need some soldering advice

[Col. Skillz]

being that ive never soldered before i decided to test it out on some junk....what a disaster. i couldn't past tinning the tip. i really have no clue what went wrong...i made a vid and took some pics, but let me sum it for you. When I would rub the solder on the hot iron tip, the solder would melt in an instant (at first), and just disappear...smoke went everywhere(the inner flux?) and my solder "stick" lost a good 2 centimeters. at the end of that is a ball of harded solder. i COULD NOT get the solder to stick to the damn iron thouigh, it just kept beading off, like water on rubber. eventually a part of the iron starting holding solder, but when i looked closely i noticed the area was actually like eaten away. when i look at it from the side there is a big missing chuck. that was the ONYL part of the iron that actually held any solder on it and didnt just let it bead off onto my sponge.

I tried to solder two wires, but i couldn't get the wire hot enough, i figure thats because the tip ws all contaminated.

now thats it been sitting and cooled, i can see the tip area i ws trying to tin is BLACk, and when i rub it my fingers get black...expect for that one area that has a gap in it. shiny as hell though.

any idea what happened here mate? im just glad i decided to test drive before tackling the project.

heres a link to my vid http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L8M0ZUG6

im thinking of just buying myself a little station, and want to know what you may think of which is better. i hear weller is the go to brand, but this other one has a temp monitor, which is nice

Amazon.com: Weller WLC100 Soldering Station For Hobbyist And Do-It-Yourselfer: Home Improvement (http://www.amazon.com/WLC100-Soldering-Station-Hobbyist-Yourselfer/dp/B000AS28UC/ref=pd_cp_hi_0?pf_rd_p=413863601&pf_rd_s=center-41&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000E9VDV2&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1H2GBKBNH1YPP6Y9B0CX)

Amazon.com: Aoyue 937+ Digital Soldering Station: Home Improvement (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I30QBW/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk)

[Detale]

To begin what do you mean by you couldn't get the wire hot enough? Hopefully you mean the solder because you shouldn't heat the wires at all.

How much soldering do you plan on doing that you want a bench?

If the tip is black it means you burned it. Wait till it cools completely then wipe it off with a rag then you can gently use some sandpaper to remove whatever didn't wipe off. This is not 100% though, if you burned it too bad you can usually get a new tip as they are generally replaceable.

Now from what you said it seems like you are making the solder too hot or you need a different solder. Also you could use some flux to help it stick if its that bad. Another thing you can do is create a little "trap" for the solder to fall into holding it there with the two wires while the solder cools for a few seconds, just like a little cup so you dont have to be perfect and it will not fall all over your board. Even a folded piece of paper will work anything really.

[clocker]

To begin what do you mean by you couldn't get the wire hot enough? Hopefully you mean the solder because you shouldn't heat the wires at all.

Tesco may be the final arbiter here (being an electrician and all) but I think this is wrong.
I always heat the wires being soldered...you want the solder to flow into the strands, not just blob on top of them. Just melting the solder and dropping it onto the (cold) wire gives you no penetration.

@Col.:
Sounds like your tip was too hot to tin properly.
Clean it, flux it and the solder should flow on with a nice silver coating.
Too hot and the flux burns off before the solder can adhere.

[accat13]

I recently purchased a WESD51 for my son as a birthday present. I really have not done much soldering myself.My son had an older (25yr) weller and he says his soldier skills improved immensely with the new iron.I always buy him lead free solder and he says that joints with the old iron were dull looking.With the new one all are shiny.I'm a firm believer in buying the best quality tool you can.Observing my son I would also suggest buying one of those steel wool type cleaners for the iron http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-Dry-Solder-Cleaner-SH-1025/dp/B001D8PA3U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1237474393&sr=1-2
And I would also suggest a desoldering pump as well.Talking with my son he says that the steel wool was the trick for him...Not to sure on his reasoning (he is 15) but he says he "puts a blob of solder on the tip then inserts the tip into the steel wool"...Like I said I'm not sure on this but it seems to work for him and since he got the new iron and the wool the tips seem to last a lot longer.

