Give me a solder gun, and I can produce ...
Displaying poll results.25537 total votes.
Most Votes
- What's the highest dollar price will Bitcoin reach in 2024? Posted on February 28th, 2024 | 8475 votes
- Will ByteDance be forced to divest TikTok Posted on March 20th, 2024 | 6950 votes
Most Comments
- What's the highest dollar price will Bitcoin reach in 2024? Posted on March 20th, 2024 | 68 comments
- Will ByteDance be forced to divest TikTok Posted on March 20th, 2024 | 20 comments
missing option (Score:5, Funny)
third degree burns
Re: (Score:2)
Re:missing option (Score:5, Funny)
I burn myself every time I solder.
Quick tip: try grabbing the other end of the soldering iron - the end that the power cable comes out of.
Re:missing option (Score:5, Funny)
I bought my soldering iron for $5 at Radio Shack, that is the hot end!
Re:missing option (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate how shitty tools are often labelled as 'for beginners'.
Get yourself a 100W (or greater) Goot (or equivalent) soldering iron if you're just starting out. You'll have enough things to worry about already, don't let a shitty tool cause you even more grief.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree. The Hakko fx-888 is a great beginner temperature controlled 60W iron available for about $100.
Re:missing option (Score:5, Funny)
Re:missing option (Score:4, Funny)
Noted... I have a soldering iron with the fingerprint of my thumb permanently imprinted on the hot end. Stupidity or theft deterrent - you decide.
Re: (Score:3)
What, you want him to electrocute himself, psycho?
Re:missing option (Score:4, Insightful)
mine doesn't have a power cable, you insensitive clod!
(it's a butane-powered iron. I find it easier to work with silver solder on gas than electric irons)
Re:missing option (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:missing option (Score:5, Interesting)
there's that, and I can carry out field repairs to radio/computer equipment without having to hunt for a socket, even switch heads and repair a water pipe or (perish the thought), cut through something, and all I need to carry spares-wise if I'm operating for more than TWO WHOLE HOURS is a can of lighter fluid.
Also handy for melting spent air rifle pellets and moulding mini ingots, later new pellets. Extreme recycling.
Re:missing option (Score:5, Informative)
Soldering isn't that hard, especially if you're just repairing audio cables
Re:missing option (Score:5, Informative)
Mister Transistor's 5 Minute Handy Dandy Guide to Soldering with Skill
Or, How I Learned to Love the Iron
These are the most important and common tips and issues with soldering, and make the difference between a successful endeavor vs. a smoke fest. I've taught dozens of techs how to solder in my long career in the electronics industry. These are the most salient points I can emphasize...
1. Make sure the work is clean. If not, try to scrape or scour it to shine up the surface and remove any oxidation.
2. Make sure the iron is hot enough to do the work, and powerful enough not to "swamp" or lose all it's heat when you touch it to something, I highly recommend Metcal (now OKI) stuff, they can solder a doorknob and not lose heat, they are RF pumped. This is where the Radio Shack pencil irons are a BIG FAIL.
3. Make sure the iron tip is clean an tinned. This is REALLY IMPORTANT, because the wet liquid solder will transfer the heat to the work. A dry tip will take too long to transfer the heat and overheat the work and cook or melt it. When you first get the iron, apply copious amounts of solder to the tip to coat it thoroughly with solder, and leave a good coat on it. As the tip oxidizes, it will form on the surface of the solder which can be wiped away and re-tinned instead of destroying the tip rapidly over time. This IS PROBABLY THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL EVER LEARN ABOUT SOLDERING!!!
4. Make sure you have good contact with the wetted tip from #3 and feed solder into the junction between the iron and the work, it will wick into the joint. Don't apply solder to the iron; apply it to the heated work. A tiny bit between the two will start the thermal conduction process. Then, apply the solder to the work.
5. Make sure you use enough good grade rosin core 60/40 solder for electronics, or even better use 63/37 "eutectic" solder. The latter cools and solidifies faster, that's what they used to use in solder waves before the whole "Pb Free" thing. This prevents "cold" solder joints that look cracked or dull.
