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Ask HN: Resources to get good at soldering?

• anotherhue 12d ago
  This guy's youtube videos are, IMO, incredible: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw4EJfQf0KJXCyQ5qiNlcUg/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw4EJfQf0KJXCyQ5qiNlcUg/vid...
• lrasinen 12d ago
  I'm going to put in a good word for the SN100C / Sn100+ / SnCuNiGe lead-free solder. It's been my go-to for the past 8 years or so, and it flows almost as nicely as leaded.
• JohnFen 15d ago
  You don't need any real educational resources to get good at soldering. Any random primer will do. It's genuinely a simple task that doesn't require a lot of explanation or have a lot of tricks. What gets you good at soldering is just practice. Solder a lot. A fun and easy way to do this is to pick up those cheap ($5 or less) electronic solder-it-yourself kits and do a bunch of them. Include ones that contain small surface mount parts. You can also practice desoldering on them, or pick up broken electronics and desolder parts from those. > managed to desolder and resolder a stick but the controller doesn't turn on anymore. There's a chance to practice repair (which is a completely different topic from soldering)! Odds are very high the problem is that you've made an unwanted solder bridge or you have a cold solder joint.
  • brudgers 14d ago
    Or both.
  • ylynbuilds 14d ago
    Seconding the practice-kit thing, but for the dead DS4 specifically: before you go hunting the joint you reworked, check whether you lifted a pad or cooked a via near the stick. On those boards the stick pins sit right next to thin traces and a hot iron parked too long will pull the pad up with the pin. Easiest check is continuity from each stick pin to wherever the trace lands, and check 3.3V is present with it plugged in - if the rail is gone you probably bridged something, not broken the stick. Other thing that got me: no-clean flux residue plus a cheap iron with a bad ground can look like a dead board when it's just leakage. Clean it with IPA and a brush and retest before desoldering anything else.
  • Retr0id 12d ago
    I find watching videos of other people soldering is almost as good as practicing myself.
    • kube-system 12d ago
      I get frustrated watching soldering videos online because there are a lot of videos online of people who are really bad at soldering.
      • Retr0id 12d ago
        This is why I watch videos of challenging repairs, it would be impossible to succeed without being good at soldering.
  • Animats 12d ago
    > repair (which is a completely different topic from soldering) Yes. There's repair, rework, build and debugging. Repair is mostly diagnosis, followed by cleaning and repair of mechanical damage. ICs themselves don't fail much. That's what the original poster is doing. Rework is mostly careful desoldering followed by new component installation. That's when hot-air rework stations are needed, if you have to replace ICs. This is a "use the right tool for the job" task, where you have little metal heat gun air guides for each IC shape. (I have a bag of those things.) Building, where you start with a blank board and a supply of components, all with a known-to-work design, is just small scale manufacturing. It takes some skill and training, but the process is simple and repetitive. It's automated in production shops. Debugging of new board designs requires not just soldering tools but the test equipment to test the thing and an understanding of how it works. This is what electrical engineers and technicians do.
  • bumby 11d ago
    >It's genuinely a simple task Eh…like the saying goes “there are levels to this sh*t” If you just want to play around as a hobbyist, sure, it can be treated as a simple task. But if you’re working on, say, space avionics it is much more detailed and complex.
• deleted 14d ago
  [deleted]
• mikewarot 14d ago
  My late friend Ward was a strong supporter of Build-a-Blinkie[1] and their mission to teach people to solder by doing. My friend Jim's been soldering since the 1950s. We solder a lot of things with leads, for this, his method is to get each item to be joined tinned, then use solder as a mechanical joint. Melt in the solder, remove the iron but hold them together, then once cool, tug on the joint to make sure it holds. [1] https://build-a-blinkie.org/events.php https://build-a-blinkie.org/events.php
• cottonseed 14d ago
  Get a soldering practice kit. If you're doing surface mount, get a SMD one. For next level practice, checkout azonenberg's rework challenge: https://github.com/azonenberg/reworkctf https://github.com/azonenberg/reworkctf. He also has some YouTube video about it.
  • Animats 12d ago
    Right. Search "surface mount soldering practice kit". For about $4, you get a board and some parts to practice on. Get a few of those kits, and keep doing them until the result looks really good. I went through about three of those before I attempted anything real. You really do need all those little tools, plus a good soldering station, and possibly a hot-air rework station. Get a smoke extractor fan. Learn to use lead-free solder with a small silver component. That gets the melting point down. Visit a place that repairs cell phones and see what they have.
• half_fish 14d ago
  This gives me flashbacks to the last time I tried to replace the microswitches in my mouse... After I finished, the right click felt like it was 'glued down' or 'stuck'... I never heard the click sound again... Yep, it was broken. I've decided never to solder anything ever again... But good luck to you!
  • readme 12d ago
    you attempted a skilled technique without practice, you were surprised when you screwed it up, and then you quit this is not a good pattern!
• roland35 14d ago
  With the correct tools and materials soldering can be very easy or with the wrong tools very difficult! There are probably some great videos on soldering on YouTube, luckily it's a mature field so not much has changed! Some random tips... Lead solder is easier to work with, but with lead free make sure you are using the right flux and temperature. It helps to preheat things as much as you can. You want to have a hot pad and hot lead, then add solder to that. As opposed to putting a blob of solder on the iron and trying to apply it like glue. Too much heat can damage the board or part of course. Use the right tips. Fatter tips can help more evenly apply heat. If there is a lot of copper like a ground plane, it can take longer to heat. Watch for cold joints! Just overall think about getting the parts you want solder on hot, touch solder to it, remove heat. Don't eat it!