[Col. Skillz]

thanks guys, i started to think this too, that the tip was too hot. how the heck can i avoid this though? i cant control the temp on this thing

ok i did what you said detale, and it worked! i sucessfully soldered two wires together jsut now =)

im having trouble with soldering wires onto a circuit board though. im practicing on a old crp board and using 30AWG wire. I need to practice this type of sooldering for my wiikey2 installation. i really have no idea how to do it though. i always end up with cold solders thatcome off with a slight tug.

i hear people say i need to tin the wire, do they mean adding solder to the wire?

what ive been doing is puting the wire on the board, touching the wire with the iron, and then putting some solder on the iron to melt onto the wire. the soloder never wants to leave the iron though, its attracted to it for some reason


bah

[clocker]

"Tinning the wire" means that you heat the wire and coat it with solder before you insert it into the circuitboard.
Once inserted, just a touch of heat will melt the preapplied solder and cause it to flow.

[Col. Skillz]

alright thanks, so when i tin the wire, do i put all the solder ill need on it? or just coat the wire so its nice and shiny?

I don't need to insert anything, i need to lie a wire down on a little gold connetor and put a glob of solder on it, like this guy. i just dont know how he gets those nice little globs.

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/549/img1372pg5.jpg
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/1023/img1373ij1.jpg
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/430/img1375nf4.jpg

my wii doesnt need the ir legs soldered

[lynx]

Most cheap soldering irons are over-powered and have no temperature control. The result is that they heat up very quickly, which seems great to the novice, at first. The trouble is that they keep on getting hotter and hotter, so unless you use them very quickly you get overheating of the solder and it oxidises and won't stick, exactly as you've described.

Part of the trick is to match the size of soldering iron to the size of the job. Too big and you will overheat the work spot and put excessive heat into the whole item - not goo when working with electronic components. Too small and you won't heat the work quickly enough, which may tempt you to leave the iron in one place and again spread heat throughout the surrounding material.

I've got 2 irons, 12w and 18w, (http://www.antex.co.uk/prodtype.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=180&numRecordPosition=1) a stand, (http://www.antex.co.uk/prodtype.asp?strParents=184&CAT_ID=199&numRecordPosition=2) and a desoldering pump (http://www.amazon.com/Parts-Express-DESOLDERING-PUMP/dp/B0002KRAAG/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1237492429&sr=1-14).

The only other tool you might need is a set of helping hands (http://www.amazon.com/Helping-Extra-Large-Magnifier-Soldering-Electronics/dp/B0016P7H1I/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1237492429&sr=1-3) if you can't fasten any of the parts down.

I certainly wouldn't advise you to waste money on a soldering station if you aren't going to be doing LOTS of soldering.

-----

One of the main problems associated with soldering is lack of cleanliness. Solder won't stick to dirt, grease or oxidised metal so make sure everything is clean, including the tip of the soldering iron. Hot solder can oxidise very quickly so it is useful to have a piece of damp sponge (real sponge, NOT ruber/plastic substitute) to wipe the tip of the soldering iron. A soldering iron stand will usually come with a sponge pad - soak it in water for a minute then squeeze out the excess water.

You need just put enough solder on the wire to give it a coating. Hold the wire firmly (in a vice or similar), heat it with the iron for a second then bring the solder up to it and the solder should flow over the wire. The whole process should not take more than a couple of seconds.

You also need to tin the contact point. The procedure is similar to tinning the wire but you need to leave a small blob.

Now put the wire on the blob of solder and the tip of the soldering iron on top of that. The blob of solder should melt very quickly and the wire should sink in to it. Remove the iron and the solder will solidify round the wire.

[Detale]

Oh those helping hands are fantastic. I have to take a pic of mine. I fashioned one with 4 arms instead of two. I got the idea from this pic

http://www.instructables.com/files/deriv/F7G/94LQ/FS8RCPSZ/F7G94LQFS8RCPSZ.MEDIUM.jpg

[Col. Skillz]

thanks for the VERY helpful post lynx. The price of a good soldering iron and stand from amazon is 30++ anyway, so i might just let that wlc 100 station. $40 and be done with it.

what exactly does a desoldering pump do?

and back to the soldering question. that simplifies things a lot. tin the wire, blob on the contact point. i just gotta b quick because if i keep the solder on there too long it gets burnt or what i think might cold solder. another problem with my cheap soldering iron. its a 35 watt too, which is pretty OP if you ask me. i think the adjustable temp will be very nice.

will there be good contact made doing it this way? i want to make the strongest joint possible, I don't want to have an unexpected error one day and have to reopen my wii

thanks again, your post was very helpful to me =)

[tesco]

To begin what do you mean by you couldn't get the wire hot enough? Hopefully you mean the solder because you shouldn't heat the wires at all.

