I'm gonna learn how to solder!
So guys, after a few successful cleans, repairs and simple mods to some of my old hardware, I am finally ready to take my maintenance routine more seriously and learn how to solder. To begin with, it will be simple stuff like replacing batteries, light recapping, reflowing chips etc. Eventually I want to be able to do more complex modifications, but that may be years away.
My current experience is basically nothing, apart from some really basic stuff back in high school 20 years ago (I made a box with an LED on it, lol!). So if I could get a little direction from a few of the old NA soldering pros in the following areas I would be super grateful:
1. Any good websites or youtube videos you can recommend with tutorials and information for beginners. Perhaps some kinda dos and don'ts sort of thing, just to give me a heads up to get started.
2. What to look out for when buying a soldering iron. I don't want to buy a cheap piece of crap that's gonna burn my Nintendo and/or house down, but I also am not looking to drop hundreds of bucks. A nice good value, safe beginners iron.
3. Any other tools, equipment or supplies you would recommend me purchase now.
4. Just any general advice or tips you can give me, like things you wish you knew when you were starting out, or maybe like golden rules to follow.
Thanks in advance for any replies. I know I have a long road and a lot of practice ahead of me, but I am looking forward to giving it a go!
My current experience is basically nothing, apart from some really basic stuff back in high school 20 years ago (I made a box with an LED on it, lol!). So if I could get a little direction from a few of the old NA soldering pros in the following areas I would be super grateful:
1. Any good websites or youtube videos you can recommend with tutorials and information for beginners. Perhaps some kinda dos and don'ts sort of thing, just to give me a heads up to get started.
2. What to look out for when buying a soldering iron. I don't want to buy a cheap piece of crap that's gonna burn my Nintendo and/or house down, but I also am not looking to drop hundreds of bucks. A nice good value, safe beginners iron.
3. Any other tools, equipment or supplies you would recommend me purchase now.
4. Just any general advice or tips you can give me, like things you wish you knew when you were starting out, or maybe like golden rules to follow.
Thanks in advance for any replies. I know I have a long road and a lot of practice ahead of me, but I am looking forward to giving it a go!
Comments
Rework/reflow seems to imply a hot air rework station or reflow oven which perhaps makes your budget tough
Tip tinning and flux go a long ways towards better solder joints
1. Buy a quality iron. The Hakko fx-888D is the way to go. If you are serious about this and want to actually use the iron on your gear eventually, this is a great tool for beginners and pros alike. They are available for ~$100US. It's important to have a quality iron, with quality tips, and with temperature control.
2. Buy quality solder. Kester 44 is my go to, but that is probably a bit pricey for a beginner. You want something around 0.30" rosin core and a 60/40 tin/lead.
3. Buy a bunch of hobby boards and a spool of wire. The first soldering you do should be on broken components you don't care about or hobby boards. Practice flowing solder onto wire. Practice flowing it onto the hobby board. Practice connecting the wires to the board in different locations. It doesn't need to do anything or have a purpose, you are learn to control it.
4. Buy solder wick, a rosin flux pen, and a mechanical solder sucker. These are all cheap, the flux pen being the most expensive. Learn to use the solder wick to fix mistakes. Learn how to remove old solder with the mechanical pump. Learn how to use flux to help you ensure a wetted joint.
5. When you think you are finally ready to really start working on gear, order some cheap prototype pcb's from oshpark or another fab house. Oshpark has tons of "tutorial" boards you can work on that are cheap to buy. Cheap to assemble. And actually do something if you complete them.
For video tutorials, while the NASA stuff is nice, I recommend the soldering tutorials from the EEVBlog on Youtube. He explains everything, shows tools, intentionally messes up to show you how to fix mistakes, and has a ton of videos.
If you have questions. Ask them. Anyone who berates you for asking questions about learning to solder should be ignored. It's better that you ask questions now than destroy something that can't be replaced.
Search Ebay or Aliexpress for "Electronic DIY kit" or similar. You can find tons of small projects for under $5 shipped, usually you'll have to supply a power supply or batteries for it though. Chinese components are extremely cheap. Lots of $15-30 "learn to solder" kits are pretty big rip offs for what components are actually included.
