114
gw99 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please not the flux over everything argument. This is completely wrong. Buy a decent iron (metcal - get a second hand one off eBay) and some decent solder (felder 62/36/2) and you don’t need it. Also don’t use a toothbrush with isopropyl. They tend to dissolve and leave crap all over the board.

> Oh please not the flux over everything argument. > felder 62/36/2 Other readers please note that felder 62/36/2 has a flux core. Which isn't clear in this comment.

Yes - I should have clarified that. The extra flux thing is the problem :)

Re: Soldering Wires – Here's a different way

#176

Post by sandreas »

arcticbull wrote: post #124
sandreas wrote: post #20

Oh boy, nice idea, but this looks complicated and time consuming. I recommend to get some good equipment first: - solder fume extractor (see below) - extra thin high quality tin - a desoldering pump AND desoldering wire - high quality flux - a TS 100 soldering Iron with KU tip from ali express for 50 bucks - optional: USB-C Power Adapter for your existing power supply (so you don't have to buy one) - optional: a sold…

The TS100 is apparently not recommended for IronOS according to their README. Curious why you chose that one over, for instance, a recommended TS80P or better a Pinecil V2? Full disclosure: I have a 15 year old Weller WD1 so I don't know much about this.

The TS100 was just the only one of these I could buy for an acceptable price in an acceptable time period. Mine was 35 bucks.

I ordered mine as used device here in Germany. Aliexpress would have taken weeks and Amazon was just to expensive (cheapest about 80 bucks).

Re: Soldering Wires – Here's a different way

#177

Post by squarefoot »

MivLives wrote: post #111
picture wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PineCil looks like a TS100 clone, though I'm not too sure which came first. The huge benefit of these microcontroller irons are their monolithic heating element that integrates the temperature sensor. This allows for much better temperature control compared to cheap Hakko-style irons where the tip is a metal piece that sleeves over the heating and sensing elements. It makes a very meaningful improvement in terms…

TS100 was first. I believe the Pinecil also takes TS100 tips. I've liked the Pinecil except sometimes mine crashes in the middle of me soldering. I need to update the OS but I'm lazy. It does fail cold (Says it's hot but it's not heating) which is probably the better of the two ways it could go.

There have been reports of defective Pinecil batches, this was after I bought mine and before the newer ones were introduced. There are also reports about fakes sold around, which is not a good thing in this case since the original is already very cheap and 100% Open Source, bot hardware and firmware, and fakes are of inferior quality. The defective batches were among the originals though, but it seems they already solved all problems.

Re: Soldering Wires – Here's a different way

#178

Post by squarefoot »

buescher wrote: post #108
squarefoot wrote: post #88

Bad advice. Just use a good solder iron, thin solder (possibly leaded), and good no clean flux, then lots of practice. It's all about timing: too quick = cold solder joint; too slow = burned pad/track, or part. Learn also to understand about thermal mass and how to change the temperature and timings according to what you're soldering and its size. Also, that iron looks like a Hakko "936" cheap clone: they are barely…

I like my Metcal and wouldn't be without it. But by most accounts the '936 clones do fine with real Hakko tips. A lot of technicians seem to like to have temperature knobs so they can dial the temperature around instead of swapping out for an appropriately sized tip: this works of course except when it doesn't.

The problem with Hakko clones aren't just the tips but the handpiece whose thermal contact between the heater and the tip is often unreliable, and the low thermal mass makes it hard to solder bigger tabs without raising the temperature to absurd levels. I swapped 3 hand pieces and two heaters on mine before giving up, reverting for a while to my two 40 years old gun shaped irons (25W and 100W) then getting used Wellers, then finally the Pinecil, which I mostly bought because I wanted to support the Pinephone project, and then revealed itself as a really nice and functional solder iron.

Re: Soldering Wires – Here's a different way

#180

Post by lagrange77 »

mdturnerphys wrote: post #99
lagrange77 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are laser wire strippers? Shut up and take my money.

Here's the one I've used: https://www.laserwiresolutions.com/product/mercury-4/

Cool, i just found this handheld device:

https://www.laselec.com/en/product/portable-laser-wire-strip...

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