Tesco may be the final arbiter here (being an electrician and all) but I think this is wrong.Of course, you always heat what you're soldering or welding.
But I don't ever do soldering, I never really mastered it, so can't give any other tips. I've never tinned my soldering tips before. :lol:

[Appzalien]

Preparing a soldering iron. With a brand new tip you just dip it in a little flux paste and then add some solder to the part of the tip you would be using to apply with as it heats up. This is called tinning the soldering iron. If the tip becomes discolored before you can get solder onto it, clean it with a file or sandpaper then reflux and try again. As you use a properly tinned iron, the spongebob is used to clean the tip between jobs as it will collect some cruddy black stuff and the wet sponge will wipe it clean and shiny again.

When soldering wires you should strip them to the size you want and apply some flux, with a small drop of hot solder applied to the tip of the iron heat the wire with the drop and at the same time keep trying to add more solder to the wire with your solder, when the wire gets hot enough the solder will flow and melt from the application stick to the wire and flow throughout. If the solder gun doesn't quite get hot enough you sometimes have to solder one side then the other to complete this task. If you want to join two wires you can either twist them together and solder, or tin the two wires separately first, and then heat them together. The second method is neater and works great along with some shrink tubing to cover the bare wire but its a little trickier and would be easier with three hands (the alligator clip thingy).

Remember to put electrical tape around your wires to prevent shorts and when joining something like an electrical cord (lamp plug etc) its a good idea to alternate your wire cuts so that the bare sections cannot touch one another:

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Once you have learned to tin an iron or gun tip and start using flux paste on all your project parts you will find it goes alot easier.

[Col. Skillz]

well ive got a good iron now, and have tinning down pretty good. i can kinda tin a 30 awg wire, but the wire is so thin i have trouble heating it up, and im never really sure i got the solder on it =/

my main problem is getting a drop of solder on the "connector". Im testing on an older motherboard, just trying to get a little glob of solder to drop somewhere on the board. I really can't do it..it sticks to the soldering iron. even if i use a bunch of solder, it just sticks to the soldering iron and wont fall off. the only way i can get it off is to do some messy thing where i slide the iron with the glob of solder across teh board, but im not sure that makes for the best connection.

on a positive note, i can easily heat the tinned wire and solder glob together pretty well. i did one and it took a lot of tugging for me to get it apart.

what i need now is to master tinning the wire, and some detailed info on getting that "glob" onto my board. can anyone describe in steps or details what ive got to do here? right now im just touching the connector with my iron and then melting solder between the iron and connector. but i like i said, the soldering iron just sucks it all up

[lynx]

It's down to cleanliness again.

If there's old solder on the board, it will have oxidised to some extent, so you really need to remove it. This is where the desoldering pump comes in. Push the piston down, melt the solder then put the tip of the pump against the molten solder and press the button to suck it up.

Old PCBs often have a thin layer of lacquer which won't help the soldering process, so once you've got rid of the old solder you need to clean the area with alcohol then smear a little flux on to it, and apply the soldering iron. Get it hot then apply the solder as you described. You don't need a mountain on there.

As for pulling your joint apart, you shouldn't be able to do that, the pieces you've soldered together should break first, not the joint.

BTW, here's a tip for melting old solder. Solder used in wave soldering on PCBs often has a higher melting point than ordinary solder and can be difficult to melt. The trick is to add some of your own solder which helps conduct heat into the old solder and the combined alloy also has a lower melting point. Once you've melted the old solder remove it with the desoldering pump.

[Col. Skillz]

thanks for the useful advice once again =) this pcb is definitly old, and id believe there is laquor on it, its very shiny and feels like coated wood or something. I'll have to clean it with some alcohol then?

about the pulling my joint apart, what is the joint? the pcb and glob of solder, or glob of solder and wire. the glob of solder came right off the pcb (which is what i worry about the most) but the wire took some beating for it to break off, and it was the end of the wire that broke, nothing to do with the solder just me pulling on it.

[Appzalien]

The pcb board is made in layers and usually where a track of wire under the coating ends there will be a larger round part and a hole that is exposed copper on a blank board and will be silver with solder on a build board. If the piece gets bad enough (oxidized) it may not take any solder even when using paste flux to clean it. At that point you have to somehow clean the thing down to silver solder or copper base before you can re-tin it. You have to be careful here cause the metal is hair thin and can be pulled up from the board rather easily, especially after several attempts and heatings. You can carefully scrape it with an exacto knife or try a little sand paper wrapped around a q-tip or small rod of some sort or use one of those grinding tips for a dremel tool to clean it but not with the tool itself, do it by hand or you can do some horrible damage.You can also try using that sponge to wipe the section after you heat it and sometimes it will work just like it does for the solder iron tip.