Looks like the best advice here is to practice on some cheaper/unimportant stuff first to hone my skills before moving on to my real stuff! My first real goal is to replace some batteries in my gameboy games, and it looks pretty simple, so I will practice on a couple of other things first before I give that a go.
Thanks for the help guys, I will keep you updated with my progress.
So guys, after a few successful cleans, repairs and simple mods to some of my old hardware, I am finally ready to take my maintenance routine more seriously and learn how to solder. To begin with, it will be simple stuff like replacing batteries, light recapping, reflowing chips etc. Eventually I want to be able to do more complex modifications, but that may be years away. My current experience is basically nothing, apart from some really basic stuff back in high school 20 years ago (I made a box with an LED on it, lol!). So if I could get a little direction from a few of the old NA soldering pros in the following areas I would be super grateful: 1. Any good websites or youtube videos you can recommend with tutorials and information for beginners. Perhaps some kinda dos and don'ts sort of thing, just to give me a heads up to get started. 2. What to look out for when buying a soldering iron. I don't want to buy a cheap piece of crap that's gonna burn my Nintendo and/or house down, but I also am not looking to drop hundreds of bucks. A nice good value, safe beginners iron. 3. Any other tools, equipment or supplies you would recommend me purchase now. 4. Just any general advice or tips you can give me, like things you wish you knew when you were starting out, or maybe like golden rules to follow. Thanks in advance for any replies. I know I have a long road and a lot of practice ahead of me, but I am looking forward to giving it a go!
1. youtube
2. Buy a cheap piece of crap. It'll likely outlive any expensive piece of crap you buy. I've had 3 $15-$20 radioshack irons for most of my life and they've never given me a problem. Meanwhile 5 of 5 not-so-cheap soldering stations that I've owned bit the dust within a year.
3. • Lead solder. The lead-free crap will destroy your tips and requires much more heat to liquify, which means you're more likely to roast whatever it is you're soldering.
• Brass Wool and Tinner.
• cheap-o rosin flux. Don't get a pen. I've NEVER needed one and they're expensive.
• lots of old electronics that are otherwise garbage.
EEVblog is pretty great too, but I can't say that I've watched any of his soldering videos, mostly tear downs and equipment reviews.
One thing I see often on faulty boards from newish solderers is flux that was not properly cleaned up--some fluxes are more 'tolerant' of this and others may become corrosive or conductive which are both bad in exciting ways.
So guys, after a few successful cleans, repairs and simple mods to some of my old hardware, I am finally ready to take my maintenance routine more seriously and learn how to solder. To begin with, it will be simple stuff like replacing batteries, light recapping, reflowing chips etc. Eventually I want to be able to do more complex modifications, but that may be years away. My current experience is basically nothing, apart from some really basic stuff back in high school 20 years ago (I made a box with an LED on it, lol!). So if I could get a little direction from a few of the old NA soldering pros in the following areas I would be super grateful: 1. Any good websites or youtube videos you can recommend with tutorials and information for beginners. Perhaps some kinda dos and don'ts sort of thing, just to give me a heads up to get started. 2. What to look out for when buying a soldering iron. I don't want to buy a cheap piece of crap that's gonna burn my Nintendo and/or house down, but I also am not looking to drop hundreds of bucks. A nice good value, safe beginners iron. 3. Any other tools, equipment or supplies you would recommend me purchase now. 4. Just any general advice or tips you can give me, like things you wish you knew when you were starting out, or maybe like golden rules to follow. Thanks in advance for any replies. I know I have a long road and a lot of practice ahead of me, but I am looking forward to giving it a go!
1. youtube
2. Buy a cheap piece of crap. It'll likely outlive any expensive piece of crap you buy. I've had 3 $15-$20 radioshack irons for most of my life and they've never given me a problem. Meanwhile 5 of 5 not-so-cheap soldering stations that I've owned bit the dust within a year.
