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I hate soldering

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Re: I hate soldering

#51

Post by Animats »

birdsongs wrote: post #50
joshmarinacci wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you buy your populated boards from? I want to make a small in and not deal with SMT at all.

I use jlcpcb, they're common in the prototype and hobby domains. But there's quite a few board houses in taiwan and china that do this, definitely shop around. The annoying part is getting the bom and component placement files correct. I use kicad since it's free, and there's solid instructions from most houses on what they need.

JLBPCB does small runs cheap as a loss leader, so they get the production runs, if any, later. Also, they get to see what people are doing, in case something interesting goes by.

There's also a suspicion that JLBPCB may be encouraged to do this by the Party, to discourage other countries from maintaining an independent prototyping capability.

Re: I hate soldering

#52

Post by dtgriscom »

summa_tech wrote: post #20
peteforde wrote: post #5

I had to click, because it turns out that I love soldering. It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too. For anyone reading, the key is to invest in a proper stereo microscope and a decent fume extractor. I recommend this one: https://www.strangeparts.com/a-boy-and-his-microscope-a-love... If you're up for a bi…

If you don't have space for a microscope, you can also get yourself the long-range (~400mm) 2.5-3.5x magnifiers that you may have seen your dentist wear. They're easily available on Amazon, not too expensive, and comfortable for hours of wearing. These are 2-element lenses that work really well. Higher magnification variants (8x etc) are not nearly as comfy. They get quite long, heavy and expensive. I tried them and…

I have a Donegan DA-5 OptiVisor Headband Magnifier. They're nice, because the lenses are prism'd so that you can focus on something close without having to go cross-eyed.

Re: I hate soldering

#53

Post by opan »

bityard wrote: post #39
TacticalCoder wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too. I don't know. I've got my station, not a bad one: bought it with the help of a buddy who's very good at soldering. He tried to show me. I've got no choice: I own an old vintage arcade cab from the mid 80s and it's located in the middle of nowhere, in a rural area.…

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but if all of your soldering experience is from parts that came out of a 40 year-old arcade cabinet, don't beat yourself up: that is definitely what I would call soldering in hard mode. Depending on where it lived, everything in it is probably oxidized, corroded and covered in dust, cigarette tar, and possibly cooking oil. Even if you can't see/smell any of it, it's still t…

Will second this. When modding Xbox 360s, I used MrMario's guides and he would say repeatedly "clean, flux, tin", kinda stuck in my head. I did also tend to just clean the whole board while it was apart, but especially the point you're about to solder should be clean.

I have never used sandpaper on electronics, but I perhaps similarly use a fiberglass pen. Total game changer for getting old cartridge pins to read again for SNES and GBA games and such. Highly recommend picking one up.

Re: I hate soldering

#54

Post by pclark »

Any tips on how to improve soldering? I just started learning electronics, it’s so fun with Claude doing the code for the device.

Re: I hate soldering

#56

Post by Aurornis »

Animats wrote: post #21

He's soldering like it's fifty years ago. Everything is lead-free surface mount now. Solder paste, stencils, reflow ovens. Hand soldering is precision temperature controlled irons, hot air rework stations, magnifiers, cameras, and exhaust fans. The tools are more complicated, more expensive, and better. One of the lessons of surface mount work is that you really can move your fingers a thousandth of an inch. But you…

> Everything is lead-free

Leaded solder is easier to work with for personal projects. Careful hand washing and handling is required, but it's easy.

I also recommend people go to surface mount, but I don't recommend beginners immediately go for expensive microscopes and reflow ovens. Stick to 0806 components or larger to start and you can populate a board without any binocular microscope or magnification as long as your eyesight isn't too bad. I can populate 0402 components without magnification all day long.

For small boards, reflow on one of those cheap hot plates. They're small enough to back in the drawer when you're done.

Surface mount doesn't have to be hard or expensive, unless you're doing designs with ICs that come in very fine pitch packages.

Re: I hate soldering

#57

Post by jrumbut »

stavros wrote: post #40
summa_tech wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have space for a microscope, you can also get yourself the long-range (~400mm) 2.5-3.5x magnifiers that you may have seen your dentist wear. They're easily available on Amazon, not too expensive, and comfortable for hours of wearing. These are 2-element lenses that work really well. Higher magnification variants (8x etc) are not nearly as comfy. They get quite long, heavy and expensive. I tried them and…

This is a great tip, I use a loupe and it works amazingly well. Cost maybe $10?

Oh yeah, I'm sure that $300 microscope comes in handy but a cheap loupe gets you started. I've found all sorts of other uses for it too.

Re: I hate soldering

#58

Post by sandreas »

peteforde wrote: post #5

I had to click, because it turns out that I love soldering. It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too. For anyone reading, the key is to invest in a proper stereo microscope and a decent fume extractor. I recommend this one: https://www.strangeparts.com/a-boy-and-his-microscope-a-love... If you're up for a bi…

Starting with soldering, I find these 200$+ recommendations (regardless of which tool) hard to justify.

# Soldering iron

I'd recommend the Pinecil V2 with IronOS. https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS

# Solder fume extraction

I've built a simple fume extraction with an old plastic case, a 120mm fan and a sheet of carbon filter attached to a 120mm dryer / air conditioning hose. Around 15$ and good enough for soldering from time to time.

# "Microscope"

I simply use a strong (10x) magnifier glass with a LED ring (around 15$ on Amazon). I can't tell you how often I also used this thing for other purposes.

# Desoldering Pump

Because I needed it (beginners won't) I bought a ZD-8965 for 100 bucks and I'm very happy with this thing.

I have whole list of cheap beginner to intermediate equipment, that'll do until you solder (semi) professionally.

Re: I hate soldering

#59

Post by ssl-3 »

wrs wrote: post #15
erwincoumans wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on stereo microscope, also suggest flux and a good iron with exchangeable tips and hot tweezers (I enjoy the Hakko).

The new breed of irons with temperature measurement built into the tip (invented by JBC, cloned by Geeboon and similar) is amazing. The tip heats to exactly the temp you want in 3 seconds, then cools down to avoid damage when you put it back in the stand. As you solder, the power is automatically controlled to keep the tip at the specified temp regardless of the load you put on it. I never thought I'd replace the Wel…

It heats to exactly the temperature I want in 3 seconds? Is there evidence to support this claim?

(My bullshit detector is making some rather profound gurgling sounds.)

edit: Seriously, my dudes. Links, or it never happened. Anecdotes are just anecdotes. Anecdotally, my soldering iron heats up very quickly as well and I'm very pleased with this, but I'm not making a claim that it heats to an exact, unspecified user-selected temperature in 3 seconds. If you want to present a benchmark, then please present the bench -- with the mark.

Re: I hate soldering

#60

Post by userbinator »

billfor wrote: post #14

I hate to say I love the fumes - that rosin smell is unique. Did many soldering projects in an enclosed area back when I was a kid. Everyone worked that way years ago. I wonder if the fumes kill more people than being neurotic about the fumes.

It probably varies; some people are allegic to rosin, some develop an allergy from long-term exposure, and others seem to effectively be immune to it.
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