The Living Soldering Thread

[MOZ]

What temperature do yo have your iron at? I have touched my soldapullt tip to the iron several times but no melted it one bit yet.

[mkawa]

I hate whick, burnt too much fingers, no thanks.

i agree.  while whick still has its use and place (especially with pre-soldered boards) i greatly prefer my soldapullit.  that little edyson solder sucker (also not so little i was freaked out when it arrived and it wasnt the size of a pen like it thought it was going to be) just sucks everything up i throw at it.  my only complaint is that the tip be made of a more temperature resistant (but non conductive) material that doesnt easily melt.  see many times when i am using the solder sucker i have to place the sucker near my tip as i heat up the solder.  i have melted the soldapullit tip quite a bit through use. 

whatever though it is way better than whick.  whick is so messy and slow.

the tips are very replaceable if you're soldering hot enough to go through them, and they are quite inexpensive. melt point on the tips is 260C, which is about as high as you're going to get with a plastic. you may be leaving it on the joint for too long. try hovering the tip over the joint for a bit until it melts, then pop it over the joint (you can leave the iron there) hit the button and move it away again. if you didn't get everything, just pull the iron away for a second or two, and repeat.

one of the first videos i will be making will be a HOWTO on fully rebuilding a soldapullt. that should help people see the scale of how darned long the thing is. it's _definitely_ not the size of any pencil i've ever used . ask cptbadass about how he first reacted to his soldapullt. bwahahaha

[tjcaustin]

I hate whick, burnt too much fingers, no thanks.

i agree.  while whick still has its use and place (especially with pre-soldered boards) i greatly prefer my soldapullit.  that little edyson solder sucker (also not so little i was freaked out when it arrived and it wasnt the size of a pen like it thought it was going to be) just sucks everything up i throw at it.  my only complaint is that the tip be made of a more temperature resistant (but non conductive) material that doesnt easily melt.  see many times when i am using the solder sucker i have to place the sucker near my tip as i heat up the solder.  i have melted the soldapullit tip quite a bit through use. 

whatever though it is way better than whick.  whick is so messy and slow.

the tips are very replaceable if you're soldering hot enough to go through them, and they are quite inexpensive. melt point on the tips is 260C, which is about as high as you're going to get with a plastic. you may be leaving it on the joint for too long. try hovering the tip over the joint for a bit until it melts, then pop it over the joint (you can leave the iron there) hit the button and move it away again. if you didn't get everything, just pull the iron away for a second or two, and repeat.

one of the first videos i will be making will be a HOWTO on fully rebuilding a soldapullt. that should help people see the scale of how darned long the thing is. it's _definitely_ not the size of any pencil i've ever used . ask cptbadass about how he first reacted to his soldapullt. bwahahaha

So much cursing...

[tricheboars]

What temperature do yo have your iron at? I have touched my soldapullt tip to the iron several times but no melted it one bit yet.

i run my hakko fx888d at 666 degrees cause...satan. but in all seriousness it should run at 350C which is 662F.  i just add a few degrees for the devil.

[HPE1000]

What flux should I get? I would prefer if it was on amazon with prime, and I don't need a ton of it, just enough for a 60% board and maybe a bit more.

[mkawa]

this is a fine choice: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0080X79HG/ref=biss_dp_t_asn

it's absolutely hilarious that amazon will ship you a liter of the stuff without any MSDS, explosives warning or chemical packaging at all. bwahaha.

[HPE1000]

this is a fine choice: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0080X79HG/ref=biss_dp_t_asn

it's absolutely hilarious that amazon will ship you a liter of the stuff without any MSDS, explosives warning or chemical packaging at all. bwahaha.

Thanks

What is your opinion on the pens? I can either get the pen with 10ml for $6, or a 125ml bottle for $8. If the pen is easier, then by all means I will get it, but couldn't I just get the bottle and apply it with a q-tip or something?

[mkawa]

if you get a straight bottle, you have to figure out how to dispense it. the pen is a dispenser, so go with that if you don't have little dispensing bottles lying around (i use a 2" 25ga stainless steel luer lock needle on a 0.5oz squeeze bottle, but have to change the flux regularly, because it hardens with oxygen exposure and UV exposure).

[HPE1000]

if you get a straight bottle, you have to figure out how to dispense it. the pen is a dispenser, so go with that if you don't have little dispensing bottles lying around (i use a 2" 25ga stainless steel luer lock needle on a 0.5oz squeeze bottle, but have to change the flux regularly, because it hardens with oxygen exposure and UV exposure).

Sounds like I just need the pen then, I am only building a 60% board, but I am soldering the switches, leds, resistors, and diodes. Do you think that is enough flux?