6. Make sure if you are de-soldering, to always only take one shot at it, if you don't clear the hole or feedthrough, ADD SOLDER! Re-apply solder to the hole or lead, as though you were soldering it not desoldering. Then, take another crack at it. If you keep doing this you will eventually clear the hole and not over-cook it or burn off the pad. Use slightly longer heat each time until you clear the hole but try not to exceed 3-5 seconds total time on the joint.
7. Make sure the component lead is completely free. After #6 above, while de-soldering, after you clear the hole, for a plated-through multilayer board, take a needle-nose and wiggle the lead back and forth to crack if free from the feedthrough wall or confirm it's already free. If you do this on every lead of a component it will simply fall out when the board is inverted!
Re: (Score:3)
Please do not forget to put a heat sink between the soldering iron and delicate components
The prettiest soldering job in the world is for naught if you let the magic smoke out of the components
I had a summer job during college doing re-work on fmu-113/b's (look it up), since they 'flew' (actually fell) is was my employer's policy to train for one level higher of competency, that being aero-space. Rework is interesting because you get to see how things actually fail and repair them which usually involves tes
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, I'm guilty of not doing that. I was always good enough to get on and off the lead in under a second or two, and to my knowledge, I have never blown a part by soldering it in. Not to mention that parts these days don't have leads anymore, so the hit-it-quick technique is all you can do now.
Another good tip for not overheating IC's is solder every other lead, then go around again and get the odd ones. I was told this helps to keep the die inside from getting as hot as sequential soldering on one
Re:missing option (Score:4, Informative)
This is the single most worthless thing that is _always_ said. You even contradict it in the sentence before you said this, however given you say this and _everyone_ else says this, this is what will be remembered.
I can put a hot iron against a component and put solder against the other side of the same component, and it will just sit there all day and do _nothing_. You should _not_ apply solder to the component, you should apply solder to a liquid pool of solder. When you have enough on the tip, it should flow to the component, around the lead, over the pad, and seal the connection. With flux, this happens easily, quickly, and in a very pretty manner.
Granted, I selected "competent" rather than "BGA Chef" because I tend to apply too much solder, but touching the solder to the component does not work. If you're starting out, get that thought out of your head now.
8. Use flux. Get a 2$ tub of flux off one of the chinese deal sites (dealextreme, dhgate), and USE IT. It makes a WORLD of difference, both when soldering and desoldering. (You can't use solder wick without flux, In my experience. No one ever told me that, and I could never get wick to work well, so I gave up on solder wick and bought a desolder station long before I discovered the benefits of flux.)
Then there are the Hyper power supplies that die and I bring home from work. 60W iron, large tip, and that desolder station can't melt a single solder joint, regardless of size. geez. So much for salvaging those components. (Maybe if I add solder _and_ add flux.. hmm. But the components just aren't valuable enough for me to waste so much solder.)
Re:missing option (Score:5, Funny)
third degree burns
It's the last choice:"An elaborate series of burns (on self/furniture)."
Unless you're some kind of nut job and meant third degree burns on other people.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's Art! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's Art! (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in highschool, I got an A on an art project that was composed entirely of solder melted and shaped with a soldering iron, and then polished up nice and shiney and sprayed with varnish. It was a . . . you know, I _made_ it, and even I'm not sure what it was, but the teacher liked it. It happened because I had a giant pile of solder, and after I fixed the circuit board for a toy gun that was supposed to make "Zzzap!" noises, but was only making "click" noises instead, I got bored and started seeing how high I could get the pile of molten drops to stick together. Then I made more little towers, linked them together, added cross-bridges, and before I knew it, I had to go out and buy my father a new roll of solder, which he still has, unopened.
One of my favorite quotes (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
But instead you commented, ensuring that you wouldn't be able to mod even if you had the points.
Instead? Moderating is only an option if you actually have points rather than hypothetically have points.