  • eternityforest 12d ago
    The important thing with lead free is you're not looking for the color or texture when inspecting, you're looking for the shape, and absence of any tiny seam or cracks. It's probably not gonna be 100% shiny, that's fine, it just has to wet effectively instead of just kind of hovering in a blob. Lead free is the only thing I use unless I'm repairing some old pre rohs era thing I guess, but I generally don't encounter many of those.
• zachlatta 14d ago
  For teens ages 13-18, Hack Club is running a free grant program to help kids learn to solder! They can sign up and get a free kit from us at https://solder.hackclub.com/ https://solder.hackclub.com/
• sandreas 14d ago
  While soldering is not that hard, different tasks require different tools. Most of them can be from very cheap to very expensive. As a beginner I'd recommend the following: A small USB-C soldering iron supported by IronOS[1], e.g. Pinecil vor TS100 A solid stand with brass wool A KU soldering tip (looks a bit like a knife) for good heat transfer, too small tips are not good Thin (<=0.5mm) solder wire No clean flux (not a pen) Isopropyl alcohol Solder fume extractor (DIY is OK, if you're building it right) is good for your health Solder mat (blue silicone) Multimeter (not too cheap, around 20 bucks) Self closing tweezers Normal tweezers A wirecutter (blue 5 bucks from ali express) Manual Desoldering pump (engineer ss03 or a clone for cheaper) Most important is cleaning (alcohol, then flux) and heat transfer (tin your tip, your pads or your wire before putting things together to ensure good heat transfer). Cleanup nicely and tin your tip after soldering to prevent corrosion. Optional but helpful for more professional tasks: Hot air station Auto Desoldering pump (ZD-8965) Adjustable power supply (fnirsi usbc, 30 bucks) Oscilloscope (mini beginner with display Cost around 30 bucks) Capton tape Solid Copper wire 1: https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS
  • le-mark 12d ago
    > Oscilloscope (mini beginner with display Cost around 30 bucks) Any recommendations for this?
    • sandreas 11d ago
      FNIRSI 2C53T for more serious work ZEEWEII DSO154Pro to go as cheap as possible for something that is roughly useful
      • xandrius 11d ago
        And in between? Also what would I really need it for? I mainly do ESP circuits and stuff like that, would I ever need anything other than a multimeter if your opinion?
        • ansgri 11d ago
• tosmatos 13d ago
  Thanks for the tips everyone, I'm motivated now !
• radicalbyte 12d ago
  You can buy a whole lot of practise kits on Amazon. Start with push-through components and move on to surface-mount if you fancy that. I'd recommend checking out one of the many youtube channels who do repairs for an idea of the tools and stuff you need. Many have links and most use similar tools. For $300 in tools from AliExpress you can have a pretty complete setup.
• neom 12d ago
  This guy does a lot of videos about what you're trying to do, and explains what he is doing and why: https://www.youtube.com/@JoeyDoesTech https://www.youtube.com/@JoeyDoesTech
• scarecrowbob 12d ago
  I'll also echo the "practice kit" thing, especially for desoldering- solder stuff on, take it off, do it agin. Also, good tools and supplies- kester solder and liquid flux. It took me quite a while to figure out that my preferences are for desoldering braid that's been soaked with liquid flux- if I use a manual pump it's going to be rough. I am hoping to get a hot air station at some point but I haven't been doing enough work to justify it over my ancient hakko.
• rlue 12d ago
  Here’s a great series from Pace Electronics from 1980: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837&si=srD8Ei3o5SJFDJTd https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837&si=srD8... I have not found a modern resource that explains it better.
  • qntty 12d ago
    Second this, I learned to solder in my EE program and didn't discover these videos until I was done. I wished I had watched them sooner.
• axegon_ 12d ago
  I picked up the skill from my granddad when I was a kid. Yeah, 6 year old with a soldering iron, what could go wrong, right? Welcome to eastern Europe. There are really 2 things: good soldering iron(and soldering helping hands kit) and practice. Which takes me to one of my hobbies: drones. Look up a kit called Diatone Mamba soldering practice board. They cost 2-3 bucks, get 10 and you'll get the hang of it in a few hours. Oh and a fume extractor(any old pc fan will do).
• sciencesama 12d ago
  know that unleaded solder needs higher temps to melt and heat both the joint and the plate a little to have a good fix !
• FLeXMurphy 12d ago
  Hi tosmatos, Please have a look at PACE soldering/desoldering videos on youtube. They are dated but very good in general. You don't need a lot of videos, just the basics. https://paceworldwide.com/video/basic-soldering-lesson-1-solder-flux https://paceworldwide.com/video/basic-soldering-lesson-1-sol... You don't need to spend a lot of money so I'll keep it simple: Get yourself a few kits of SMD soldering components and practice. Amazon, AliExpress, whatever. Some notes on technique: You will be surprised at the tip size that works well - usually slightly larger is actually better, just need to get comfortable with the angle and size. Have a magnifying lamp or something like that to help you see better. You should always use alcohol (70-99% IPA) and flux. Clean everything properly, then flux it, then solder it. Then clean after you're done. Have a few flux pens on hand. MG Chemicals sells these things. You can also get the bottle version and some empty bottles with syringes that mount on top. Using a "shoe" iron tip is nice because you can angle it between the lead of the component (through-hole) and the pad, and this gives you a little entry way for your solder to flow. The flowing, hot solder will then naturally heat up the rest of the pad. This is a thermal mass effect. The alternative of having the iron tip on one side of the lead, and the solder wire on the other is not bad either. This makes the solder "flow" across the pad, but it does mean you don't get the thermal mass effect of the first approach. You may need to do this in tighter spaces. Regulate temperature wisely. For through-hole components, most often the hole itself is plated so it is a double-sided pad, give it an extra 0.5-1s for the solder to go to the other side appropriately. Make sure you have small wire cutters and nose pliers. The nose pliers are very handy when you need to shape the leads of transistors or chips that have 4-5 legs exactly to the through-hole positioning. Not usual, but not uncommon to see staggered layout. You will make mistakes. You won't know what you are doing because no amount of tutorials can help here. We have all busted boards for various reasons. Just don't electrocute yourself on high voltage capacitor banks.