I have repaired boards where the circle part came off by scrapeing away the coating of the actual track of the wire and adding a glob as you call it to there and using wire to connect the part that went there. I have also repaired a cracked board by jumping out the crack by removing some of the coating from either side and jumping over the crack with wire.

As you get better at it you will find this hobby quite rewarding. Along with a multi-meter and a wire stripper (there are some really fancy ones) you will be repairing things other would throw away. I actually repaired one of those mp3 players that are hardly bigger than the AA battery that goes inside, talk about some fine work, Whew!

[Col. Skillz]

hey thanks for the tops mate, im going to practice some more to day hopefully with some improvement

i never thought of it like that, being able to fix electonic equipment..id probably need to learn about all the other pieces on a circuit board though, no? and i do havge multimeters and trying to learn how they work, but damn, im confused. i want to use it to check if my batteryes are dead, but i hear the only way is to have the battery being used while i test, but how the heck can i use and test it at the same time =/

anyway, ill probably be back tonight with more questions after my soldering practice goes belly up lol =p

[Detale]

Who said you have to use a battery to test it? Touch the red lead to the + and the black to the - and it will give you a reading man.

[clocker]

One thing to be aware of...
Motherboards are made of layers and some components need to contact traces inside the board, not just the ones on the surface.
This is particularly true for laptop powerports- in my experience, the most common repair necessary.

"Fixing" dead electronics is a very iffy procedure...it can certainly be done but one must balance the time factor against replacement cost.
A very common problem is blown capacitors, which was endemic about 5 years ago as substandard parts flooded the market.
Problem is, these boards are now part of a completely obsolete platform and one must question if spending any time at all makes sense.

[Col. Skillz]

Who said you have to use a battery to test it? Touch the red lead to the + and the black to the - and it will give you a reading man.


err i read somewhere that the battery needs to be in use to get an accurate reading. like in a cd player with it playing or something of equivalence.

i know to read the battery i touch the + and -, and look for a voltage thats around or slightly less whats its meant to for the battery. like a 9v would be 9, AA's are 1.4v i think

but the guide i read on multimeters told me it wont be accurate if the battery isnt in use.

[lynx]

If you need to get an accurate under-load reading then you've been told correctly, but I've never needed that information. It is also one way of checking the charge state of some types of battery (particularly NiCd) but you can use the alternative method below.

If you just want to test battery's voltage, just put the multimeter probes on the battery terminals.

If you want to check if the battery is charged, test as above, then put the battery under load for a few minutes, then test as above again. As long as you do this fairly quickly then a battery which is not charged won't recover in time and you will see a large difference between the two readings.

[Col. Skillz]

well back to soldering...ive got it!! Once again, cleanliness was the problem. i was also just trying to solder onto the PCB itself, probably a dumb thing to do, as the solder seems to stick only to metals. anyway, i cleaned up the areas with a little rubbing alcohol, and voila! It's still a bit tricky getting the right size glob to be the shape i want it, and sticking when i want it, but im sure ill get better at it.

whats really easy are the area that already have solder on them, just put the tip on there, melt it a bit, and add a little of my own for a really good joint. i couldn't even pry it off with a screwdriver. the wire part is also really easy. i was having trouble getting the solder to stick before, but after some rubbing alcohol, the solder stuck like a charm. then just lying the wire ontop the solder and melting them boh together was easy too. is it best to do it asap? will the longer the solder is "molten" the weaker the joint be? the only trouble i had with that was getting the wire centered and as far down on in as possible, without spending a bit more time than id like or messing up the shape of the glob a little. not sure if any of that matters.

So I'm going to practice a little more and get to it in the next few days, just to make sure ive got everything right...

1. make sure everything is clean, wipe it with an alcohol q-tip if needby, tin iron often
2. mount the chip using double sided tape (the thick foam kind or what?)
3. put the globs of solder on the chip and wii drive where they need to be
4. measure, strip, and tin the wires(the shorter the better? do i need 2 wires for grd and pwr, or a thicker one?)
5. connect the wires by melting them into the globs
6. test to make sure its all good

hopefully im all set, just need to master getting those globs under control. also im using a weller soldering iron wlc100, ive got it set between 3 and 4, so its around 20-25 watts id say. would it be bad to let the tip touch the connection points for too long? i usually leave it on there, tinned, for a few seconds, then apply the solder. i want to know if i should leave it there a little longer, or a little less. i dont want to burn or short out the board, but i want my joint as strong as possible.