Re: (Score:3)
besides, saying "mod this up" is usually a great way to get something modded up. much easier than spending 1 point on it and not being able to comment...
Re: (Score:2)
But you only get mod points if you've commented recently, so if he hadn't commented, he'd get no points with which to be unable to mod.
Re: (Score:2)
But you only get mod points if you've commented recently, so if he hadn't commented, he'd get no points with which to be unable to mod.
Depending on your definition of "recently," I don't believe this is true. I've noticed that, even though I can go months without posting, I have mod points regularly (at least once a week).
Re: (Score:3)
Re:One of my favorite quotes (Score:5, Interesting)
For quite some time, I pretty much constantly got 15 mod points. Seriously, for like a few months I could not run out of mod points.
Then, either because I started commenting more, or because I wasn't moderating enough, or because I started doing one or both badly, or because they changed the algorithm, or because I fell out of favor with the Random Number Gods, I started getting fewer.
And then I got a job, and I haven't gotten mod points since.
Re:One of my favorite quotes (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
I had exactly the same experience, coinciding with a change of jobs that left me with left time to read Slashdot. I think the chances of getting mod points go up dramatically once you reach some sort of threshold of time wasted^H^H^H^H^H^H invested in the site.
One of those little skills (Score:2)
I've never been a really good solderer, but there are a few of them around our office. I did improve quite a bit when one guy showed me a few things, and now I can usually do decent joins for large/medium wires and connections. I'm still blown away by some of our peoples' ability to solder surface-mount components and those little ICs with a bazillion connections per millimeter without making a huge mess and cross-connecting everything.
Re:One of those little skills (Score:4, Interesting)
You can do much better work with a high quality soldering station. Good temperature range, temperature control, and a fine point on your iron will compliment good technique.
Soldering surface mount stuff is a bit more finicky.
I always liked wave soldering as a neat scientific application.
Re: (Score:3)
You can do much better work with a high quality soldering station.
... with a binocular microscope as a must. You can do amazing things with the right iron and microscope.
Re:One of those little skills (Score:5, Interesting)
By the end of the first semester I was capable of soldering 176 pin TQFPs without any magnification easily. Smaller SMD components require a few tricks. If you're lazy you can always resort to soldering paste combined with a hot air soldering iron. You need to learn two things: that you should always use leaded solder (seriously, the new lead-free stuff is useless) and how to do fine movements with a large soldering iron.
Soldering a BGA without a reflow oven is rather tricky though, done it a few times for small ones. You need to drill holes through the board where the pads are, add solder paste and tape the IC on the board in the correct position. Next attach a fine copper wire to the soldering iron (or gun) and prod it through the small holes you drilled. It tends to do the jobs pretty well if you're careful enough. But forget about doing more than 20 pins that way
Re:One of those little skills (Score:5, Informative)
And most EE students end up having to solder a few PCBs per week. By the end of the first semester I was capable of soldering 176 pin TQFPs without any magnification easily.
What EE program were you in where you soldered several PCBs per week, starting your first semester? My first semester was Physics/Calculus/GE throwaway classes and a one-hour "Intro to Engineering" class. Most of the rest of my classes were math, more math, and yet more math. Even in our labs we mostly used bread boards so we could re-use parts. The only time we soldered anything was big semester-end projects and Senior Design.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:One of those little skills (Score:5, Interesting)
And soldering stations are much cheaper than they used to be. Gone are the days when a hot air rework station cost $500. If you're willing to compromise a bit on principle, Chinese knock-offs can be had Stateside through reputable channels for $200 or so, and will contain everything you need to work with through-hole or surface mount technologies. (OK, so the BGA would be pushing it, but just about everything else is doable.)
My advice for anyone unsatisfied with their solder skills - practice on expendable gear. There's spare electronic junk everywhere. Next time, before you throw out that old radio, CD player, or PC, take some parts off, and put them back on. See if it still works. If it works, try another part or two, maybe a chip. If it lets the magic smoke out, you've lost nothing, because it was going to Calculator Heaven anyways.
