What tool or technology do you reach for most often as an engineer?

Soldering Iron, a pity i don't do well and i allways have to throw to the trash all the things i tried to repare

Hi Xarly,

Here are some soldering tips.

Use an iron that is 20 or 25 watts max. The tip must be tended to continuously. I tin the tip and brush it with a clean steel brush every 10 to 15 minutes. Some techs like to brush the tip with a wet sponge. if you get excess solder on the tip brush or shake it off. If you shake it off be careful not to hit your skin or clothing. If your tip has dark spots or black spots keep cleaning it and retinning it. If you can't get it to the point where you can tin all of it, buy a new tip. Make sure you do not have dirt or grease on the brush that you use to clean the tip. Never use the tip to burn wood or melt plastic. Use a good quality multi core solder. The care and preparation of the tip is the most important part of soldering. The next step is the preparation of the spot to be soldered. Wires should be clean. Many parts nowdays come in strips with masking tape. All foreign glue, tape, material must be removed from the wire. I sometimes use a 600 grit wet/dry paper to clean the wires. If I am soldering to a pad or connector I make sure it is clean. In some cases I will tin the wire and the connector before I solder them together.If I am soldering two wires together I will tin both wires, position them next to each other and heat them to melt the tinning together. When I was originally taught to solder they said to always make a good mechanical connection before soldering. This is incorect. The best procedure is to seldom make good mechanical connection first. If the solder is properly heated and allowed to cool it will have a smooth shiney surface and will make as good a connection alone as having made a good mechanical connection first. When you make a solder joint you place the two things to be soldered in close proximity. Place your clean tinned soldering tip against the joint. Do not try to heat the joint itself. Slide the solder between the tip and the joint. It will melt when it touches the solder tip. The melted solder will heat the joint and as the joint comes up to temp the solder will flow by adhesion into the joint. As soon as the solder flows remove the tip as we do nort want to over heat the junction. The longer your tip has a solder bridge between it and the joint the longer heat will have to travel up wires to potentially damage your parts. The shape of your solder tip is specific to different jobs. A long skinny tip is good for small tight connections but it will not conduct enough heat to the soldering site if the joint is too large. On the other hand a chisel or blunt tip will conduct enough heat to solder a larger joint but might not fit into a tight space or a small site. These are the techniques that I have found to work well and give good results. Now all you have to do is practice. If you want to unsolder things send me a note and I will give you some tips on this too.

John

I have to agree with Shabaz ideally the tip should never need sanding. however if it becomes pitted generally due to over temperature or bad fluxes etc  you may be forced to do it then. however once you start you have generally eroded the steel outer away and the core deteriorates quite rapidly.  I have tips I used to use all day on a temp controlled iron and they are now nearly 20 years old. Abuse rapidly deteriorates bits!

A reasonable temperature controlled iron is available for £30 int he UK no doubt less elsewhere

Yeah we're lucky in the UK the cheap Antex ones are not bad. I used them for years (I now have something a lot better). The TCS one (temperature controlled) was about £40 when I bought it and it lasted about 6 years (and still have it as a spare). I think I replaced the tip once.

Yeah I got the Tcs50 in '85 I think and I still have it ...not in regular use now but was hammered all day every day for a good 10 years and only 2 bits

Just looked them up on the web ...Amazingly they are 20 quid more on Ebay than CPC or Maplin or Antex them selves ...very strange

Nice, wouldn't some of the smaller units of sufficed?

Are you doing some big boards with it ?

I was wondering as the P&P was rather hefty

Its always a choice, and the choice is always yours.

My family never knew what to buy me, so rather than gifts that might be not as useful, they often gave me $ towards tools, etc.

I can say once you purchase a good quality one, you'll have it for 25-30 years ...ie much longer than the boards you're working with now.

Mark

John Alexander wrote:

 

Just looked them up on the web ...Amazingly they are 20 quid more on Ebay than CPC or Maplin or Antex them selves ...very strange

Not really..  It's becomming quite normal for prices on ebay to be more than buying from a traditional shop. Certainly for stuff thats easily available elsewhere that trend has been ongoing for a few years now.  For electronics stuff, Aliexpress and shipping it in from China may be a better option these days.

shabaz wrote:

 

A tip should never be sanded, in fact never rubbed or any force used. It should just touch the surface you're trying to solder. If your tip became faulty without doing this, then unfortunately it is because the iron is too hot (due to no temperature control).

Unfortunately these days it's not quite so simple. Lead free solder erodes the tip coating quite well on it's own. Combine that with the higher temperatures required for lead free and you can see where it's going.

Nice photo here: http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/bespoke/bespoke7.jsp?bespokepage=farnell/en/ed_world/news/latest_news/2006/soldering.jsp

Yes, I've noticed like the hot plates mentioned elsewhere I saw Ian of Dangerous Prototypes say that they can get gear at ridiculous prices time to follow him on one of his trip to China he organises.

Yes, I've noticed like the hot plates mentioned elsewhere I saw Ian of Dangerous Prototypes say that they can get gear at ridiculous prices time to follow him on one of his trip to China he organises.

Re the Ebay Parts I've seen plenty where they are double or more the price of Farnell which is just crazy ...Unless I can get on the act of course!!