3. • Lead solder. The lead-free crap will destroy your tips and requires much more heat to liquify, which means you're more likely to roast whatever it is you're soldering.
• Brass Wool and Tinner.
• cheap-o rosin flux. Don't get a pen. I've NEVER needed one and they're expensive.
• lots of old electronics that are otherwise garbage.
I'm going to be honest and state that I completely disagree with your opinion on irons. Additionally, I do not know a single professional who would agree with that statement. Cheap soldering irons do not have temperature control. While you can solder without temperature control, you have no idea what temperature you are subjecting your components to. It's much too easy to burn off pads or destroy components from this. Additionally, cheap irons usually use a conical tip and don't have options for any other tips. Conical tips are some of the worst and least useful tips there are.
The issue with conical tips is that they offer poor thermal mass thus requiring you to keep the iron in a single location for longer than you should to attempt to reach temperature. Many soldering jobs with cold solder joints generally occur because of the use of the wrong tip. The most common tips you will want are a blade style or a flat wedge. The blades offer great thermal mass, but are larger and you can accidentally damage other components if you are not careful. Flat wedge style tips offer decent thermal mass and are much smaller. They are also fantastic for SMD work.
As for the "NEVER" buy a flux pen, I completely disagree. MG Chemicals sells an inexpensive non-refillable rosin flux pen that has a high performing flux and a brush tip. Certain types of flux are corrosive, including no-clean, so having control over how much is being applied is helpful for cleanup later. Now that being said, liquid flux works great and is a viable option, just be aware that you will need something to apply it as well. If you are liberal with flux application, that's totally fine, just be sure to clean it off with some 91% or higher IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol) after you have finished. No one will ever tell you that you have used too much flux.
Seriously though, good luck dude, if you ever want to do some practice projects together, I'm down for that too, hoping one-day to do more complicated projects as well.
This is the stuff I typically use:
-Weller WES51 plus a set of tips
-Tip cleaner (wire)
-Tip tinner
-0.3mm 60/40 Lead Solder wire
-Flux Pen
-Solder wick/braid
-Cheap hot air station to deal with SMD components (I should probably upgrade but it works ok)
-Magnifying glass (to check your solder joints)
-Multimeter for basic troubleshooting
I just started not too long ago, in the beginning I saw a ton of youtube videos, the things I learned are basically what a wetted joint means, that you should not let the iron touch the board/pads for too long as just a few seconds should be enough (or you're doing it wrong), pointy tips are usually not the optimal ones as you want to make contact with a larger surface to transfer heat faster (I use a chisel tip most of the time), also flux is a must especially if you're dealing with components that are too close together or surface mount stuff, you must use a soldering station as cheap irons will get way too hot.
This is the stuff I typically use:
-Weller WES51 plus a set of tips
-Tip cleaner (wire)
-Tip tinner
-0.3mm 60/40 Lead Solder wire
-Flux Pen
-Solder wick/braid
-Cheap hot air station to deal with SMD components (I should probably upgrade but it works ok)
-Magnifying glass (to check your solder joints)
-Multimeter for basic troubleshooting
Great suggestions.
If you do end up getting the Hakko fx-888d and decide you really aren't going to get a lot of use out of it and want to get rid of it, you will easily be able to resell it for a decent price.
Also, Dave, didn't know you were interested in soldering! We can add that to the list of activities to distract us from gaming when we meet up, lol! Think I'll pass on the broken famiclones though, unless there are some with real clone boards instead of NOaC. Can't get much practice soldering on a board with just one glob and a couple of wires, lol!
Now what flux actually is, it's a chemical agent that cleans, purifies, and assists in creating surface tension. This results in a clean and thoroughly wetted joint and helps to prevent those solder bridges on close components, like SMD with lots of pins.
It comes in a few different chemical compositions and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The number one thing is do not get pipe flux. That's for plumbing and not what you want. It's highly acidic and corrosive.
You either want a nice no clean or rosin flux. If you don't go the pen route, then you want liquid. Don't get the gel. That's more useful for running wires than anything else.