  • agumonkey 11d ago
    I love their videos (came to suggest them actually). That said today's devices are more SMD and microsoldering.. but the metallurgy/chemistry/technical knowledge in PACE videos is helpful nonetheless.
• jrflo 12d ago
  FYI you're trying to repair surface-mounted components by hand, that's pretty tricky. Most hand soldering is done with through hole components, not surface mounted. Not to say it can't be done, but you're starting on hard mode for sure.
  • readme 12d ago
    I've taught people to start with surface mount before. It's really worse depending on what you're soldering. A lot of people doing hardware hacking will get tons of mileage just out of being able to solder on a chip with a soic-8 package. That's easy enough that you can learn it on day 1.
• severino 12d ago
  For me, as there are so many "variables" when soldering, the most difficult thing is knowing what's wrong. For example, you end up with a poor soldering. You try again, and again, but it doesn't get better. Maybe only worse. But what was wrong? - Was the temperature OK? (And is my iron reporting the real temperature? Should I spend another 300 bucks in a soldering tip thermometer?) - Maybe the solder I bought is not appropriate? - Was it the flux? Did I apply it correctly? - Also, is this tip the best one for the job? Besides, I could have damaged it before when trying to solder and it's not good anymore, although looks good to me - Or my technique isn't good enough. Am I drag soldering this right? Maybe I should apply heat for longer? But what if I damage the component?
• mcshicks 12d ago
  This set of videos from eevblog worked for me. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Sb21qbpEQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Sb21qbpEQ
• zhrvoj 12d ago
  If you need to remove components with many pads, like connectors, it can be daunting without Low Temp Solder Wire. Chip Quik. Btw, I use acetone for cleaning PCBA's, and actually almost every day, and right now, in a professional R&D lab. Residues of soldering wire, after SMT component removal, before new component gets in - it goes away with cotton bud soaked in ace in a few strokes. Never destroyed anything in my whole professional life, 35+ years now, working in consumer and industrial PCBA repair service. Isopropyl works of course, but slowly, and not so clean pcb stays. Depending on the type of soldering wire. I never use lead-free for repairs. During soldering though hole, you need few seconds to heat up the pcb copper and a component lead. They should be on on the same temp for second or two when solder gets melted around. You can even see pad hole capillary sucking melted solder. I've seen young people soldering THT, by shortly touching component pin and and a pcb pad. This looks baad.
• amelius 12d ago
  The main insight you need to have: The things you want to solder need to be at a minimum temperature for the solder to properly flow. Parts with a lot of metal attached to it will need more time to get hot. Most notorious are pads connected to a large (ground) plane. If the solder does not flow properly because of this, increase the time of contact between your soldering iron and the items, add a small amount of solder to the tip to increase contact area. Or use a heat gun in your other hand or a preheater. Or buy a soldering iron with more power. Flux will help too. Use a fan to draw the fumes away from you, at a minimum. If you do this on a daily basis, get a fume extractor. There are many more tips on the internet. The first thing I mentioned is the most important one, imho.
• atoav 12d ago
  The variables aren't that hard to learn. The one thing many beginners struggle with is that they don't really get the principles involved. They treat a soldering iron as some sort of heated paint brush and wonder why they can't get the paint off the brush. In reality there are multiple factors at play, but a simple and useful abstraction is to think about solder as something that flows more easily to places that are hot. That means the solder always likes to go onto the iron, since that is likely the hottest thing around. This means your first goal is simply to heat up the places you want to solder far enough so they can melt the solder if you touch them with the solder wire¹. This usually means heating two things at once: be it two wires you solder together or a pad and the leg of a resistor. That means knowing the geometry of your tip well is useful: How to wedge it in to heat the two things at once. Typically only the shiny, plated bits of the tip are really good at conducting heat². A little drop of solder on the iron can help conduct the heat to a bigger surface, a bit like the fat in a frying pan. But generally you heat the parts with the iron and then you feed the solder wire into the parts. If they are hot e ough, the solder melts. If not, you wait. The solder wire typically has a resin-like fluid inside, that helps with soldering as it reduces the surface tension of the metal (this is most of the stuff in the fumes). Capillary effect is the main thing that makes solder flow where you want it to. When the flux is evaporated soldering gets harder, so you may need to add fresh solder after a while or you use flux from a dispenser that you add manually.³ Then there is a lot about logistics. Heated air travels up, on earth solder tends to be affected by gravity and has a tendency to go down (although capillary effects are really the dominant force here), gravity affects parts, wires bend where their material wanta them to etc. The logistics part means: you have only two hands, an iron, solder wire and typically two or more parts that need to be joined. Being good at soldering is (1) having a good mental model and intuition about how and why the solder flows the way it does and (2) have skill and experience to get the logistics right. The first you can learn to understand, the latter is a matter of practise.⁴ I have thought soldering sucessfully to well over 400 people during the past decade. ¹ This means your iron and tip need to be able to deliver enough heat to heat the parts. If you try to heat up a 200W copper CPU cooler with a 14W soldering iron you can wait forever for the solder to melt. This also has to do with thermal mass and regulation of the iron. Modern irons with modern tips have the temperature probe inside the tip. This helps a ton with avoiding temperature dips when you start to touch something and makes soldering much easier. ² This means keeping tips clean with a proper cleaner literally before every solder joint is crucial. If your tip is toast and has no shiny bit anymore, clean it. If that doesn't help use Ersa Solder Tip Reactivator or buy a new tip. Of course your parts should also be clean (Isopropanol) ³ There are ways to remove excess solder. The simplest being using the right motion with the tip on a coldish joint, making the excess solder stick to the iron and not to the (colder) joint. Other things are spring loaded suction devices (very useful to get solder out of through holes!) and solder wick (very useful to clean old pads) ⁴ There a tools like third hands and so on, and watching some videos by experienced solderers is a good way (nowadays) to learn it, but a steady hand only comes with practise
• bariumbitmap 12d ago
  If you live near a makerspace / hackerspace, I would definitely recommend doing projects there. Mine has a weekly electronics projects and repair night with free access. This has two main benefits: 1. Access to a bunch of different equipment without breaking the bank. Want to try out a bunch of different kinds of flux? See what kind of de-soldering tools are good for different tasks? Now you can! 2. Access to expertise and moral support. Trying to do everything by yourself is no fun. A YouTube video can be helpful but it's no substitute for a knowledgeable friend or more experienced mentor. I recently did an RTC battery substitution on my Framework laptop's mainboard, and I could do it with confidence because I had good tools and people to consult at my makerspace.