[mkawa]

yah. remember that solder contains flux in the center. extra flux is needed when you're reflowing joints, have a particularly nasty component to solder (heavily oxidized leads, for example) etc.

[HPE1000]

yah. remember that solder contains flux in the center. extra flux is needed when you're reflowing joints, have a particularly nasty component to solder (heavily oxidized leads, for example) etc.

Well, the reason I was wanting it is because sometimes when I am soldering a join, it just wont flow right. I was soldering a techkeys business card recently and 4 of the 6 solder points were perfect as far as I am concerned, but for 2 of them, the solder just wasn't flowing right, it just didn't want to stick to the pins and pads.

I would add more solder, and it would just start balling up on the top of the pin, or only on one side of the pad. I am not doing anything wrong as far as I can tell, and I can only think flux could help.

Or is this caused by something different?

[mkawa]

the pad is not hot enough. this will be easier to see once i make the first high mag soldering video, but molten solder will only "stick" to metal that is sufficiently hot and not oxidized. when you heat up a joint, your goal is to get BOTH surfaces of the joint up to the melt point of the solder (190c for 63/37 eutectic). that often means creating a small heat bridge that connects the tip of the iron to both surfaces. it may also mean a larger tip to flow more power into the joint. it's hard to tell from your description.

[SaySo]

[size=78%]Soldering flux[/size]

Kester 44 .032 diameter solder(.020 for SMD) -
63/37 - http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=370-074
.020 - http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=370-072
[/size]

Hello,


I don't know if someone tried this :
Can we use the 0.020 Kester44 for all the soldering or it is too thin ?

Cheers

[mkawa]

for bigger joints you just feed more solder. 0.02 is a very good general purpose size. it's small enough for SMT and big enough that you don't spend half an hour feeding solder into big joints.

[SaySo]

.

[mkawa]

two options: put a little clip-on heatsink on the part (they look like little binder clips and can be found at any electronics store. heck, you can use little binder clips). other option: heat joint, feed, let joint cool a bit, heat joint, feed, let joint cool a bit, and so on.

remember that big joints sink more heat, and that solder often wets as it cools, so it's actually preferable to add small amounts of solder at a time to any joint.

[HPE1000]

So, I desoldered a whole filco today and around 3 of the little switch holes got their copper coating pulled off with the switch pins for whatever reason. Is this going to cause any problems?

Pic:

[Melvang]

So, I desoldered a whole filco today and around 3 of the little switch holes got their copper coating pulled off with the switch pins for whatever reason. Is this going to cause any problems?

Pic:

Show Image

Yes.  There will not be anything for the solder to stick to aside from the pin.  Chances are the best bet will be to follow the traces to the next switch and run a wire from that pin with the lifted pad to the next pad down the line.  I have done it.  Check out the link in my signature for the HDD activity LED in my Esc key.

[mkawa]

yes. you're going to need to connect that pin to metal when you resolder. you have a couple options. the most straightforward is to run a jumper between the equivalent diode joint and that pin.

another option is to get very aggressive with your flux and solder application and effectively solder the pin to the pad on the other side of the board. you'll have to aggressively tin and flux that pad, put the pin through, then heat your pin up and jam your solder through the thru-hole that the pin is sticking out of. pcb coating over the trace with an x-acto knife, then bend your pin over to touch the trace you exposed. solder the pin to the exposed trace.

the "proper" way to fix this is to use conductive epoxy to glue a new pad on. it's a huge pain and almost no one does that unless it's really really imperative that they repair the pcb by the book.

[HPE1000]

Hmm, that sucks

I just got frustrated and I did solder the 3 messed up switches to be sure, all three seem to be working fine in aquakeytest, is everything fine if they are reading correctly?

[mkawa]

yep, you're in good shape if they work. those pads and holes are large and it's highly possible that you soldered through the thru-hole when you put the new keys on. good stuff!

[Melvang]

Hmm, that sucks

I just got frustrated and I did solder the 3 messed up switches to be sure, all three seem to be working fine in aquakeytest, is everything fine if they are reading correctly?

Chances are you ended up getting enough solder down the hole to connect the pin to the pad on the other side.

Sniped by Mkawa

[HPE1000]

Yeah, I shove my .20 solder all the way down the hole and fill it up, so it should be all good then

I just got so frustrated after 4+ hours of desoldering this stupid thing.

Thanks you two! 

[Melvang]

Yeah, I shove my .20 solder all the way down the hole and fill it up, so it should be all good then

I just got so frustrated after 4+ hours of desoldering this stupid thing.

Thanks you two! 

There ya go.

This is the definition of filling a hole with solder.  Try the slot with a switch pin.  It is compatible with both MX and Alps switches.