Personal examples of absolutes from experts causing misunderstandings:
A well respected modder might tell you to "never" use thin kynar wrapping wire, then you'll see that he uses it all the time and was only talking about analog signals (even when you asked for context/clarification before).
They might say to "never" tack-solder by tinning two surfaces separately and to always apply fresh solder, and then you'll see them do it in fine-pitch soldering (add liquid flux, of course).
Some will say to never use hot glue when what they mean is to never use it to secure connections. Again, you will often see them contradicting their own rules.
A lot of experts wear their experience on their sleeve and take pride, which is great, until they start to behave like their way is the only correct way. It's one thing to evangelize a superior technique but it's something else entirely to stigmatize anyone who dares not do it your way.
Personal examples of absolutes from experts causing misunderstandings:
When I was a kid in the early '90s and I was first learning to solder I remember being confused by all the "always use flux" advice because they rarely discussed flux as anything except what was already in your solder ("use rosin core flux solder; acid core flux is not for electronics"). Even when assembling my HeatKit DIY electronics course and workstation I was pouring through documentation wondering how it was even possible to NOT use flux when it was in the solder. When I finally did find flux for sale it was a tub of gel, which was fine for tinning wires but terrible for applying to components and PCBs. Eventually I got liquid flux but still didn't have an adequate way to dispense it since neither Radio Shack nor Fry's had anything for that (strange, since I got the liquid flux there). I guess it's a bit like Radio Shack having wire wrapping tools and wire wrapping wire and perfboard but no wire wrapping posts or wire wrap DIP sockets and the like. I spilled the bottle and had crusty leg hair for weeks on at least two occasions before I finally got a needle tip dispenser bottle. I still need better dispensers for my cleaning fluids! Now I have a selection of flux pens and pastes and liquids and know what to use where, but a lot of that was trial and error. "Flux" is definitely a case where there's more complexity than the simple phrase, "use flux," suggests.
Another big hurdle for me was desolder wick/braid. Most of stuff just didn't seem to work. Almost all of the "expert" advice was to use "good" wick and "not the cheap stuff," but I'd often find that the expensive stuff didn't work either. Frustratingly, the same brand that worked before wouldn't work when I ran out and bought more (often the only kind on the shelf)! It seemed to be complete luck of the draw and I always feared using any of my stuff that worked for fear of running out and not having it for something crucial. Many years later I discovered that they were color-coded for different applications (high heat, normal heat, low heat), often with no writing on the label to explain this. Doh! All those "experts" and their best advice was not to buy the cheap stuff when a simple "buy this color for this kind of work" would have served noob me MUCH better. IOW: there's more complexity than their advice suggests.
My best advice is to look at any job you finish and ask yourself "How can I do this better next time? Is there anything I need that could have made this better/more professional? Is there anything else I could have done for a better result?" Often, there are simple things and even if you can't answer the question for yourself in the moment, just considering it will remind you of uses for stuff you might encounter in the future. This is how you improve your tools, techniques, and resources.
Get some picks and a center punch and calipers and drill bits and nut drivers and hobby knives and and a set of files and set of tweezers and the like. A lot of it is total crap but using crap will tell you where you want to start spending on upgrades, like tool kits and ESD safe tweezers and fiberglass pens and such. Heck, their $10 digital calipers and $3 flush cutters are still some of the best tools in my arsenal! I did find that their "Pro" nut driver set was more useful than the cheaper one despite having fewer sizes (it has a hole in the driver shaft for a potentiometer shaft to pass through). Their security bit set is useful for when you encounter something you don't have a driver for but get dedicated drivers for the stuff you do frequently (for me, both gamebit/NEC External Line Head sizes, triwing/tri-tip, pentalobe, etc). It's still useful to have in advance when you need one of the spanner bits to open the occasional NES AC adapter or something.
Augment that with useful, more quality, tool sets with a range of small screwdrivers, torx, hex, etc (with shafts, if possible; bits suck). I primarily use a $50 Husky set from Lowes and a set I got from Fry's for the chip puller (no one else seemed to have them locally when I needed one).