Spend a weekend or two at it, and you'll have as good a parts selection of basic resistors and capacitors as Radio Shack. Utterly uneconomical ROI for the time you'd put into it vs. what a grab-bag of parts would cost to order, but absolutely worth it if you want to build your skills for the time when you need to fix something.
Most of the time, electronic faults are caused by crappy soldering at the factory, or by solder joints that have broken due to rough handling (like that iPod that landed on its headphone jack while it was plugged in.) A $20-30 iron with a clean sharp tip, and you're up and running in 30 minutes - 20 to open the thing without scratching or breaking it, 5 to resolder the broken connector, and 5 to put it back together again.
Re:One of those little skills (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the time, electronic faults are caused by crappy soldering at the factory, or by solder joints that have broken due to rough handling (like that iPod that landed on its headphone jack while it was plugged in.) A $20-30 iron with a clean sharp tip, and you're up and running in 30 minutes - 20 to open the thing without scratching or breaking it, 5 to resolder the broken connector, and 5 to put it back together again.
Absolutely. I just fixed a friend's TV. It looked like a power supply problem, opened the back of the TV, and there was a large electrolytic cap with two ugly solder blobs on the terminals. Hit them with a soldering iron and the TV was back in operation. A few years back I repaired the power connector on a laptop--repeated pressure on the connector from the power adapter's plug had broken the solder joints. A guy I worked with some years back said he had repaired three items, a garage door opener and a couple of other items I don't remember. All he did was reflow the solder joints on each PCB.
I still think that we haven't seen the tip of the iceberg as far as failures resulting from the switch to lead-free solder is concerned. Getting good solder joints when you run a batch of boards through IR reflow is as much art as science, and the switch shook things up a lot more than most people know.
Re: (Score:3)
Crappy solder joints were our bread and butter doing TV repair in the 70s. If you couldn't find a thermal intermittent using the Freon, then you'd just shotgun re-solder the whole PCB. Like you said, hot components tended to open up the weak joints, often visibly.
Re:One of those little skills (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One of those little skills (Score:4, Insightful)
Just remember you have to get all the unused flux off the board or it will gradually eat things.
Love soldering (or was it soldiering?) (Score:2)
Re:Love soldering (or was it soldiering?) (Score:5, Interesting)
It was a kit. KD1JV produces the kits. They are wonderful little radios. He makes limited runs of each model. When a new radio comes out, they sell out in days and sometimes hours. Mine is an Appalachian Trail Sprint 3A. The newest version is the AT Sprint 4B. But, it is not available right now. I'm not sure if he will make another run of them. He has another recent radio that is two bands I believe and is called the Mountain Topper. Both radios are a little larger than the 3A. Here is a link to his site. He is hiking the Appalachian Trail (and using his radios) right now. There is a yahoo group but I don't have the name with me and can't access it now to get you a link.
Here is his web site
http://kd1jv.qrpradio.com/ [qrpradio.com]
Welding! (Score:4, Funny)
Puny solderites! I connect things with REAL heat!
captcha: weakness. Lol.
Metcal (Score:2)
Re:Metcal (Score:5, Informative)
But the best part are the fine tip tweezers. They let you pick up 0402's (even 0201's if you're careful) and place them down and they're soldered just like that! Maybe metcal has something similar nowadays but I tend to stay away from the black monolith.
BGA.... (Score:2)
Hot air rework station... The badge of a real Hardware hacker.... anyone else is just a n00b.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can find them on the used market for reasonable prices. Watch Ebay. I got mine for around $350 and was like new after a couple of cheap replacement parts.
And once you use one, you will NEVER go back to the old ways..
Also get yourself a set of hot tweezers.... Suddenly old PC motherboards are a parts smorgasboard.
Soldered our supercomputer back together (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Back in my grad student days ...
Back further in the days we used wire-wrap. None of that fancy solder stuff for us.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I've done a bunch of wire wrap as well. Oh the joy of it all.