• aerodexis 12d ago
  Are you one of those openAI swarms that got into the wild?
• bigbuppo 12d ago
  The only way to learn is to do the damn thing. You'll eventually figure it out. Tinker around with projects that don't matter but are still rewarding. Like, commit a 555 timer and blinky LEDs to proto board. Then find some kits on tindie that seem interesting but won't break the bank. Wash, rinse, repeat until you're building your own multiprocessor homebrew 6502 computer.
• throwaway81523 12d ago
  https://s3vi.ndc.nasa.gov/ssri-kb/static/resources/NASA%20Student%20Handbook%20for%20Hand%20Soldering.pdf https://s3vi.ndc.nasa.gov/ssri-kb/static/resources/NASA%20St...
  • daveguy 12d ago
    The nasa guides are a great resource. Designed with the knowledge that a bad soldering job can cost lives. Maybe overkill for your average diy, but great for a thorough high-quality deep dive. Here is the reference standard context of that guide (also pdf): https://nepp.nasa.gov/docuploads/06AA01BA-FC7E-4094-AE829CE371A7B05D/NASA-STD-8739.3.pdf https://nepp.nasa.gov/docuploads/06AA01BA-FC7E-4094-AE829CE3...
• sscaryterry 12d ago
  Don't overthink it, seriously. Avoid the fumes, if the joint looks shiny, its probably cool.
• MithrilTuxedo 12d ago
  NAVAIR 01-1A-23 https://www.robins.af.mil/Portals/59/documents/technicalorders/00-25-259.pdf https://www.robins.af.mil/Portals/59/documents/technicalorde... I was a 2M Mini/Micro repair technician for a few years in the Navy. That book was our school and manual.
• hiddencost 12d ago
  Is there a local makerspace? They often will have free nights where you can pick up some knowledge with direct supervision. Having someone else watch you is incredibly helpful.
• winrid 12d ago
  I highly recommend a desoldering gun, like a Hakko, absolutely life changing if you take stuff apart or repair often. Also, flux is your friend.
• sssilver 12d ago
  Arguably, the only resource you need to get better at it, is time. Every next solder makes you better at soldering. Get through your first 1000 solders as soon as possible, and then keep going. The rest will figure itself out along the way.
• tootie 12d ago
  I took a local class that really helped but the lesson was really just a basic project that had like 40 solder points. First few barely stuck, last few looked perfect. Just do it over and over and you'll get better pretty quickly.
• timonoko 12d ago
  Flux like Rossmann
  • rzzzt 12d ago
    1 milli-Paul of flux. (Or am I mixing things up with Paul Daniels of boardview software fame?)
• efortis 12d ago
  Two tips I learned from Sorin's yt channel: - Bend the tips - Don't buy an expensive iron, use a cheap one and assist it with a hot air gun Sorin is incredibly skilled. Here he is fixing a ribbon cable: https://youtu.be/P81IG0DZ1kg?t=494 https://youtu.be/P81IG0DZ1kg?t=494
• sdcfgy 12d ago
  Find some trash and practice removing parts and soldering them back on first. Not mentioned here yet but the majority of early soldering attempt failures mostly come from crap irons and crap solder not human issues. You need a decent quality temperature controlled iron and decent quality solder, preferably flux cored if you're doing repairs. Here, I have a second hand Metcal iron which cost less than the much recommended Hakko irons and is orders of magnitude better. Solder, I just use thin 60/40 multicore. Avoid the lead free initially until you have some practice. Watch soldering videos on youtube. Check the comments to make sure people aren't slating their technique. Removing some parts, like DIP packages really does need specialist irons with vacuum pumps built in to not mangle them. Desolder braid and solder suckers are absolutely no good for that sort of stuff and tend to lift pads.
  • imtringued 12d ago
    Correct, half the skill in soldering is picking a good iron with good tips. After that it's the solder. Only at the very end does your own soldering skill matter.
  • elcritch 11d ago
    Metcal’s are amazing! They use a high mghz signal to measure the tip temperature using impedance measurements IIRC. Then they control the tip temperature using a feedback control loop. Humans suck in comparison for heat control. Trying to use a Hakko afterwards will make you want to curse in my humble opinion.