[stancato9]

I'm making some mini usb cables (attempting to) and I am finding it extremely hard to solder the wires on to the mini usb pads. The wires are almost bigger than the pads! Any tips?

[tjcaustin]

I'm making some mini usb cables (attempting to) and I am finding it extremely hard to solder the wires on to the mini usb pads. The wires are almost bigger than the pads! Any tips?

What size wire are you using?

Are you tinning both the pads and the wire?

[swill]

I'm making some mini usb cables (attempting to) and I am finding it extremely hard to solder the wires on to the mini usb pads. The wires are almost bigger than the pads! Any tips?

My advice would be:
- Flux your wire and tin it with solder.
- Flux the pad and put a small amount of solder on the pad.
- Flux both the wire and the pad again.  Hold the wire onto the pad.  Heat and let the solders reflow and remove the iron without moving the wire.

Is this what you are doing?

[tjcaustin]

I'm making some mini usb cables (attempting to) and I am finding it extremely hard to solder the wires on to the mini usb pads. The wires are almost bigger than the pads! Any tips?

My advice would be:
- Flux your wire and tin it with solder.
- Flux the pad and put a small amount of solder on the pad.
- Flux both the wire and the pad again.  Hold the wire onto the pad.  Heat and let the solders reflow and remove the iron without moving the wire.

Is this what you are doing?

He just described what I do for a living better than I did.  GG

[swill]

I'm making some mini usb cables (attempting to) and I am finding it extremely hard to solder the wires on to the mini usb pads. The wires are almost bigger than the pads! Any tips?

My advice would be:
- Flux your wire and tin it with solder.
- Flux the pad and put a small amount of solder on the pad.
- Flux both the wire and the pad again.  Hold the wire onto the pad.  Heat and let the solders reflow and remove the iron without moving the wire.

Is this what you are doing?

He just described what I do for a living better than I did.  GG

Sorry. Didn't mean to trump your answer.   I gave a lot of detail because I did not realize how important fluxing both tinned surfaces was till I struggled with it. I figured the detail would be helpful.

[tjcaustin]

I'm making some mini usb cables (attempting to) and I am finding it extremely hard to solder the wires on to the mini usb pads. The wires are almost bigger than the pads! Any tips?

My advice would be:
- Flux your wire and tin it with solder.
- Flux the pad and put a small amount of solder on the pad.
- Flux both the wire and the pad again.  Hold the wire onto the pad.  Heat and let the solders reflow and remove the iron without moving the wire.

Is this what you are doing?

He just described what I do for a living better than I did.  GG

Sorry. Didn't mean to trump your answer.   I gave a lot of detail because I did not realize how important fluxing both tinned surfaces was till I struggled with it. I figured the detail would be helpful.

No, you're fine!  I was just amused.

[mkawa]

you can actually use clips to hold the hookup wire onto the pad. just make sure you don't flux the clip and keep the temperatures low and away from the clip and like magic, the clip will not attach to the joint. this will result in an electrically stronger joint because both sides of the joint will have been significantly more still at the phase change from liquid to solid.

[swill]

you can actually use clips to hold the hookup wire onto the pad. just make sure you don't flux the clip and keep the temperatures low and away from the clip and like magic, the clip will not attach to the joint. this will result in an electrically stronger joint because both sides of the joint will have been significantly more still at the phase change from liquid to solid.

Ya, it is really hard to pick up the soldering iron off the wire and not have the wire move at all.  This does make sense.

[minho]

Are helping hands that... helpful? If so, can anyone suggest a nice pair that I could get a for [hopefully] under $15, or $20? (Planning on getting two to hold up both sides of PCB

[Melvang]

Are helping hands that... helpful? If so, can anyone suggest a nice pair that I could get a for [hopefully] under $15, or $20? (Planning on getting two to hold up both sides of PCB

No.  get one of these.  I will do the physical mods that I did for the batch for Mkawa for $20 plus shipping.

I have both helping hands and modded panavise.  I have not even touched the helping hands (except to take it off my work desk) since I got my vise.

[minho]

Are helping hands that... helpful? If so, can anyone suggest a nice pair that I could get a for [hopefully] under $15, or $20? (Planning on getting two to hold up both sides of PCB

No.  get one of these.  I will do the physical mods that I did for the batch for Mkawa for $20 plus shipping.

I have both helping hands and modded panavise.  I have not even touched the helping hands (except to take it off my work desk) since I got my vise.

What mods did you do? Can you link me to the thread or just describe the details? (What happened to the batch you did for Mkawa? Was this distributed/sold already?)

Sorry a lot of questions. Relatively new here.

[Melvang]

Are helping hands that... helpful? If so, can anyone suggest a nice pair that I could get a for [hopefully] under $15, or $20? (Planning on getting two to hold up both sides of PCB

No.  get one of these.  I will do the physical mods that I did for the batch for Mkawa for $20 plus shipping.