Re: (Score:2)
Wire wrap is okay until you're doing a logic board and find flakeys as the little end pieces break off and make intermittent shorts across the pins. Double plus unfun to tweeze those bastards out of there.
Hot air (Score:3)
Ah, the smell of skin sizzling in the night (Score:5, Funny)
So many times in my youth I'd be so fixated on the work I was doing, following the schematic, routing leads, busses and cables. Often late into the night .. to the point I really should have set things aside for a good examination in the morning, with a well rested brain. Usually this would become clear when I'd miss the soldering pen rest and use my own hand for it. I have the scars, some really big ones, to show for it.
Also, don't fling solder blobs, you never know where they'll land, particularly when wearing flip-flops.
Re:Ah, the smell of skin sizzling in the night (Score:4, Funny)
Reminds me of a friend's story of staying up late to rebuild an engine. At some point, as the hours wore on, he thought he'd fire it up with the valve cover off to "see how it was running."
Luckily the oil was cool so he only had an incredible mess to clean up instead of horrifying burns from hell's fountain.
Nearly MIL-Spec Soldering (Score:5, Informative)
My soldering is quite good - nearly up to MIL Spec. Good tools, steady hands, good magnification (on the small stuff) and good solder. It's amazing just how much the solder alloy and flux makes a huge difference when soldering.
For the most part, I say 'Stuff the RoHS compliance" on crap like use only lead-free solder and components. Solder without lead is totally CRAP. There is a good article on the lead free solder issues: http://www.sigcon.com/Pubs/news/10_01.htm [sigcon.com]
Re:Nearly MIL-Spec Soldering (Score:5, Interesting)
You are correct: a soldering iron that has consistent and controllable heat is super important. So is the type of solder and so is the quality of the flux. Those three items, with a generic magnifying/light lens is all that is needed for a skilled person to do a magnificent job of soldering.
Personal anecdote: I used to work at a company called SCI who were contracted by Apple to build some of their computers. Boards that had a failed CPU on them would need to have a new CPU hand soldered on. IIRC the powerpc 601 had 300+ pins (360 I think) and I could do a perfect hand solder in under 30 seconds. Under microscope inspection, each joint was perfect without excess solder or bridging between legs.
Was it all skill? Hell no. It was having the right equipment: highest quality soldering iron, flux, and solder. There was some skill involved because some people could not do it, but it was all about the tools.
Re: (Score:3)
Slashdot is full of nerds and gamers - and those of us who are gamers are well aware how shitty RoHS lead free solder is, you need only ask Microsoft. - god only knows how much having to be compliant cost them with the 360.
144 Pin QFP (Score:2)
When I was a lad ... (Score:5, Interesting)
.. when I bought my first home computer in 1978 (a 1MHz Z80-based NASCOM 1) it came as a bare motherboard and a bag of chips (ICs, not potato) and you had to build it yourself.
Then we memorized the Z80 assembler op codes and wrote programs directly in hex, poking those codes into the chips we'd just soldered in.
And we liked it like that.
Re:When I was a lad ... (Score:5, Funny)
.. when I bought my first home computer in 1978 (a 1MHz Z80-based NASCOM 1) it came as a bare motherboard and a bag of chips (ICs, not potato) and you had to build it yourself.
Then we memorized the Z80 assembler op codes and wrote programs directly in hex, poking those codes into the chips we'd just soldered in.
And we liked it like that.
So it was "Some assembly required" then, eh?
Re: (Score:2)
.. when I bought my first home computer in 1978 (a 1MHz Z80-based NASCOM 1) it came as a bare motherboard and a bag of chips (ICs, not potato) and you had to build it yourself.
Mine was an Altair 8800 kit.
Ah, the glory days, eh? :)
Strat
Re: (Score:2)
When I was a kid we used to carve our own ICs out of wood.
Solder "gun"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been soldering for nearly 60 years, but "passable" is the best I can manage with one of those horrid things. Give me a fine-tipped temperature-controlled soldering iron, on the other hand...