Radio Shack is functionally gone but I absolutely LOVE the pre-tinned wire I got there last year. No need to save and salvage component legs! It is awesome for trace repair. I just add solder to the enpoints on the PCB, dip the pre-tinned wire in flux gel while it's still on the spool, tack solder the end to the first joint, bend and route it along the trace path to the second joint, flux it with my pen, tack-solder it there too, and then cut the rest of the spool off with my flush cutters. I may cut the spool off closer to the final length before the second tack solder joint if it's stressing the original joint too much (trim excess when done). It's stiff but a bit more flexible than a component leg so it makes great jumpers and is thin enough to pass through most vias. Rather than struggling to keep a bent component leg or pre-cut jumper wire in the through holes while I work on the bottom, I can just stick it through the bottom of the board, solder it where it comes out the other through hole, pull it tight, solder it where it enters the bottom of the board, and cut off the spool.
Another trick I use is abusing a wire-wrapping tool to solder to component legs without alligator clip stands and such. For example, when I need to put an axial leaded resistor on a leaded LED, I'll wrap the resistor to the LED then solder them together. Solder really wets the spiral well, ike braided wire, so I get a super-secure joint, it looks better, and I don't need a third hand.
So in non-technical terms, flux helps the solder to flow onto the pads and the components. It also helps to keep solder from creating bridges.
Now what flux actually is, it's a chemical agent that cleans, purifies, and assists in creating surface tension. This results in a clean and thoroughly wetted joint and helps to prevent those solder bridges on close components, like SMD with lots of pins.
It comes in a few different chemical compositions and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The number one thing is do not get pipe flux. That's for plumbing and not what you want. It's highly acidic and corrosive.
You either want a nice no clean or rosin flux. If you don't go the pen route, then you want liquid. Don't get the gel. That's more useful for running wires than anything else.
My understanding is that the heat "activates" a deoxidizing reaction as it burns away. That prepares the surface for solder to adhere better and the surface tension draws the solder in to replace the evaporating flux before the air can oxidize. Air will rapidly oxidize the exposed surface with heat, so covering with flux is important. As a liquid that fills the microscopic gaps between contacting surfaces, it also helps transfer heat. Microsoldering with a conical tip like MarshallH suggests for UltraHDMI is pretty much impossible without liquid flux to conduct heat. Liquid or gel also helps tremendously with solder braid, even though the braid already has flux. For example, desoldering an LED that goes into a ground plane is going to take a lot of additional heat, and desolder braid also takes a lot of additional heat. A small tip does not have much surface area to convey heat, but I don't even bother changing tips anymore when I finish UltraHDMI and move on to the LED. I add fresh solder to the LED, dip the braid in flux gel, clean and wet the iron with fresh solder, melt the solder for a few seconds to get the ground plane hot, then momentarily remove my iron to sandwich the braid. Of course, I hold the iron sideways to make my super-thin conical tip as wedge-like as possible.
Yes, I've done UltraHDMI with wedge tips many times but went back to MarshallH, the creator's, method when I realized how much time I was wasting testing continuity after removing the visible bridges (I usually don't rely on the UltraHDMI Self Test when I'm risking someone else's console). Wedge is definitely easier and normally faster but in this particular scenario I now use the thinnest conical tip I have. Getting rid of a bridge with a conical tip is a real pain though because it doesn't have the surface area to draw excess solder away or thin it out by distributing it across other pins. Luckily, I developed a technique to minimize that too: freshly wetted tip always goes to a larger ground pin first and then jumps back and forth with surrounding pins to distribute the *tiny* bit of added solder.
To the OP, using cheap tools you picked up from a local hardware store is totally fine when you are just practicing on junk or when working on little beginner projects. In all honesty you can use cheap tools when working on things that are important to you, but remember the chances of damage increase due to lack of options/control.