I have both helping hands and modded panavise.  I have not even touched the helping hands (except to take it off my work desk) since I got my vise.

What mods did you do? Can you link me to the thread or just describe the details? (What happened to the batch you did for Mkawa? Was this distributed/sold already?)

Sorry a lot of questions. Relatively new here.

Here is the thread.  And in a nutshell what I did was drilled out the center fixator bolt (5/16-18 UNC) to a larger size and installed a Mill Spec locking threaded insert for 1/4-28 UNF.  Both the insert and the both are class 3 fit threads so there in zero slop in the bolt and should have at least 80% thread engagement.  There is also a spring steel piece in the middle that was swapped out for a delrin washer.  Essentially this is it aside from me taking to get powdercoated.  This you would be on your own for.  I also cleaned up some of the horrible castings in areas where the move in relation to each other to make the movement a lot smoother.

[mkawa]

welcome to geekhack!

yah, the original run of geekhack panavises is sold out. there were only 24, and we had them powdercoated, drilled out for larger fixator bolts, and changed the janky copper shims out for glass fiber reinforced delrin. i also lubricated each one by hand and because of the thickness of the powdercoat, was able to smooth the ballhead action out significantly with large durable o-rings.

melvang can set you up with the larger fixator bolt and the more durable shim. this makes a _huge_ improvement in the holding ability of the ballhead. i still have more o-rings and the longer bolts that were needed for fitment, but i have no idea if they will fit the castings without the extra 5-6 mils from the two-layer powdercoat we used. i literally went through like 6-10 bolt and o-ring sizes to get fitment for the powdercoated vises right.

unfortunately, i won't be doing another run of the whole enchilada due to the cost and effort involved, but i have been using panavises for many many years and they're pretty much the bees knees regardless. even if you don't do any modification, they're actually useful for electronics work, which is much more than i can say for any third hand tool i've ever used or seen.

thread is here: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=51148.0

[mkawa]

as for the clips i mentioned before, i just use standard electronics surplus alligator clip leads.

for example: http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-TL-6-Standard-Alligator-10-Piece/dp/B0002JJU28/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398224698&sr=8-1&keywords=alligator+clips

clip one end on the workpiece so that it forces a mechanical connection between the two parts of the joint and the then solder the joint. the alligator clip has far more thermal mass than the rest of the joint, so it's nearly impossible to make it part of the joint electrically. let the solder cool and then unclip.

[Jrwestcoast]

Do you have any pics of how you set the clips to the wire?

[mkawa]

i was actually going to make a quick video but got distracted by a bug in the forum. i can set something up and take a quick potato-cam pic though. give me a second.

edit: here's a not-potato-cam picture of a completely random pad on my toothbrush. i took some video of the process that i probably won't have time to edit until tomorrow

[swill]

i was actually going to make a quick video but got distracted by a bug in the forum. i can set something up and take a quick potato-cam pic though. give me a second.

edit: here's a not-potato-cam picture of a completely random pad on my toothbrush. i took some video of the process that i probably won't have time to edit until tomorrow

Hang on. Are you modding your electric toothbrush?!?

[BlueBär]

Wait, so you don't have an overclocked toothbrush?

[mkawa]

i needed to replace the battery

[stancato9]

The tip of my soldapult just popped off.. Does anyone have any experience with this?

[mkawa]

push it back on!

it really is that simple

[stancato9]

 

push it back on!

it really is that simple

You can't. It looks like it was glued on. No threading or anything. Its an SS350 by the way. I've only used it for about an hour and one time when pushing the spring down the top just shot off.

[BlueBär]

You can't. It looks like it was glued on. No threading or anything. Its an SS350 by the way. I've only used it for about an hour and one time when pushing the spring down the top just shot off.

They're not glued on since they should be exchangeable. If you push down too far, the tip will pop off.

[stancato9]

You can't. It looks like it was glued on. No threading or anything. Its an SS350 by the way. I've only used it for about an hour and one time when pushing the spring down the top just shot off.

They're not glued on since they should be exchangeable. If you push down too far, the tip will pop off.

It's so strange, I know the tips are removable but it looks like the threading completely popped off and flew across the room because it's no where to be found. RIP soldapult.

[BlueBär]

It's so strange, I know the tips are removable but it looks like the threading completely popped off and flew across the room because it's no where to be found. RIP soldapult.

There's no threading on mine, you just need to push really hard until it pops in again. Here's mkawa's video where he disassembles and reassembles a sodapullt, he pops the tip back in around 13 minutes:

[stancato9]

Here, check it out: To me it looks like it ripped off and there was some sort of adhesive holding it together.