    • akiselev 11d ago
      > They use a high mghz signal to measure the tip temperature using impedance measurements IIRC. Then they control the tip temperature using a feedback control loop. That's not how Metcal fixed temp induction soldering irons work. They don't have a control loop, which is what makes them so much better than other soldering irons. They exploit the Curie temperature [1] of some alloys, in which the metal loses its inductive properties when it hits a certain temperature. A Metcal power supply pumps a simple 13.56 Mhz signal into the tip which heats it up and when it reaches its Curie temperature, it just stops heating. Since the signal is constant, whenever the temperature of the tip drops it just heats back up without any PID loop. The downside is that you have to switch tips (alloys) with a pair of pliers to change temperatures, but the upside is that there is no control loop delay. It's also why their station are so reliable. There's basically no "modern" electronics in them and the worst you have to do to fix them is replace an electrolytic capacitor. I've got a power supply manufactured in the late 90s that's still as good as new and like you said, going back to a Hakko or any other soldering iron is downright painful. (Side note to anyone who cares: when the patents expired, a couple of Metcal engineers left to form Thermaltronics, which sells cheaper stations and Metcal-compatible tips) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curie_temperature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curie_temperature
• foresto 12d ago
  Avoid the Hakko FX-888D soldering station. This device has one of the most bizarrely obtuse interfaces I have encountered in ages, seemingly designed to make basic adjustments as difficult as possible, and to encourage accidental decalibration of its temperature settings with no indication to the user that it has happened. I wish I had returned mine while I had the chance.
• MarcScott 12d ago
  1. Use a soldering iron that can hit 400, and use a needle tip 2. Use leaded solder - lead-free is a pain. If you're not doing this for hours every day, even without ventilation, you'll be fine. 3. Heat the pads you're soldering to, not the solder. I used to tell kids to hold the iron to the pad for a count of three, then feed the solder in. 4. Two additional tools I find helpful - a solder sucker and copper wick.
  • simonbarker87 12d ago
    Number three is basically the golden rule. From memory when I ran a production line with soldering stations ventilation is equally (and possibly more) important for lead free solder.
    • peterfirefly 12d ago
      And do it with enough solder on the iron to get good thermal transfer. "Enough" really isn't a lot but it's also not a tip that's been wiped entirely dry. How you hold the tip relative to the via/component lead matters (because you want the liquid solder to help with the thermal transfer).
  • MalbertKerman 11d ago
    > 1. Use a soldering iron that can hit 400, and use a needle tip I have to disagree with that. Almost every time I've been called in to rescue a frustrated novice at the soldering bench (which has happened a lot), I've found them using the thinnest tip they could find with the temperature cranked to 400°C or higher because nothing was melting. It's fine to have an iron that can exceed 400°C (and I can't think of any I've used that couldn't), but that capability should be rarely used. A heavier tip -- generally the heaviest that will fit between obstacles on the board -- at a lower temperature is much more forgiving. The small tip has little heat capacity, significant resistance between the thermal reservoir (the heavy body of the tip) and the contact point, and usually very little contact area with the work. That makes the temperature at the joint highly sensitive to tip position, surface contamination, and copper geometry on the PCB. A thick trace or ground plane connection sinks heat from the joint so well that it will never melt, but a small pad on a thin signal trace will quickly get hot enough to detach the pad. Gunk on the board or oxidation of the tip adds more variability. And the high idle temperature makes for fast oxidation of the solder coat on the tip and then the plating, which creates more problems and frustration when you're new and don't recognize those symptoms. A fat tip provides a large thermal reservoir right at the contact point and usually creates a larger contact area that's less disturbed by a bit of contamination. The much lower thermal resistance brings the joint temperature closer to the iron's thermostat setting, allowing you to keep that setting lower -- I'll go as low as 300°C for SnPb on a not-too-heavily-coppered board, maybe up to 350°C for lead-free. That gives you consistent heating of a wide range of targets and is much less likely to lift pads even with the long dwell times that often happen while a novice is learning. At the low end, it slows tip oxidation enough to make it almost a non-issue. And less flux charring means less gunk on the board to interfere with the next joint. Predictability makes the whole learning process much smoother, and running small tips at high temperatures creates all sorts of issues that are hard to see or understand until you've got some experience behind you. When in doubt, use more copper before using higher temperature.
• eimrine 12d ago
  The only way of doing less mistakes with expencive boards is doing more mistakes with crap boards. Soldering literature suggests that a repair man should not do anything except repairing some electronics. Probably your board has some uncleaned flux which makes some parasitic capacitance which make your board feel dead. Also expencive boards typically have some easy to break signalizers that someone not skilled was here. Visual control is a king.
• nprateem 12d ago
  You could read books on strategy from military campaigns, the Art of War, etc, but if you want to be a good solder the best thing would be to join your local territorial army group.
• jimnotgym 12d ago
  Like all practical skills, practice! Soldering new is easier than repair. Get some dirt cheap ali express electronic kits and solder them up. Or get a load of components and some strip boards. Lead solder is much easier to use. Basic antex iron. Stand with sponge...dab of solder on the iron, wipe on sponge, push iron against both board and component, feed in solder, admire. For repair work, you want scrap boards real boards. Desolder all of the components, put them back. Practice. Buy the fancier stuff once you know why it might be useful. If you are going to do much soldering you need some kind of extractor. Flux in solder will cause breathing problems fairly quickly.
  • hypercube33 12d ago
    Ts80p iron is super crazy nice for the price. Heats up really fast and there are a lot of tips out there. I'd say it beats my two soldering stations if you're only doing soldering.
  • drpixie 11d ago
    And be your own critic. Aim for great, not just ok. Find out what dry-joints look like. And too much solder. Then aim for a really nice job :)
    • jimnotgym 11d ago
      Agreed. My second buy in soldering would be a second cheap high wattage iron, (edit: 80-100w) for soldering to the back of pots, switches and plugs. But try it with your normal iron first and you will see why, rather than me just telling you.
• gizajob 12d ago
  Get a job where you’re soldering all day, or doing audio repair or something like that. Embrace the fumes. Sloppily test live equipment. Remove and replace amplifier chips on amp boards 8 hours a day. Any company near you importing large amounts of audio or dj or stage equipment from China will need someone doing repairs and QC.
