The Living Soldering Thread

[mkawa]

it might also have some citric acid in it for degreasing? i use lab grade alcohol for that actually.

[Photoelectric]

My Filco PCB was kind of greasy after desoldering, and since I won't be soldering anything to it for at least a week (waiting on a universal plate), I decided to clean it.  It was a pain, but I think I got a good easy method in the end.  I scrubbed it with a clean toothbrush, dipping into pure alcohol, repeating the process a few times.  Eventually, there was some lint left from cotton swabs I initially used (they get caught on the resistors / diodes very easily), so I scrubbed the dry PCB with a clean toothbrush in a circular motion and used a can of compressed air.  Looks very clean now!  My only concern is for anything that got into the pin holes in the process.

[mkawa]

all that matters in any solder joint is that there is:

a) a sufficiently strong mechanical connection
b) a sufficiently low resistance electrical connection (ie, negligible resistance)

note that a and b aren't the same things!! for example, let's say you're soldering two solid core hookup wires together. my favorite method of making the mechanical connection is to make little j hooks at the end of each piece of wire, and then hook the two ends together like little pinky fingers. crimp that down with a pair of pliers or a press if you want less of a bulge at the joint. now, you have a solid mechanical connection (a). now, use a metal brush to clean off the oxidization from the wires or apply some flux. then, heat and solder. the hooky bits form the mechanical connection and the metal alloy which bonds the two pieces of metal carries the current (b). you now have a solder joint.

[quickcrx702]

Don't buy the cheapest sodomy iron you can find, and practice on old motherboards or alarm clocks.  Soldering doesn't take too long to learn, but desoldering can be tough if you don't have the right equipment.  You can overheat a board and damage stuff.  Also, try not to breath in too much of the fumes, it's potentially bad for your health.

[Charger]

Wear eye protection and long pants; and never solder when you're tired.

or naked... I have only burned my self soldering in my boxers lol. well not really i have also burned myself with clothes on and trying to grab the iron to low

[YoungMichael88]

Wear eye protection and long pants; and never solder when you're tired.

or naked... I have only burned my self soldering in my boxers lol. well not really i have also burned myself with clothes on and trying to grab the iron to low

pffff, I ONLY solder naked.

EDIT: outdoors

EDIT2: in public

[PointyFox]

Don't buy the cheapest sodomy iron you can find, and practice on old motherboards...

Oh my. 

[domoaligato]

what is the mat that wfd is always using in his youtube video's as part of his soldering station?

[domoaligato]

Wear eye protection

+1 the flux can pop up in your eye. wear safety glasses.

[mkawa]

could be a static dissipation mat, or could be temperature resistant. personally, my desk is covered with raw textile carbon woven carbon fiber (60x8" is 20 bucks at mcmaster hah!) so that even when i drop my iron on the table (which yes, i do... ) i don't light anything on fire. carbon fiber is also very minimally conductive, which is basically the deal with ESD safe stuff. so one corner is wired to earth ground basically

[SpAmRaY]

Are the Alvin cutting mats good to use?

[Photoelectric]

Anyone have knowledge / experience with proper cleaning [and possibly lubrication] of switch housing metal parts--like the leaf and such?  I need to clean some old switches, and will probably be using a CRC QD Electronics Cleaner to remove any oxidation initially (as it's cheap for a larger amount), but I'm wondering if lubrication is also going to be good in this case for longer-term corrosion and rust prevention.  Like say Deoxit has a formula that leave a greasy residue (plastic-safe).  CRC also makes a separate product (CRC 2-26 Multipurpose Lubricant) that could be applied after cleaning.  From what I've been googling, people say that cleaning contacts with no-residue cleaners is great, but on moving parts it's good to leave some film of conditioning substances. 

What do you think--excessive for MX Switches?  And moreover, could interact with Krytox lube somehow if used on the front slider parts?  I only took one year of chemistry, so I don't know the proper answer

Picture of what I'm talking about:

[mkawa]

Are the Alvin cutting mats good to use?

the alvin cutting mats are great for cutting (i have a few well used ones, and they're brilliant) but they're completely nonconductive so they don't help with esd. also, they melt (ask me how i know )

[mkawa]

Anyone have knowledge / experience with proper cleaning [and possibly lubrication] of switch housing metal parts--like the leaf and such?  I need to clean some old switches, and will probably be using a CRC QD Electronics Cleaner to remove any oxidation initially (as it's cheap for a larger amount), but I'm wondering if lubrication is also going to be good in this case for longer-term corrosion and rust prevention.  Like say Deoxit has a formula that leave a greasy residue (plastic-safe).  CRC also makes a separate product (CRC 2-26 Multipurpose Lubricant) that could be applied after cleaning.  From what I've been googling, people say that cleaning contacts with no-residue cleaners is great, but on moving parts it's good to leave some film of conditioning substances. 