Like you have seen in this thread so far, everyone has their own opinions and thoughts on what is the best way to do something. At the end of the day it will really depend on what is best for you. There are obviously cases where there really is only one correct way to do something, but there are substantially more cases where there are multiple ways to effectively do the same job. Like CZroe pointed out with UltraHDMI installs, I would never use a conical tip for this, nor would I personally recommend it. However, he stated that he has a method that works for him. That does not make him wrong and me right or vice versa, we both just have a different method of accomplishing the same goal.
At the end of the day, you will have lots of different opinions to sort through and you may adopt one persons' way of doing something and another persons' way of doing something else. All of that is perfectly fine. As long as you are reaching the end goal and not destroying anything in the process, that's all that matters. The only time when I don't fully agree with that statement is when you are doing work for money. Once you are charging others for work that you perform, the standards begin to change. I don't think that's your end goal, so this probably won't be a concern for you.
So guys, after a few successful cleans, repairs and simple mods to some of my old hardware, I am finally ready to take my maintenance routine more seriously and learn how to solder. To begin with, it will be simple stuff like replacing batteries, light recapping, reflowing chips etc. Eventually I want to be able to do more complex modifications, but that may be years away. My current experience is basically nothing, apart from some really basic stuff back in high school 20 years ago (I made a box with an LED on it, lol!). So if I could get a little direction from a few of the old NA soldering pros in the following areas I would be super grateful: 1. Any good websites or youtube videos you can recommend with tutorials and information for beginners. Perhaps some kinda dos and don'ts sort of thing, just to give me a heads up to get started. 2. What to look out for when buying a soldering iron. I don't want to buy a cheap piece of crap that's gonna burn my Nintendo and/or house down, but I also am not looking to drop hundreds of bucks. A nice good value, safe beginners iron. 3. Any other tools, equipment or supplies you would recommend me purchase now. 4. Just any general advice or tips you can give me, like things you wish you knew when you were starting out, or maybe like golden rules to follow. Thanks in advance for any replies. I know I have a long road and a lot of practice ahead of me, but I am looking forward to giving it a go!
1. youtube
2. Buy a cheap piece of crap. It'll likely outlive any expensive piece of crap you buy. I've had 3 $15-$20 radioshack irons for most of my life and they've never given me a problem. Meanwhile 5 of 5 not-so-cheap soldering stations that I've owned bit the dust within a year.
3. • Lead solder. The lead-free crap will destroy your tips and requires much more heat to liquify, which means you're more likely to roast whatever it is you're soldering.
• Brass Wool and Tinner.
• cheap-o rosin flux. Don't get a pen. I've NEVER needed one and they're expensive.
• lots of old electronics that are otherwise garbage.
I'm going to be honest and state that I completely disagree with your opinion on irons. Additionally,(1) I do not know a single professional who would agree with that statement. (2) Cheap soldering irons do not have temperature control. While you can solder without temperature control, you have no idea what temperature you are subjecting your components to. It's much too easy to burn off pads or destroy components from this. Additionally, cheap irons usually use a conical tip and don't have options for any other tips. Conical tips are some of the worst and least useful tips there are.
The issue with conical tips is that they offer poor thermal mass thus requiring you to keep the iron in a single location for longer than you should to attempt to reach temperature. Many soldering jobs with cold solder joints generally occur because of the use of the wrong tip. The most common tips you will want are a blade style or a flat wedge. The blades offer great thermal mass, but are larger and you can accidentally damage other components if you are not careful. Flat wedge style tips offer decent thermal mass and are much smaller. They are also fantastic for SMD work.
(3) As for the "NEVER" buy a flux pen, I completely disagree. MG Chemicals sells an inexpensive non-refillable rosin flux pen that has a high performing flux and a brush tip. Certain types of flux are corrosive, including no-clean, so having control over how much is being applied is helpful for cleanup later. Now that being said, liquid flux works great and is a viable option, just be aware that you will need something to apply it as well. If you are liberal with flux application, that's totally fine, just be sure to clean it off with some 91% or higher IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol) after you have finished. No one will ever tell you that you have used too much flux.