• nizmow 12d ago
  The biggest thing for me was just being brave enough to go for it and give it a try, and then learning how to undo your mistakes. Re-do things you’re not happy with with braid, reflow things with flux, etc. I’ve torn vias out of old valuable boards doing restoration, and I learned trace repair and fixed it.
  • MrBuddyCasino 12d ago
    > just being brave enough to go for it and give it a try, and then learning how to undo your mistakes This is true for most things. Don’t let the naysayers discourage you.
• lloydatkinson 12d ago
  Just solder?
• dannyboland 12d ago
  The principle behind a lot of good advice here is “creating the conditions for solder to naturally go where you want it to”. Cleaning, tinning, preheating are all part of creating those conditions. So the moment you find yourself fighting or forcing the solder, it’s better to step back and create the right conditions.
• Surac 12d ago
  Old day soldering was much more easy. We had lead in the tin. Today leadless tin makes soldeing very hard. Use flux. Enormous amounts of flux
• timnetworks 12d ago
  Helping Hands! Articulating clips on a heavy base, sometimes with a magnifying glass, to help you keep two objects or two parts of an object at some specific angle/distance/etc. so that all you need to worry about is the fumes. Exhaust fan! Put your station next to a window, both for light and ventilation.
• opan 12d ago
  Lots of good general soldering tips here. If the DualShock 4 PCB is half as complex as the DualSense PCB, good chance you scratched a trace whole removing the sticks. If you can locate the damaged area you can jump it with a bodge wire (think of it like a wood bridge that broke in the middle so you can't walk across, and you make a small path with planks enough for one person to still cross, restoring the connection). Also make sure you didn't introduce a GND short, you may need to cut a trace in 1 or 2 spots in addition to jumping the damaged area if you did. I had a hell of a time getting out the first analog stick on a DualSense and ended up damaging the PCB. A multimeter in continuity mode is a must here for checking that the signal travels the expected path or finding the issue if it doesn't. It is most likely fixable, it was in my case, though it may take you a few days of troubleshooting. Also I would recommend a desoldering gun if you're going to do this a lot, analog sticks are very difficult to remove with just an iron. Often just the tiniest bit of solder clings to the pins in the holes and it won't budge. A hot air station could also work, but these have a tendency to melt all surrounding plastic before the solder and IMO are a last resort. Look at the traces that go to the stick or that are near that area, look for scratches.
• tamimio 12d ago
  Get one of those training boards and keep repeating till you master it, the trick is to heat the board and you put solder and wire on it, not how most beginners go by heating the solder itself. Flux and other things are there as an aux to help in certain cases. I have been soldering since i was a kid (thanks dad for having the machine) and I use only two tips and some flux occasionally, nothing too crazy and don’t go obsessing over the details or the device brand or such.
• gosub100 12d ago
  These tips are not complete, but just the problem areas that I think noobs get stuck on: - understand that different tasks require different amounts of heat. The reason a task is difficult or you ruined a board could be due to your iron not getting hot enough or too hot (traces come up). - use flux, as others have said - have proper ventilation, even for lead-free systems, there are plenty of other toxins you are likely exposing yourself to - straight into your lungs - if you solder in an unventilated area. Dont think "it wont happen to me". - wear eye protection. tiny little beads of molten metal can and do fly up in random directions, especially when soldering wires. - if you burn yourself, hold the affected area under cold water for 20-40seconds, way longer than you think is necessary. burns keep burning after the heat source is removed. - get a good soldering iron if you are serious about doing it a lot. I am no expert, but I used a Metcal MX-500 for years. If you can afford it, do it. It was the cadillac of soldering irons. Don't get a $30 RadioShack model and wonder why you can't solder tiny SMT joints. - get a bright spotlight for doing fine work. to me, the light was more important than magnification. the magnifying glasses just got in the way, and stereo microscopes are probably too expensive for you/most of us.
• ungreased0675 12d ago
  MG chemicals liquid rosin with a needle applicator should be an excellent upgrade from what you’re used to.
• PcChip 12d ago
  Get a ts101 It makes me look like i know what I’m doing
• khaki54 12d ago
  My skill went up quite a bit when I started watching Louis Rossmann's explainer videos. He mainly does component level repair of macbooks and he covers his troubleshooting approach and the equipment he uses is nothing you can't replicate at home. I don't bother pulling out microscope for repairs and just stick with magnifying glass.
• __mharrison__ 12d ago
  Build a keyboard. By the end you should be well aware with soldering (and how to remove parts that you put on the wrong side of the PCB).
• monster_truck 12d ago
  I thought I was dogshit at soldering until I got a hakko 888, things got a lot easier after that. I don't care for the usb-c stuff. You probably cut a trace or lifted a pad. A picture or 7 would have been good
• seltzered_ 12d ago
  Look for professional or IPC training videos (e.g. https://youtu.be/b15MMzb_GWw https://youtu.be/b15MMzb_GWw )
• analog31 12d ago
  My suggestion is, don't start with difficult soldering jobs. Instead, start with something easy, such as a kit that's intended to teach old school electronic assembly. For instance, something like a guitar pedal. Or, solder to the relatively plump terminals of IC breakout boards before trying to solder the IC's themselves. I learned soldering by playing around with electric guitars, amps, cables, etc. Once you're ready to move up to more difficult things such as PCB repair and surface mount, you'll have acquired the basic skills and knack. At the basic level, all you need is a soldering iron, some solder, and basic hand tools that you already have if you're into tinkering. The rest of the stuff can come later as needed. Don't overlook taking a community college course. You'll have access to the latest equipment without having to own it.
