The Dying Soldering Thread

[Rose]

I'm about to try soldering my keyboard matrix with zero previous soldering experience.  I've read that little comic explaining how to do it and watched a couple youtube videos.  I've perused the living soldering thread.  What I want is to here disaster stories. I want to see pictures of soldering gone horribly wrong What mistakes have you or other people made? (so I don't make them)

[tbc]

not sure this is soldering problem persay as much as an idiot problem.


but i soldered everything on without checking to see if the pcb was bowed the wrong way.  it was.

**** still works. but the joints are alot weaker than they have to be xD

[DrHubblePhD]

My first soldering job, with a wood burner, radioshack solder... it went places

[phoenix1234]

My mistakes are :

- my hand got burnt due to hot soldering iron
- flux burnt in high temperature and flied to my face. Fortunately, it doesn't hit my eyes
- eyelet on the PCB got lifted due to high temperature
- submerged the 100 switches in vinegar in order to clean the corrosion but it is not the case. The switches got severely damaged. Their legs got corrosion significantly so that they are no longer be soldered.
 
lesson learnt:
+ should always wear eye-protection glasses when working with dangerous stuffs
+ do not try to set the temperature too high beyond the limit
+ keep the electronics stuffs dry and clean, keep them away from corrosion, high humidity, water
+ last but not least, should always focus on working with electronics stuffs even they are just for hobby

[user 18]

Only soldering mistake I've ever made is touching the iron to my hand. Kind of like touching the stove, except I learned after the first time not to touch the stove

I also forgot to put heat shrink tubing onto a wire once -- soldered the two cut ends together, looked at the bulky plugs on the ends, and realized my error. Ended up cutting the join out and resoldering.

[suicidal_orange]

My worst soldering incident was when I was holding while my friend soldered.  He burnt me, I jumped in pain/shock hitting the iron into his hand and burning him, while the board we were trying to solder fell to the floor and the loose components fell out and some went under the sofa.

Lessons learnt:

• Do your own soldering
• Don't solder in the living room while the TV is on

Not sure there's much to learn from this if you already have common sense


Kinda related, while desoldering a PCB using a heat gun I discovered that overheated capacitors make very loud bangs and fly across the room at high speed - not advisable!

[SpAmRaY]

Not sure if anyone remembers where to find it but this one time someone butchered a kmac PCB.

[exitfire401]

I've pulled a few LED leads out of my Race 2, but the LEDs still work because of the top contact remaining in the PCB. Past that, I slipped and caught my thumb with the iron once, and I had some hot solder jump back onto my arm once.

[Joey Quinn]

I broke the tip on my first iron (a $5 one from home depot or something) and used a nail to replace it, also awful solder with no flux. I don't have pictures but the results were exactly as bad as you'd expect them to be. But I was only 10 so I guess it's ok.

[jdcarpe]

I tried to desolder my round 1 Phantom PCB and had a little trouble. As is pulled some pads and traces. Desoldering the Teensy was the worst. Both Teensy and Phantom were rendered unusable. That PCB was used by boost to design the Skeldon cases, so it wasn't a total loss.

Luckily, I've come a long way in soldering skill since then.

RIP Phantom.

[SpAmRaY]

I tried to desolder my round 1 Phantom PCB and had a little trouble. As is pulled some pads and traces. Desoldering the Teensy was the worst. Both Teensy and Phantom were rendered unusable. That PCB was used by boost to design the Skeldon cases, so it wasn't a total loss.

Luckily, I've come a long way in soldering skill since then.

RIP Phantom.

JD how many phantoms have you soldered?

[jdcarpe]

I tried to desolder my round 1 Phantom PCB and had a little trouble. As is pulled some pads and traces. Desoldering the Teensy was the worst. Both Teensy and Phantom were rendered unusable. That PCB was used by boost to design the Skeldon cases, so it wasn't a total loss.

Luckily, I've come a long way in soldering skill since then.

RIP Phantom.

JD how many phantoms have you soldered?

Hmmm, I don't remember exactly. Probably 8 or thereabouts.

[Rose]

My worst soldering incident was when I was holding while my friend soldered.  He burnt me, I jumped in pain/shock hitting the iron into his hand and burning him, while the board we were trying to solder fell to the floor and the loose components fell out and some went under the sofa.

So far suicidal_orange is winning.

[Dreamre]

Not sure if anyone remembers where to find it but this one time someone butchered a kmac PCB.

The KMAC PCB is crap. Poor quality really. I think the person you're referring to is Photeq for his TEK80.

[SpAmRaY]

Not sure if anyone remembers where to find it but this one time someone butchered a kmac PCB.

The KMAC PCB is crap. Poor quality really. I think the person you're referring to is Photeq for his TEK80.

I remember that one that was cut up but I think there was another where someone completely burned the pads off a few switches.

[mkawa]

protip: keep a cup of cold water on your desk when you solder. when you inevitably burn your fingertips, immediately dunk the burned area into the cup and hold it there. when your brain stops screaming, run the burned area under cold water until it stops hurting so damned much.

an iron tip at temp will cause a third degree burn faster than the pain can register.

[Parak]

Well, since I don't have links for fails here readily, let's take a look at some elsewhere!

http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread.php?194112-ABS-Module-Re-Repair
http://mcuoneclipse.com/2014/10/14/how-not-to-solder-headers-on-a-board
http://bzed.de/posts/2010/08/the_guruplug_server_plus_-_major_design_and_qa_fail
http://softsolder.com/2013/11/11/arduino-pro-mini-knockoff-solder-fail

Bonus: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/worst-soldering-you%27ve-ever-seen/

[DSlayerZX]

Lesson:

1. Don't be cheap and get a proper soldiering iron. No, you dont' need a $100+ iron as a starter, but the $10 rat shack soldering iron won't do any good either. It doesn't have enough power behind, so when you are working on pcb with large amount of components, (well... most keyboard isn't... but still) the entire board act as an heat sink and  the soldering iron simply doesn't work too well.

A Weller WLC100 for example, is a descent starter iron, though it's not ESD safe... so you gotta be careful. when working with sensitive components.


2. Lead free solder: it's not worth it.
    Follow proper soldering guide line, do it in a well ventilated area, was your hands after soldering, the amount of lead you are going to be in contact with won't ever be enough to affect your health.

On average, Lead solder has higher melting point, which makes soldering a lot harder with to a novice, especially when you consider the said novice probably doesn't too powerful of a soldering iron in the first place.


3. Flux pen, I see a lot of user suggest it, but IMO, you really don't need it.
    A proper Rosin cord solder should provide enough flux you will ever need to make proper contact.
    If you need flux pen to provide extra flux to make proper connection... then chances are you really should clean up the board/surface before you even start soldering.

[CPTBadAss]

I hate working on QFRs. That thin ass PCB is no bueno and they use leadfree solder. I torched like...two or three traces on it and pulled up a ton of pads. It was so bad, I ended up buying a PCB from someone else.

My KMAC isn't that pretty either lol. Just not my best work since it was the second board I built. But it works )