Actually I'd opt for the hot air gun as its a much better wattage and can toast a larger area.
Apparently some lead compounds taste slightly sweet - which is why sometimes young children were found to chew the woodwork in old houses (i.e. the gloss paint contained lead ).
Soldering is an art! There is always a room for improvement.
When I was a kid I used to keenly watch TV (CRT) technicians repairing the television boards with a single soldering iron. It is an amazing thing to watch.
The amber color soldering flux, some soldering wire and a big soldering iron. I think that inspired me to learn electronics.
Oh, did I not... comment?Even though I voted last month!
Anyway, here's my story.
A few years ago, while I was around 10 or so... I got a holiday present! A shiny new SP25!
Got some solder, (I actually thought copper tape was solder!), wire, flux.
Got a multimeter too.
Why? Well, I was still using copper tape at the time. Didn't work for high-reliability circuits.
Now I had the iron, I was able to solder. But it was still difficult.
I ought to have burned myself... 4 times in the first 10 minutes.
Ouch. Thankfully, I'm the guy who has a first aid kit handy. Some burn gel later, I was soldering again.
Quite boring isn't it?
Lemme tell you the FUN part now!
Now I'm a bit older, I realized
"I don't like my chips in DIP because DIP has nothing now"
So I've migrated to *sparkles* SMD TECHNOLOGY *sparkles*
Yes. With that crap of a SP25.
So I don't have any flux paste but I figured if you melt rosin flux and pour the melted over your pads, it's super useful.
*Eyes element14 for potentially a new iron for some reason*
I'm pretty much able to solder 0805, potentially 0603, provided they're not too close together. Also, as long as I can get the pins lined up, TQFP and potentially even... *sparkles* VQFN/QFN *sparkles*
SOIC and TSSOP are pretty easy now.
I still can't do drag soldering, however- The bloody tips don't tin! Not with any solder- not even the one provided(lead free)
If I ever do get a workbench, I think I should upgrade everything, including my iron, multimeter, as well as get an oscillscope
A great story that also brings back memories for me as I too have something similar - a large slug of copper held in the end....no issues with tip getting eroded but perhaps SMT would be awkward
My first attempt at soldering involved using my father's large copper bit device that had to be heated up the gas cooker! This was long before I learned to solder. I still have that iron.
One of my friends at school - we were about 12 or 13 - brought a small electric motor, powered by a 4.5 V battery. Somehow, I managed to persuade him to let me take it home to show my father. Unfortunately, one of the wires on the motor broke away from its solder joint.
Panic!!!!!!!! I managed to fix it and return the motor the next day!
Some years later I pesruaded my parents to buy me a Henley Solon, which I still have, although I haven't used it for many many years.
My first attempts to join wires were using some solder strips that Tandy sold and you heated them using a match.
Given the uncertain outcome of those strips I moved on to buy a Antex 25W iron from Maplin and along with their projects magazine and the Electronic and Music Maker magazine (in UK) I started to build veroboard projects and taught myself.
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