I was also wondering about soldering. I have done a fair bit of it now, and it seems like somestimes I get a good connection and other times I dont. However, whenever I do get the minimal amount of solder onto the wire and the board it works fine. The joint doesnt look cold, even though not all hte braided wires may be covered with solder, or the solder is completely flat along the pc board. I have read a bunch of books on soldering, and alot of them warn about cold joints, whiskers causing shorts, but few actually talk about sloppy soldering. If you soldre a joint sloppily, can it cause increased resistances and drop in voltage?