What do you think--excessive for MX Switches?  And moreover, could interact with Krytox lube somehow if used on the front slider parts?  I only took one year of chemistry, so I don't know the proper answer

Picture of what I'm talking about:

Show Image

my favorite deoxidizer is MG chem's electrosolve. it's pretty insane. it's also terrible for you. CAIG (the deoxit guys) also sell a deoxidizer that i have heard good things about it.  if it _weren't_ switch components, i would say just use a brass brush, but i wouldn't risk an abrasive or pressure on a switch crosspoint.

[Photoelectric]

What about the lubrication part, leaving a corrosion-protective residue.

[mkawa]

hell, solder can pop into your eyes. last time i got an MRI they asked me if i ever soldered and i was like "all the time" and they were like did you wear eye protection?" and i was like "no." and they were like ":/"

but i wear prescription glasses so they ended up being fine with it. otherwise i would have had to do a route through a split lens to look for lead and silver specs that could potentially rip through my eyeballs. you don't want to to either do the split lens thing next time you end up getting imaging done OR have solder rip through your eyeball. wear eye protection. mcmaster, amazon and the usual machining and lab equipment suspects have nicer models that look more like oakleys than those things you wore in high school.

this is also true for light and heavy duty machine work obviously.

[SpAmRaY]

On the topic of 'safety gear' do you guys wear any kind of gloves when assembling/disassembling/soldering ?

[mkawa]

i wear gloves when working with solvents, non-inert chemicals (like aforementioned electrosolve) and when i'm about to burn myself (usually what happens is i put my hand somewhere, burn myself, swear and then go put some nitrile gloves on). a 400pk is like 10 bucks at costco, and not giving yourself 3rd degree burns is worth 10 bucks.

[CPTBadAss]

Sometimes I'll wear my perscription safety glasses with the amazing side shields. That's about it.

[Melvang]

i wear gloves when working with solvents, non-inert chemicals (like aforementioned electrosolve) and when i'm about to burn myself (usually what happens is i put my hand somewhere, burn myself, swear and then go put some nitrile gloves on). a 400pk is like 10 bucks at costco, and not giving yourself 3rd degree burns is worth 10 bucks.

Nitrile gloves melt pretty quick if i remember right so they won't protect you from burns but will protect you from some chemicals.  But the only thing i wear for saftey gear when soldering is 100% cotton shirt and pants with either my prescription glasses or safety glasses from work.  Whenever I am working with powered cutting or drilling tools of any size i wear safety glasses that meat ANSI z87.1 specs and hearing protection.  I have enough hearing damage from working on a flight deck of an aircraft carrier and don't want any more.  I enjoy my music to much. 

And I did wear hearing protection on the flight deck but the EA-6B Prowlers are just that freakin loud.  The exhaust on those points down at a slight angle and is the engines make enough noise to vibrate the 2" steel plate of the flight deck.

[mkawa]

your hands hurt like a ***** far before they melt

Whenever I am working with powered cutting or drilling tools of any size i wear safety glasses that meat ANSI z87.1 specs and hearing protection

this is something i totally should do but don't.

amazon has great deals on peltor and leight earmuffs. they also have great deals on 200pks of all the leight earplugs (my favorites imo)

[Melvang]

I get my earplugs from a local Campbells Supply.  It is an industrial contractor supply shop.  100 count of corded earplugs that I can actually wear for 12 hours.  I buy my own for work cause work won't buy the ones that I can wear that long at a shot.  Besides its a tax write off for me.  And it is only $20 every 3 to 4 months.

[SpAmRaY]

depends on how clumsy you are and how you like to solder. i use 63/37 0.025 diam and it would probably take me anywhere about 6in? of solder, but that's with board prep and all kinds of weird stuff. personally what i did when i was a youngun was just buy a bunch of different varieties, a small pack each (oz or two by weight and then bought a gigantor roll of the one i liked the most. in my case it was a kester 63/37, but somehow i ended up losing that and ended up with an alphacore 63/37 i also like fine

*shrug*

Ok a few more solder questions.

 What's the deal with 'organic' solder?

And are you familiar with Kester SN63/PB37 245 vs 285 in the 0.02 variant? I've seen some on ebay listed as kester 245 and another as kester 285.