None of that PB-free junk (Score:2)
Re:None of that PB-free junk (Score:5, Funny)
PB = peanut butter , Pb = lead. I avoid solder with peanut butter in it.
Re: (Score:2)
PB = peanut butter , Pb = lead. I avoid solder with peanut butter in it.
But I'm sure it tastes better! Given that I always solder in my kitchen (mostly for lack of a suitable non-crammed surface otherwise), I guess I should try the peanut butter variant some day...
Re: (Score:2)
At a previous job we had some custom build night navigation camera equipment that was supposedly high end. I had to open a controller once because it was acting up and I nearly died at the poor quality of construction. For wires, they had used a piece of ribbon cable plugged into a PCB, then split the individual conductors off the ribbon and connected them where necessary. The solder "blobs" were almost all cold joints or had spikes protruding from the sides. I was appalled that I was supposed to integr
Hot Air Pen you insensitive clod! (Score:2)
Seriously? Solder GUN? Like telling a dentist to do a root canal with a machete...
Re: (Score:2)
Like telling a dentist to do a root canal with a machete...
Wait - yours doesn't?
I can produce... (Score:2)
Cowboy Neal!
Re: (Score:2)
Ewwwwww.
Can someone explain the US pronunciation? (Score:5, Interesting)
For some reason Americans like mangling the pronunciation of good old fashioned, decent words (like how herb is pronounced erb) .
Generally there is a reason for this (although sometimes the choice seems arbitrary - Grand Prix vs Coupe - both french derived, yet pronounced in different manners), so I am looking to be educated as to why Americans pronounce "Solder" as "Sodder". Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] doesn't give much help on the subject.
Pick two? (Score:5, Funny)
Clumsy but workable solder joins. and
Prettier joins than I see in my OEM equipment.
My awesome soldering skills (Score:3)
Because of this, I selected "Clumsy but workable solder joins." otherwise I would have put "Nothing useful"
Missing answer: (Score:2)
a pool of solder on the table/circuit board, completely detached from the items attempting to be soldered.
Sn63-Pb37 (Score:2)
How About Good Enough... (Score:5, Interesting)
...To build my own vacuum tube guitar amps like this one?
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h103/stratman_el84/Testament%2030/pict0002.jpg [photobucket.com]
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h103/stratman_el84/Testament%2030/pict0005.jpg [photobucket.com]
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h103/stratman_el84/Testament%2030/pict0016.jpg [photobucket.com]
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h103/stratman_el84/Testament%2030/cabhead02.jpg [photobucket.com]
It produces about 30 watts from a pair of cathode-biased KT66s operating at about 430VDC plate voltage, that are driven by a parallel-triode preamp stage and a long-tailed-pair type phase inverter/driver. Sounds better than most production amps until you get into the high-dollar "boutique" stuff. Cost was about $500 total including the pine speaker cab and Celestion G12T-75 speakers.
Just to keep my geek card current, in that last pic, on the floor to the left, is a fully operational SGI monitor and SGI Octane hiding behind the collapsible foot stool. I pull them out and fire the Octane up every once in a while.
Strat
Cold Heat FTW (Score:2)
Not so great with a hot iron, oddly.
Re: (Score:3)
I always pointed out in the commercial that the stupid thing would arch when they were soldering a piece of jewelry, I am not an ESD freak normally, but I dont want to arch weld sensitive components either. The powered tip is the worst thing ever devised for electronic work.
Competent and Clean... but (Score:5, Funny)
I did give myself and elaborate series of burns on one occasion.
When I was 19 I messed around with a soldering gun in my garage and happened to be naked. Don't ask me why, it's not like it was the first or last time, or that I am the only person to constantly find himself naked after getting stoned. Yeah.. I'm one of those people at the party that loses their pants.
Anyways....
I'm sitting there and just soldering crap to other crap and become absolutely fascinated with the molten solder. The way it shines and pools around on the table.. so beautiful.. so memorizing... so holy-fucking-shit-thats-hot.