(1) Well now you do. It really depends on what you're soldering. Based on what the OP says he'd like to do in the short to mid-term with his setup, I do not beleive that a soldering station is a worthwhile investment. If he really gets into it and, as he mentioned, has a desire to take on more complex soldering projects in the future, then he may want to consider a soldering station.
(2) Never had any problems when using a non-adjustable iron. I keep a few around (15w, 25w, 30w) so that this really isn't an issue. 2 of the 3 irons I own can accomodate different tips. That said, I use conical tips about 95% of the time and it's never an issue for general purpose soldering, in my experience. I do use flat tips or a torch for SMD, but I do very little with SM components.
(3) To be clear, I didn't say "NEVER buy". I said I've NEVER needed. Tub o' rosin flux + tooth picks/q-tips/cheap as hell hobby brushes (the $.99 per 20 or so variety) work great. Rosin flux isn't corrosive, so there's virtually no need to clean it up afterwards, which is why I recommended it. Again, just trying to recommend something to get the guy started on the types of jobs that he described having interest in. I feel that there isn't any need for him to spend more money than is necessary, especially if he comes to find that he really doesn't enjoy soldering, and eventually gives it up. The less invested, the less potentially lost. Plus, none of the things that I recommended would end up being replaced if he were to upgrade later on. They would all still remain useful tools to keep on hand.
Not that you're recommendations aren't good, it's just that I feel as though you're prescribing that he get WAY more than what he needs in order to just get his feet wet
To the OP, keep the thread updated with how your learning goes. I am interested to hear and potentially see the progress. Don't be afraid to post pictures of "crappy" work. It will give us a chance to make recommendations to you to help clean up any issues or how you could adjust something to improve it.
Actually, something has come up which will take precedence over any other job for my first REAL fix... I'm gonna start another small thread to discuss it, as once again it is a specific issue which I think would be useful as its own thread.
If the conical tip method works for you, then more power to you. I haven't touched a conical tip since I started soldering 20+ years ago. Even for micro soldering I have specialized tips and still frequently use fine wedge tips. In regards to the UltraHDMI soldering, I have always found the wedge tip to be the easiest method, for me personally. I don't use the self-test for anything other than taking a picture for the customer. Checking for bridges is easy enough visually or through a loupe.
To the OP, using cheap tools you picked up from a local hardware store is totally fine when you are just practicing on junk or when working on little beginner projects. In all honesty you can use cheap tools when working on things that are important to you, but remember the chances of damage increase due to lack of options/control.
Like you have seen in this thread so far, everyone has their own opinions and thoughts on what is the best way to do something. At the end of the day it will really depend on what is best for you. There are obviously cases where there really is only one correct way to do something, but there are substantially more cases where there are multiple ways to effectively do the same job. Like CZroe pointed out with UltraHDMI installs, I would never use a conical tip for this, nor would I personally recommend it. However, he stated that he has a method that works for him. That does not make him wrong and me right or vice versa, we both just have a different method of accomplishing the same goal.
At the end of the day, you will have lots of different opinions to sort through and you may adopt one persons' way of doing something and another persons' way of doing something else. All of that is perfectly fine. As long as you are reaching the end goal and not destroying anything in the process, that's all that matters. The only time when I don't fully agree with that statement is when you are doing work for money. Once you are charging others for work that you perform, the standards begin to change. I don't think that's your end goal, so this probably won't be a concern for you.
Additionally, as an absolute noob amateur, I am sure I would make just as big a mess with a hundred dollar iron as I'm gonna do with my cheapo ones right now, lol!
Thanks for your info and support, CZroe! As I have said, I do intend to get some better gear in time, but I will probably wait a couple of months till I return home to visit the UK before I look into it. Being here in Taiwan makes it a little harder to track down and order better quality stuff sometimes...
Additionally, as an absolute noob amateur, I am sure I would make just as big a mess with a hundred dollar iron as I'm gonna do with my cheapo ones right now, lol!
I am getting an Xtronic soon. Seems to have great reviews and is a solid compromise of quality/features/price for $50. Hopefully it holds up. All i need it for is modding my systems occasionally and battery changes. I probably could use a cheap iron, but i like having a station for ease of use.