[mkawa]

285 and 245 are the rosins used in the core of the solder wire. 285 is a mildly corrosive rosin and 245 is a no-clean. kester 44 is the full on eats through oxidization rosin that imo is best for hobbyist usage. the complex fluxes are best for sensitive smd soldering where you need to pay attention to fine tolerances or meet materials requirements for products at retail (eg, rohs requires no-clean and lead-free). we just want to make a joint by any means necessary. and are perfectly happy cleaning flux off of boards and being exposed to small amounts of lead.

[vun]

Just picked up some soldering gear for when my r3 eDox kit gets here, and I have minimal prior experience with soldering so I was wondering if there's a quick list of do's and don'ts when soldering that I should be aware of, besides the obvious.

Also, will a chisel tip work better for keyboard soldering than a round tip?

[actionbastard]

Just picked up some soldering gear for when my r3 eDox kit gets here, and I have minimal prior experience with soldering so I was wondering if there's a quick list of do's and don'ts when soldering that I should be aware of, besides the obvious.

Also, will a chisel tip work better for keyboard soldering than a round tip?

Go watch some youtube videos

[tgujay]

Just picked up some soldering gear for when my r3 eDox kit gets here, and I have minimal prior experience with soldering so I was wondering if there's a quick list of do's and don'ts when soldering that I should be aware of, besides the obvious.

Also, will a chisel tip work better for keyboard soldering than a round tip?

Go watch some youtube videos

No u.

[mkawa]

yes, chisel tips are preferred. the reason is that they have more usable surface area. thermal transmission is a function of materials at the junction and the area of the junction. think about it in terms of either quantum, power, or just oh **** i just touched the stove, and it makes perfect sense.

[actionbastard]

Just picked up some soldering gear for when my r3 eDox kit gets here, and I have minimal prior experience with soldering so I was wondering if there's a quick list of do's and don'ts when soldering that I should be aware of, besides the obvious.

Also, will a chisel tip work better for keyboard soldering than a round tip?

Go watch some youtube videos

No u.

That's what I did 

[vun]

Just picked up some soldering gear for when my r3 eDox kit gets here, and I have minimal prior experience with soldering so I was wondering if there's a quick list of do's and don'ts when soldering that I should be aware of, besides the obvious.

Also, will a chisel tip work better for keyboard soldering than a round tip?

Go watch some youtube videos

No u.

That's what I did 

Currently in the process of doing so, I'll admit that I didn't really think about watching videos when I made the first post >_>

Gonna go pick up some more soldering gear tomorrow, I found out that I'd missed a few things the first time around.

Also, since the soldering gear isn't cheap I'd like to get more use out of it than an eDox and the occasional repair job; any suggestions for other soldering projects?

[Melvang]

Teensy plus hardwired matrix keyboard

[vun]

Teensy plus hardwired matrix keyboard

We'll see how keen I am on doing more keyboard work after I'm done with the eDox.

But more ontopic questions; I'm assuming that I'll want 0,56mm and 0,7mm solder since that's what's closest to the ones recommended(I live in a strange place called metric-land), but should I get some finer solder if I can?

[gnubag]

Teensy plus hardwired matrix keyboard

We'll see how keen I am on doing more keyboard work after I'm done with the eDox.

But more ontopic questions; I'm assuming that I'll want 0,56mm and 0,7mm solder since that's what's closest to the ones recommended(I live in a strange place called metric-land), but should I get some finer solder if I can?

I think you are good with only 0.7mm which is around 0.020" which is good for smd.

[actionbastard]

Just picked up some soldering gear for when my r3 eDox kit gets here, and I have minimal prior experience with soldering so I was wondering if there's a quick list of do's and don'ts when soldering that I should be aware of, besides the obvious.

Also, will a chisel tip work better for keyboard soldering than a round tip?

Go watch some youtube videos

No u.

That's what I did 

Currently in the process of doing so, I'll admit that I didn't really think about watching videos when I made the first post >_>

Gonna go pick up some more soldering gear tomorrow, I found out that I'd missed a few things the first time around.

Also, since the soldering gear isn't cheap I'd like to get more use out of it than an eDox and the occasional repair job; any suggestions for other soldering projects?

Well, I rewired some headphones, An xbox 360 fightstick, my mouse cord.

Things that I actually needed to fix to get to work again lol

[vun]

Well, I rewired some headphones, An xbox 360 fightstick, my mouse cord.

Things that I actually needed to fix to get to work again lol

I've actually got a headphone repair lined up if it turns out I can't get them repaired/replaced under warranty, hoping I'll be able to get to that tomorrow, and I'm gonna look around if there are any forgotten things needing repair.