• tonyedgecombe 12d ago
  Don't hold the iron by the hot end. I taught my children to solder when they were younger and despite telling them they both did it (once).
• hasanpiker 12d ago
  [flagged]
• cullenking 12d ago
  I learned by doing an 8 hour soldering session, building an open source ECU for an older car. By the end it was easy! Fresh joints in a kit are easier than repair so it’s a better place to start learning temp control etc.
• kalcode 12d ago
  I've been practicing lately to do A DIY drone build. This video helped me recently too [1] Also I take pictures and have Gemini critique, give feedback. It helped me learn about the tips more I didn't realize, after switching my tip from a broader knife one to a chisel one, results way better (for that use cases) Then I did know I just had to practice and get frustrated and come back, felt like two steps back and one forward, one time I was just suddenly making cold joints left and right. But hours practicing can't be replaced by just reading. This is more answering the title. https://youtu.be/GoPT69y98pY?is=JnURRm3pQOarur9P https://youtu.be/GoPT69y98pY?is=JnURRm3pQOarur9P
• Ccecil 12d ago
  The best resource to learn the basics that I have seen is a "comic book" that was made about 15 years back [1]. It goes over the basics and helps you get going. From there I suggest reading posts, watching videos and just talking to people who solder. Find some bare board kits (or your own kits) and assemble them. Soldering, like welding, is one of those things you can learn to do in a day...but it takes experience to get good at it. A lot of what you do is by "feel". Once you get a hang of it and would like to be able to inspect your own work find a copy of IPC-610A (there are free PDFs online often, otherwise it is expensive). This gives a visual representation of what is a failure or just a process indicator. edit: Most important. Do not touch the solder to the iron tip. You heat the joint and touch the solder to that. This is the most common newbie mistake you see. [1]https://mightyohm.com/files/soldercomic/FullSolderComic_EN.pdf https://mightyohm.com/files/soldercomic/FullSolderComic_EN.p...
• jimbob45 12d ago
  Consider the twist-and-tape method if no one has suggested it yet. It’s inarguably safer and good enough for NASA!
• mirmor23 11d ago
  most of the youtube videos for soldering are a waste of time as they focus on the rituals of soldering rather than the rationale. think of soldering as a thermodynamic and metallurgical system to create a solid mechanical/electrical joint - so while welding is a good analogy, it doesn't really give you a good model on what is going on. to get really good at soldering is to get good at understanding the interplay of the factors involved and then predict/manage them. fundamental to all this is to recognize that the solder is an alloy with eutectic property -- unlike regular metals/alloys, solder doesn't slowly get mushy and then become a molten liquid; instead, at a precise (band) of temp, it just melts, and then when heat is removed/lowered it instantly solidifies. that is why controlling tip temp is critical first step. second is the thermal mass of the soldering surface; usb/ethernet connectors have higher thermal mass so to achieve eutectic, you need a beefier tip that can deliver, not a thinner tip and holding it longer; higher than normal temps helps here. for smd led, the opposite applies; third, is the concept of wettability -- thermodynamic affinity between the molten solder and the solid metal pad; to form a perfect bond between the metals, they must be clean and free of oxides, and applying flux reduces these oxides. High wettability means the solder eagerly spreads out and adheres to the surface rather than forming isolated droplets. That's the working principle when drag soldering. then there is angle of solder tip, fine motor control, etc -- those are easy to come by. I am not a technician, and I was able to drag solder a lqfp64 with not a lot of trouble. of course, i hate school of hard knocks, so i spent time learning about the process first. Suggested reading: https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Soldering-Guide-Alan-Winstanley-ebook/dp/B00E8NEGAA https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Soldering-Guide-Alan-Winstanley...
  • xandrius 11d ago
    This is a great example of ELI mirmor23.
• Anon84 11d ago
  The US Army Field Manual: https://archive.org/details/TM9-237 https://archive.org/details/TM9-237
• aprentic 11d ago
  This is fairly close to my own soldering journey. I'm coming at it with a technical software background and minimal hands-on hardware experience or training. I found a few things that have made my solder joint better (both mechanically and electrically). These three were the purchases that made the most difference. The FNIRSI soldering station https://www.fnirsi.com/products/dws-200 https://www.fnirsi.com/products/dws-200 There are discussion that the tip isn't grounded and it can damage some sensitive components but I haven't run into this and there are online instructions for grounding it. It's very precise. The tip quickly gets to your target temperature and stays there. That means you don't need to hold the iron steady for a long time while it slowly heats up your whole board. The tip on those is also closer to the handle so it's easier to control. There are better irons but for me, this was an upgrade from a Hakko. Flux. I got some liquid flux and some flux paste. The paste is a bit less messy but the liquid can get into small cracks better. Both of them make it much easier to get the solder to stick to the metal. Eutectic solder. Lead solder has a lower melting point than lead-free solder. Eutectic solder takes it a step farther and has a specific formulation so the melting and freezing point are the same. That seems like a technical bit of trivia but it means the solder acts much more like how you intuitively expect it to act. There are a few other things that have helped I really like the Omnifixo component holder but it's worth getting something to hold your components stead. Alcohol and a dispenser https://www.amazon.com/JETEHO-Dispenser-Bottle-Methanol-Container/dp/B07N1G5WD5 https://www.amazon.com/JETEHO-Dispenser-Bottle-Methanol-Cont... Precision tip cotton swabs https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BT8VZ3GQ?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BT8VZ3GQ?th=1 and some cotton balls flux is messy and you need to clean it. Desoldering pumps look easier but their bad. Get a spool of copper desoldering braid. Get the big once and not those dumb little disks. A silicon matt. They're cheap, protect your work surface, and keep bitsies from rolling around. I also learned to technique tricks that made a big difference: 1) The soldering iron should always have solder on it. That not only protects the tip against corrosion, it gives the tip better contact with surfaces so the heat transfers better. 2) Touch your soldering iron to the thing you want soldered and let that heat up the solder, instead of melting the solder and dripping it onto wires. Troubleshooting: If you see a lot of beading, press the iron more on the component or try some more flux. If you regularly fry components before you get a good solder joint, you may need a hotter iron.
