UTMonkey said:
Hi All,
After loads of tinkering with my JuneBug and my breadboard I decided to do have a go at soldering a project together.
Let's just say soldering is definitely a skill which I definitely don't have.
This is one aspect of electronics I am NOT enjoying.
Any tips? (not soldering irons!!)
Mark
Hard to say without more information on what's going wrong, but here are some basics:
1) Clean the parts first. This is close to the most important thing you can do. Copper develops oxide when exposed to air, and this oxide has a much higher heat resistance than the copper itself. Take a second to give each part to be soldered a quick rub with light sandpaper or similar before hitting it with the iron.
2) Make sure you have a clean and tinned soldering iron tip. Use a dampened sponge (not a plastic one) to give the iron a quick rub before making a solder. General rule: clean the tip before soldering a joint, but not after--you want a bit of solder left on the tip between uses to protect the tip from oxidizing in air. Some parts (especially the ends of stripped wires which you are splicing) will also benefit from being cleaned and tinned before soldering them together. Some (all?) component leads these days (for through-hole stuff anyway) seem to come pre-tinned--at least, I've never had to pre-tin them.
3) Put the parts to be soldered together the way you want them to end up, and then heat the joint for a second or two with a firm application of the iron tip before applying solder to the joint. Don't melt the solder with the iron tip, but rather heat the joint, apply the solder to the joint (while still heating the joint) and let the heat in the joint melt the solder until it flows into and around the joint. This whole process should take just 2-5 seconds per joint (usually). You will find that you often have two parts of significantly different masses to be soldered together (say, a low-mass component lead needs to be soldered to a relatively high-mass copper trace or plane). In such cases you will need to channel more heat into the larger mass to bring it to the same temperature as the smaller lead. It might take a while but you'll get the hang of it. You'll find that with pre-tinned parts and component leads you can actually see when it's hit the right temperature: the appearance of the surface of the lead will suddenly change textures, sweeping out from where the heat is being applied. It's a bit hard to explain but you will know it when you see it. Just be careful not to overheat your components, especially semiconductors!
4) Don't apply too much heat to a solder pad on a PCB, or you can delaminate it and the pad will just lift off the board altogether. Then you have to make a tricky patch with a small length of wire.
5) Practice. Then practice some more.
6) Use something (like a
**broken link removed**) to hold your work pieces steady so you have both hands free to hold the iron and solder. Makes a world of difference.
There is more information on sites like
this one; google "soldering tutorial" for lots more hits.
Keep at it and good luck! You'll get the hang of it in no time.
Torben