[Dubsgalore]

Stuff is here. gonna attempt to desolder an old white alps board tomorrow. wish me luck

[Photoelectric]

Stuff is here. gonna attempt to desolder an old white alps board tomorrow. wish me luck

Good luck!  An Alps project sounds like fun!  I'm dreading desoldering my second Filco, which needs to happen soon, but it should go smoother now after my lessons from the first one.

[Dubsgalore]

Stuff is here. gonna attempt to desolder an old white alps board tomorrow. wish me luck

Good luck!  An Alps project sounds like fun!  I'm dreading desoldering my second Filco, which needs to happen soon, but it should go smoother now after my lessons from the first one.

I figure i can desolder the board to get some practice in before i tinker with my pure...I'm excited and will be posting questions here if i have them tomorrow 

special thanks to JD again :* thanks bro

[TheSoulhunter]

Just picked up some soldering gear for when my r3 eDox kit gets here, and I have minimal prior experience with soldering so I was wondering if there's a quick list of do's and don'ts when soldering that I should be aware of, besides the obvious.

Also, will a chisel tip work better for keyboard soldering than a round tip?

I also think you should watch some videos, visual learning really is the way to go here!
Anyway, if you are really looking for a quick simple writeup, here is what I do...

- For switch or LED soldering I use a 2,4mm chisel tip
- Also I use leaded rosin core solder with 1mm diameter
- Make sure components sit flush against the PCB and pins sit right
- Set the temperature of the station to 300-350 degree Celsius and wait for heatup
- Make sure your solder tip is clean, if not clean it (repeat that periodically in the process)
- Put the tip in between pad and pin and feed a small amount of solder in the gap between tip an pin for better heat transfer
- Feed solder from the other side into the gap between pin and pad (enough that you get a solid cone shape bonding) and remove tip
- The two steps above should be done fast and finished when the molten solder completely stops smoking (then the flux is used up)
- Inspect the solder spots... You want a shiny uninterrupted cone shape which contacts the whole pad, best use a magnifying glass for that
- If there seems to be something wrong with the spot, desolder -> clean -> redo, or apply some flux (you can get it seperately) and let the spot reflow by heating it up again

[tgujay]

Stuff is here. gonna attempt to desolder an old white alps board tomorrow. wish me luck

Good luck!  An Alps project sounds like fun!  I'm dreading desoldering my second Filco, which needs to happen soon, but it should go smoother now after my lessons from the first one.

Desoldering iron from radioshack really is great, and tips are like $2.

[SpAmRaY]

Can anyone recommend a good place to get replacement sponges for the hakko 888 holder?

[CPTBadAss]

Target or Walmart? They're just sponges...

I would recommend you get a brass tip cleaner though. Those don't cause as much thermal shock and are better for your tips.

[mkawa]

i happent o like the hakko sponge shape

http://www.amazon.com/Hakko-A1559-Solder-Cleaning-Sponge/dp/B004P3IXUC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1373638334&sr=8-2&keywords=hakko+sponge

i've also seen them at fry's for appx the same price minus ship

[mkawa]

ebay should have them as well

[jdcarpe]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200942287295

[actionbastard]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200942287295

i happent o like the hakko sponge shape

http://www.amazon.com/Hakko-A1559-Solder-Cleaning-Sponge/dp/B004P3IXUC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1373638334&sr=8-2&keywords=hakko+sponge

i've also seen them at fry's for appx the same price minus ship

I think I would just go buy a pack of sponges and cut them into that shape...  )

[SpAmRaY]

Thanks for the info guys.

I found some here

http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_info.php/cPath/89_142_2013/products_id/198221/n/Hakko-Replacement-Sponge-for-FX888-Soldering-Stations

They are $3.99 plus shipping....the shipping isn't too outrageous either.

I also found them here

http://www.qsource.com/p-3782-hakko-a1559-cleaning-sponge-for-hakko-fh-800-iron-holder.aspx

but they also have wire replacements

https://www.qsource.com/p-3783-hakko-a1561-cleaning-wire-for-hakko-fh-800-iron-holder.aspx

and a few other replacement parts and tips etc...

Shipping from them is fairly expensive however.

[vun]

And I have liftoff; just finished desoldering all the switches on my old WYSE terminal board. Tedious business, but great timekiller.

[mkawa]

hi5!!!

you are exactly why we are all here, sharing knowledge

[Photoelectric]

How essential is applying grease to the o-ring on Soldapullt?  Just wondering because I cleaned mine really well, and it had no discernible grease on it to start with (came used), but it seems to have pretty good suction now when I tried it on my hand, though I've yet to desolder with it.