Difficulty soldering to pin headers

I have been struggling to solder tinned stranded wire to gold-plated pin headers. The solder doesn't seem to adhere to the pins.

I have tried lightly abrading the pin surface and cleaning with Isopropanol, applying liquid flux, increasing the iron tip temperature to 400°C!

Eventually, the wire attaches using the high temperature however, sometimes not very well. The pins also melt the plastic support material and come loose.

These are the pin headers:

Any suggestions?

Top Replies

0 misaz 4 hours ago

You get more accureate ideas from others soon. I would suggeset wild idea of simply buying combined tin/Gold plated pinheaders instead. This idea of course do not work with other goold plated part like pogo pins which also need to be soldered from time to time.

This one is TSW-108-07-L-S but many cheaper exists.
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0 vmate 4 hours ago

Is it possible that your iron is not making proper thermal contact with the pin? To me, it sounds like very slow heating, hence needing some time for the solder to eventually stick.
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0 wolfgangfriedrich 3 hours ago

Is the solder melting to the tip of the iron OK? If not, your station might be set to 400 degC but your tip could be much colder. Please send a picture of the iron tip. 400 degC is way to much to solder pins like this, maximum of 300 should easily do it. Still hot enough to melt the plastic.

Also, if you put a jumper on the other side over the pin to solder and the next one, it holds the pin in place even if the plastic support gets soft.
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0 5ilicon 17 minutes ago in reply to wolfgangfriedrich

Thanks for all the replies so far.

I am using SAC305 solder and it melts perfectly on the tip.

The wires tinned easily at a low temperature, as do other soldering tasks.

I can eventually solder the wires to the pin headers by holding the tip for longer however, the plastic begins to melt.

The solder joint in some cases is weak.

I have seen tinned pin headers but only have gold-plated ones to use.
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