Nice job overall. Joint #10 is a nice joint and you should shoot to have that for all the rest of your joints. The rest look fine but I worry about #1 and #2 because the pad isn't fully covered. I've had cold joints which looked like that.
Overall not bad, but you certainly need to be careful to not damage the pad since it seems many if not all of your joints are not completely covering where the pad should be.
Do you know what temperature your iron is at? Judging from the pictures it looks like you might be spending too much time waiting for solder to melt.
They look very good from what I can see, but those aren't real high res pics. If anything, they may have a little too much solder. The joints should be slightly concave and those look slightly convex. Overall, they look very nice. Good job!
My iron is set to 350°C (662°F) - I will try again with a slightly higher temperature. I may need to calibrate my iron (new Hakko FX-888D). I'm unhappy with the solder I'm using anyway (cheapo rosin cored 60% tin 40% lead), and may use this as an opportunity to splash out on some nice solder.
My iron is set to 350°C (662°F) - I will try again with a slightly higher temperature. I may need to calibrate my iron (new Hakko FX-888D). I'm unhappy with the solder I'm using anyway (cheapo rosin cored 60% tin 40% lead), and may use this as an opportunity to splash out on some nice solder.
As long as you can get it to melt without holding onto the pad too long (when I learned I referenced WhiteFireDragon youtube soldering style as a guide).
I also agree with CPTBadAss, you'd be fine with these joints overall, and you don't have to be _crazy_ picky about it. But yeah, since you want to improve, being able to cover the entire pad without spending too much iron-contact time on the PCB will result in cleaner looking joints. And I've only used one type of solder so I can't speak to the quality difference :'(
My iron is set to 350�C (662�F) - I will try again with a slightly higher temperature. I may need to calibrate my iron (new Hakko FX-888D). I'm unhappy with the solder I'm using anyway (cheapo rosin cored 60% tin 40% lead), and may use this as an opportunity to splash out on some nice solder.
As long as you can get it to melt without holding onto the pad too long (when I learned I referenced WhiteFireDragon youtube soldering style as a guide).
I also agree with CPTBadAss, you'd be fine with these joints overall, and you don't have to be _crazy_ picky about it. But yeah, since you want to improve, being able to cover the entire pad without spending too much iron-contact time on the PCB will result in cleaner looking joints. And I've only used one type of solder so I can't speak to the quality difference :'(
My iron is set to 350�C (662�F) - I will try again with a slightly higher temperature. I may need to calibrate my iron (new Hakko FX-888D). I'm unhappy with the solder I'm using anyway (cheapo rosin cored 60% tin 40% lead), and may use this as an opportunity to splash out on some nice solder.
As long as you can get it to melt without holding onto the pad too long (when I learned I referenced WhiteFireDragon youtube soldering style as a guide).
I also agree with CPTBadAss, you'd be fine with these joints overall, and you don't have to be _crazy_ picky about it. But yeah, since you want to improve, being able to cover the entire pad without spending too much iron-contact time on the PCB will result in cleaner looking joints. And I've only used one type of solder so I can't speak to the quality difference :'(
I second covering the pads more. Also 350 C should be perfect, that's what I've been using on my 888D for a while and I've used it to assemble several boards.
If you want better solder buy .020 Kester 44
http://www.amazon.com/Kester-Rosin-Core-Solder-Dispense-Pak/dp/B00AYJ0B7Y
In general it's difficult to really ascertain through-hole joint quality with pictures from above. I look for two things:
0. Shape of the joint from the side (think "Tent").
1. Color of the joint (Think shiny).
They all look fine to me. All of these joints look like they're completely covering the pad. All I see are a few small slivers on the edges, where the hole in the solder mask was bigger than the copper, hence it's that same mustard yellow colour as the text (@2, #3, etc.), and some flux residue. So I don't get why people think these pads might not be fully covered.
They all look fine to me. All of these joints look like they're completely covering the pad. All I see are a few small slivers on the edges, where the hole in the solder mask was bigger than the copper, hence it's that same mustard yellow colour as the text (@2, #3, etc.), and some flux residue. So I don't get why people think these pads might not be fully covered.