• execution 11d ago
  Honestly, just practice with a thing that does not cost a lot of money. Once you desolder and resolder a full size keyboard multiple times (this is before hot-swap was available), most normal through hole PCB soldering jobs becomes easy. 300C on my TS100 for 63/37 lead (from a cheap brand) for any solder in the past 10 years. No extra flux, clamps or anything, just a wet sponge and an open window (or soldering outside), it sounds very basic but once you know how to solder you can do it anywhere. For desoldering, a good solder pump will do. If a joint is hard to desolder, add solder and pump it again. You can use solder wick to clean up the hole, or you can just pump it again. Sure, once you have an actual paying job with disposable income you can get all the nice tools, solder, and all that jazz, but it does not make you better, it just makes it easier. Though saying that, a Hakko desoldering gun is well worth it - I am still good at using a pump and solder wick, but what a time saver the Hakko is. I have bought some spare Kester leaded spools in case it gets banned for average the consumer, but nowadays I use lead-free SAC305 solder. It's safer clean-up, the only downside is that it does not look as cool. Also, definitely use an extractor fan for lead-free, the fumes are from lead-free are meant to be way more toxic than leaded - I get a headache from some whiffs compared to many more from leaded soldering (obviously try not to inhale any in the first place!).
• bumby 11d ago
  If you’re wanting to get really serious, there are certification classes. For example, the “j standard” classes are pretty detailed. https://www.protoexpress.com/blog/ipc-j-std-001-standard-soldering-requirements/ https://www.protoexpress.com/blog/ipc-j-std-001-standard-sol... There are some open source documents that can help you understand the difference between good and not-so-good work. Eg https://nepp.nasa.gov/docuploads/06AA01BA https://nepp.nasa.gov/docuploads/06AA01BA
• VLM 11d ago
  Your specific question is for resources to improve, but there's no royal road to soldering, or geometry, or going to the gym. The fastest way to make progress is to practice, there is no pill or wiki or video that makes progress faster; if anything those make progress slower. Soldering is exactly like the gym where attempting to avoid time and sweat invariably results in slower progress than just doing it. Especially if someone is selling something to make it easier, it won't work. If you've already started as per the post you've likely exceeded the skill level covered by "how to solder electronics.pdf" by the Heathkit company or similar intro level stuff. The only specific technique I can think of is debugging your own boards. Debugging time is very motivational for avoiding mistakes. You'll find it harder to learn to solder if you repair stuff, easy if you build a kit or two of similar complexity to what you're trying to repair. You'll learn anyway as long as you put in the time and sweat it'll just be more emotionally motivating if you're repairing your own work than repairing someone elses.
• Beijinger 11d ago
  Easy. Get the right tool: https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-soldering-iron https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...
• PunchyHamster 11d ago
  buy some fun kits, solder them together. Desoldering is kinda the harder part of the job
• peteforde 11d ago
  I understand that there's always a hesitation to invest in what looks like an expensive and large tool, but if there's one thing that I could go back in time and force myself to get years sooner, it's a stereo microscope. It's the single largest difference between frustrated and feeling like a ninja. You will, quite simply, never regret it. I recommend this one: https://www.strangeparts.com/a-boy-and-his-microscope-a-love-story/ https://www.strangeparts.com/a-boy-and-his-microscope-a-love...
  • xandrius 11d ago
    That link is unfortunately quite useless, link doesn't work.
    • Dusseldorf 11d ago
      Works fine for me (the initial link and the link to the sale page), might be something on your end
• SilentM68 11d ago
  You might want to try this: https://appliedinspirations.com https://appliedinspirations.com
• hasanpiker 11d ago
  [dead]
• risktopark 11d ago
  https://www.ericasynths.lv/news/diy-how-guide-soldering-your-own-synth https://www.ericasynths.lv/news/diy-how-guide-soldering-your...
• nosolace 11d ago
  not a resource per se, but i recommend getting a pair of machinist's indicator holders. they make the best helping hands i've ever used when retrofitted with alligator clips, because once tightened they have zero springback so they permit holding parts far more precisely than the usual blue plastic affair. i have a pair of these (https://a.co/d/0dyGqDEh https://a.co/d/0dyGqDEh) clockwise tools ones and they're fine, but there are definitely cheaper ones out there that'll work.
• nerdsniper 11d ago
  As others have mentioned, the NASA soldering standards / workmanship standards (which I can no longer find an easy link to) were the most helpful for me. I was really bad at soldering before finding those. Now I'm merely mediocre, but that's fine because I can do everything I personally need to do on a PCB.
• nxobject 11d ago
  Speaking of learning by practice, here's two things I got a lot from: - Take apart scrap hardware, and learn to both de-solder, re-solder, and test that you haven't pulled any pads in the process! - Get an SMD soldering practice kit as well -- one where you have to put little bird-seed resistors flush to surfaces. It taught me a lot about how liquid solder works! I made the mistake of thinking I'll learn while I work on the hardware I actually cared about. Big mistake.
• ajjobsearch 11d ago
  [flagged]
• theguysudo 11d ago
  its easy just a some normal soldering iron usually costs less 2-3 dollar get flux and then soldering wire thats it for starter start building during the journey keep on upgrading based on need don't buy too much product as it will just create a urge to use them all while not been able to create onething properly as you learn and buy you'll understand how to use that specific product