Love-hate relationship here. I make and fly drones as a hobby (mostly build-since around July last year, 98% of the times, when weekends come, it's always raining). While soldering can be fun, I hate soldering big, fat cables on large pads, it's just so tedious, even with a powerful soldering iron.
I hate soldering
91–100 of 244 posts
Re: I hate soldering
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
With you overall, but given the toxicity of the fumes some quality / rated fume extraction might be the one area where cheap/self made item isn't worth it
If you're doing it a lot, then it's definitely worth making sure it works properly. If you're doing it occasionally, just make sure the area is well ventilated and you're not outright inhaling the fumes coming off the solder, and it's not likely to make any real difference to the health of your lungs.
Re: I hate soldering
#93Some nice Schlieren photography on show here too [0]. Also seen on John Martyn's Solid Air [1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieren_photography [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_Air
Re: I hate soldering
#94I 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…
How well does the pump work? A couple times I've had to desolder a connector or IC with lots of pins from a PCB and it's a painful process. I've always wanted to buy one of those, but I've seen lots of reports about getting clogged easily.
I rarely desolder, but I can easily justify a hundred bucks if I can avoid all that hours of work, where I'm also risking damaging an IC, lifting a pad, or something else...
Re: I hate soldering
#95Whatever happened to wire wrapping? That used to be a viable alternative.
It only works for thru-hole parts and the special wire-wrap sockets you needed to do it properly got expensive (and are no longer in production).
Re: I hate soldering
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-s…
This is what JBC's marketing claims: https://www.jbctools.com/top10.html
Though from looking at some of the chatter about it online, this is only one specific tip they make under ideal conditions, and it seems like often they overshoot the temperature by more than a little on warmup (though this will be the slowest to recover with the tip just held in air as opposed to when actually soldering). Either way, I've used similar products and this kind of speed isn't a crazy suggestion to me.
Re: I hate soldering
#97For anyone thinking about learning to solder, there are several levels of what you can do with a soldering iron. The surface-mount stuff and ovens and microscopes, that's like level 3.
Level 1 is just being able to take two wires and connect them, reliably and cleanly. That's already immensely useful and requires very little skill and equipment. $50 gets you a nice soldering pen, another $50 gets you some tweezers, some flux and a roll of solder and you're set. Work near an open window and have a desk fan blow the fumes away from you, and you're already being more responsible than most people.
Level 2 is something like through-hole soldering, soldering wires to pads, the kind of stuff you'd do working with ESP32, building RC cars, FPV drones or custom IoT devices. Still easy to learn, just a few simple rules. Work quickly, know when to give up and let things cool down. Avoid touching the expensive e-ink display with your soldering iron. Get something better for fume extraction, spend 10 hours soldering and bam, you're better at soldering than literally 99% people out there, you can build and repair all kinds of stuff. This is where most of the cool YouTube stuff happens, your rctestflight and Tom Stanton and Stuff Made Here and Styropyro. You can do most of that with $300-$800 worth of gear, depending on how brave you are.
And then you can worry about SMDs and reflowing and other arcane stuff, or decide that you probably won't need it.
Re: I hate soldering
#98For anyone thinking about learning to solder, there are several levels of what you can do with a soldering iron. The surface-mount stuff and ovens and microscopes, that's like level 3. Level 1 is just being able to take two wires and connect them, reliably and cleanly. That's already immensely useful and requires very little skill and equipment. $50 gets you a nice soldering pen, another $50 gets you some tweezers, s…
I do a lot of SMD rework and TBH soldering two wires together cleanly can still be a bigger pain in the backside. It's different, but not necessarily much more difficult (until you get to footprints like QFNs and BGAs where you can't see the pads at all, at least).
Re: I hate soldering
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try rosin flux, it smells actually pleasant! A lot of initial soldering mistakes are from using incorrect temperature, not cleaning the surfaces with flux, or from using wrong tips. You do get better rather quickly, especially if you ask for help!
I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I have given up. Maybe it will inspire another reader. I didn't write it to discourage others, but to underline that sometimes, defeat is OK to admit, rather than keep trying. I mean, a smell is temporary unpleasant but what happened to my health here? I am a former smoker, so I guess damage was previously done there. This specific iron is a portable one (I had it hooked up on a power…
Toys like the TS100 are not what people think they are, and tend to cause more harm than good.
Thermal mass is important, please have a look at my other post for a recommended tutorial set. Silver based solders like SAC305 will also stick to most plated pin types.
Sometimes people are given a BS fools errand, and convince themselves there is some hidden secret to workmanship. You would have been better off with a $25 30W Weller iron and $7 flux+Wick kit off Amazon for through-hole style PCB kits. =3
Re: I hate soldering
#100I 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…
Not just those things but the biggest helper of all: a set of helping hands.
Dios mio, what an absolute pain soldering is without something holding everything in place. It's literally a night and day purchase.