The solder ran down off the table, and because I was jammed super close to the table, down my chest, down my stomach, across my penis, over my balls, down my legs, etc.
Obviously anywhere the solder touched became hairless (instantly) and left these wonderful bright bright pink lines on my body. It was a not-so-temporary-but-no-permanent tattoo.
Always solder while sober kids.
Beware of programmers with a solder gun. (Score:3)
Or with a screw driver
The three major threats to a system are:
3) A programmer with a screwdriver
2) A technician with a patch
1) A user with an idea.
My first tech job (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I had the same problem, but I gave up the caffeine.
Re: (Score:2)
I know. I was joshing. Trying to be funny. Guess I failed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Electronics / Plumbing / Furniture (Score:2)
If you want to make burn marks on yourself or on furniture, soldering guns or torches will let you do the job a lot faster :-) I don't solder plumbing myself, but that's also an application that wants a lot of heat.
On the other hand, if you want to do surface-mount electonics, which I don't, soldering guns are way too big.
Re: (Score:2)
Dunno.. never burnt myself with a soldering gun..
Worst burn I ever got was with a cheap pen iron that didn't have a cradle. Had it sitting on the bench.. rubbed up against the cord (sending it falling) and tried to grab it with both hands. Pretty much had a large pencil shaped blister across the full width of one palm and one on the edge of my index finger on the other. If I held my hands together correctly they lined up...
Re: (Score:2)
You need one with nice even heat othewise, you'll tend to get the tombstone effect (one end comming unstuck and the part standing up on end) working those small SMT componants.
regards
Re: (Score:3)
They're pug fugly (damn, cheap Radioshack iron... leaves tin whiskers like you wouldn't believe), but my solder joints work, dammit!
To me, it matters not how the soldering looks - whatever I'm building is going to be out of the public eye, stuffed in a mint tin, or toy, or custom enclosure, or whatever else I feel like hacking on this week, so who cares what it looks like?
It's a reliability thing. A good looking solder joint is a reliable one. Cold, improper, or non-wetted joints might "work", but how do they stand during vibration? In heat/cool cycles? When you're debugging a circuit, there is now an extra variable: whether the solder joints are bad or not. Bad solder form also can inject more heat into the components than they should have, improper cleaning could leave corrosive residues, mixing leaded solder and lead-free components could have issues... there's an awful l
Re: (Score:2)
They're pug fugly (damn, cheap Radioshack iron... leaves tin whiskers like you wouldn't believe), but my solder joints work, dammit!
To me, it matters not how the soldering looks - whatever I'm building is going to be out of the public eye, stuffed in a mint tin, or toy, or custom enclosure, or whatever else I feel like hacking on this week, so who cares what it looks like?
It's a reliability thing. A good looking solder joint is a reliable one. Cold, improper, or non-wetted joints might "work", but how do they stand during vibration? In heat/cool cycles?
So far so good, no major crap-ups! I totally get where you're coming from, though.
When you're debugging a circuit, there is now an extra variable: whether the solder joints are bad or not. Bad solder form also can inject more heat into the components than they should have, improper cleaning could leave corrosive residues, mixing leaded solder and lead-free components could have issues... there's an awful lot going on.
My rule-of-thumb is this - solid connection, not too much solder, and shiny. So long as those criteria are met, I really don't care how it looks.
Oh, and of course, no shorts, but I figured that one goes without saying.
Honestly, if you enjoy hardware hacking, spend the money for a quality soldering station because, plain and simple, it's easier to make good quality joins. Better temperature control (instead of, well, none), faster heat recovery, higher quality tips. You *can* do a good job with a Radio Shack firestarter, it's just sooooo much harder to do skillwise.
Indeed; right tool for the job. I really haven't gotten into too much PCB stuff, most of the soldering I've done thus far has been for basic electrical circuit repairs, i.e. fixing 1/4" audio cables, battery con
Re: (Score:2)
That's easy!