RE: Soldering School - part 2: "Soldering For Dummies"

shabaz — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:10:02 GMT

I have looked through most of the NASA guides since you recommended them a while back, they have a lot of nice information.

One thing that's been bugging me for ages - I seem to remember in the past hearing that when soldering through-hole components

(admittedly I don't do through-hole much any more now), that the component lead should be trimmed _before_ soldering.

However, I don't know the reason why (or if it was an urban legend). Does anyone know?

By the way, a rather nice starter soldering iron easily available for UK people (the Antex brand seems more common in the UK than the US, I don't know why) is this one. It is 50W temp controlled in-handle. It's not anywhere near as fast to regulate as the Metcal by any stretch, but I do feel confident using it for TSSOP up to relatively large sized metal connectors like SMA. Mostly I use it with a 1mm ellipse-shaped tip. I've had the same iron for at least 6 years, it's given good value for the price.

RE: Soldering School - part 2: "Soldering For Dummies"

DAB — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:46:11 GMT

I agree, soldering skills are a must.

You can spend many hours chasing spurious signals caused by cold solder joints. Save yourself a lot of agony and learn to do the job right the first time. Good Soldering technique is easily learned and serves you for a lifetime.

When I went to tech school, soldering is the first thing we learned in lab. Practice makes perfect, if it isn't perfect, it is usually not good enough.

Good job Christina.

DAB