I will let you know how it works out. Good luck.
So, to begin, I only had around an hour to practice today, so I set up my station in a well ventilated and lit room, and put on some safety glasses and face mask... safety first! Below are a few pictures of my rudimentary tools. I have two irons, which I have to admit I am not really happy with, but they were seriously the best two I could find after visiting four separate hardware stores. The larger iron is 80 watts, the smaller is 60 watts, and they both have conical tips (couldn't find a single chisel tip anywhere). They were both totally cheap, so I have no problem discarding them the minute I find something better.
I also have a desoldering pump (which turned out to be useless) and some flux paste, which did actually seem to work well. My solder seems to be ok too, perhaps a little thick, but not bad. A crucial item I really am missing is solder wick... Could not find that shit ANYWHERE. I think I am really gonna have to find a real electronics store somewhere, or go online.
The items I chose to practice on were a couple of old remote controls, and a corded telephone. I cracked the two remotes open and could barely believe there were hardly any solder joints in them! Pretty useless, so I unscrewed the phone and JACKPOT! It's full of chips and components and wires and hundreds of solder joints, so this will be perfect for practice.
Little did I know, how badly said practice would go...
When it comes to practicing, one of the things I want to do for real is swap out an EEPROM in one of my N64 games. Fortunately, this phone contains an almost identical looking chip! My practice for today was desoldering and then resoldering this chip, just as I hope to do for the N64 game in the future.
My first step was to coat the solder on the chip with flux. This went fine, and I think the paste is actually not bad. Then I went to the joints with my iron... This was pretty bad, I was unable to use the desolder pump because the joints were too small, and the solder seemed to harden as soon as I took the iron away. As this was just practice, I ended up just running my hot iron along the pins, rubbing the solder away and eventually jigging it loose. This pretty much ruined the contact points on the board, and put an almost certainly deadly amount of heat into the chip. Now, I can only guess solder wick would have made this a lot easier and less destructive? The desolder process was a complete disaster, and made me realise I am a million miles away from doing this to one of my treasured possessions...
With the chip liberated from the board, and still in possession of all its legs, it was time to practice soldering it back to the board. I coated all the holes in flux and put the chip back in. Then I took my iron and the solder and connected the first leg, using the technique I watched on the EEV blog channel. The first joint was a huge success! It was round, smooth and shiny, just as it should be! I was very surprised and happy I got it right on my first try! However, this was probably the only one that went right... The very next leg I tried wouldn't take the solder at all! It just balled up and stuck to my iron! I tried to clean my iron on the sponge, and do it again, but it wouldn't take. I decided to keep going, and a few of the legs soldered properly (though nowhere near as good as the first one). I can only assume that on my first joint I burned off the flux on the rest of the holes at the same time, maybe? How can I change my method, so that this won't happen again?
Anyway, if you are into autopsies and have a strong stomach, you can check out my pics below, lol! It is clear I need solder wick to help me desolder. I also need a far better technique for my soldering, and almost certainly a better iron. I will probably do some more practice on this scrap board tomorrow, and I will try using the smaller iron to see how that one does. As you can hopefully tell, I am begging for more hints and tips here, lol, any comment (even pointing and laughing) will be much appreciated!
In regards to your practice. It's practice and you are going to make mistakes. You definitely destroyed a few pads. This would be caused by excessive heating. The 80w iron and length of time on those joints would have played a role. Not aure which desoldering pump you picked up, but usually you need to use the pump while still applying heat to keep the solder liquid. The high end pro style pumps use a hollow tip with a heating element and a vacuum built in to suck the molten solder up. Not recommending you buy one, just explaining how they work.
For your next attempt, you will probably want to apply fresh solder to each pin, then when you attempt to desolder, keep the iron on the joint while using the pump. I would definitely try one of the smaller irons you picked up. The iron is just breaking down the glue on the pcb that is holding the pads on because it's far too hot.
All in all bot the worst firat attempt I have ever seen. Just keep on trying and you'll have it in no time.