[lynx]

Sounds like you've just about got it now.

I didn't realise you were trying to solder to the board itself, you are quite right that you can only solder to the metal parts.

I don't know if it's been made obvious, but essentially putting a blob of solder on the contact pad is the same as tinning your wire. Once everything is tinned then making the joint is much easier as you've discovered.

It doesn't really matter if you heat up the board a little before applying the solder, in fact it might even be necessary since you've effectively got a large heat sink there. Same thing when soldering wires to the board, the only drawback being that the hotter things get the more likely you are to damage the insulation and the longer it takes for the solder to solidify, during which time your wire might move and spoil your joint.

Things are different where components are concerned though. Heat tends to destroy electronic components so you need to pre-tin all the contact points then apply only the minimum amount of heat necessary to the component. In general, only solder a couple of legs at a time, then allow the component to cool down. You can start on another component if you've got more than one to attach. If you start with diagonally opposing legs first you can check that all the legs are touching the correct pads with no risk that the component is going to move around.

[Col. Skillz]

well for me tinning the wire has less, er, variables. its just like a coating. there doesnt really need to be shape or size. its no big deal though, i just need a little more time with it im sure.

you mentioned components are sensitive, will i be dealing with components or just the board and wires? im going to assume components are like microchips and batteries and stuff?

i still have a few questions, mostly to do with the wires.

1. do i need thicker or 2 wires for the ground and power connections?

2. would it be safe to tape or hot glue the wires the the board somewhere, for some added stability/neatness? or is it best to just cut them the right length and leave them be.

other than that everything sounds good. i wanna practice a bit more but should be working on this very soon

[Col. Skillz]

OK, I'm 1 day away from soldering this puppy. yesterday i did a little test to make sure Ive got down what i need. making the blob, tinning the wire, and joining the wire and blob.

It went pretty well, but im having trouble tinning the wire again. it's doing the same thing it does when a connection it dirty, but it impossible. I strip a fresh wire, use some rubbing alcohol on it, and it's not sticking. and it doesnt stick without the alcohol either. it makes no sense to me becuase it stuck fine the other day after using the alcohol.

So unless anyone knows why i cant tin my wires, im considering just avoiding it. not tinning the wires. is this a really bad thing to do, will my joint be weakened much by not tinning the wires, or will it be fine? i really dont know what i can do at this point to fix these wires, so yeah.

any advice on that or last minute tips would be appreciated =)

[Col. Skillz]

Well I fucked up

Everything was going smoothly till i got to the last 2 little pads on the wii drive..i couldn't get any solder to stick to the one on the left, and each time i kept trying to reapply i kept losing more and more solder until eventually there wasn't any left...just this hardened flux bullshit that leaks everywhere and then dries. so its now impossible to get that little pad back. It pisses me of SO much

wii still works fine though, so im looking into an alternative...im thinking of putting my wiikey on a clip, and just clipping it on. I don't know if it will work though, now that im completely missing that little pad. maybe its still connected somehow though, because the wii drive still works fine...idk. its either the clip or a flatmii, id much rather get the clip...

http://www.wii-clip.com/V14_WiiKey2.htm

http://i655.photobucket.com/albums/uu274/llmercll/DSCN1716.jpg

as you can see it was going well, the pads were A LOT easier than i thought. the solder im using has flux flow out of it all over the place though so it looks brown an nasty around the solder, could i have my temps too low?

http://i655.photobucket.com/albums/uu274/llmercll/DSCN1712.jpg
http://i655.photobucket.com/albums/uu274/llmercll/DSCN1714.jpg

theres the area and solder point/s that gave me trouble..the picture where the damage has been done is really blurry. again it looks like i burn the entire area, but its just the flux that for some reason comes pouring out of this new solder im using... anyway, if you look at the ones i circled , its the third from the left, and thrid from the right. right in the middle of those 5...its just gone, and covered by a thick layer of that flux...i dont think theres anything i can do for it =(
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chris/Desktop/New%20Folder%20%283%29/DSCN1712.JPGfile:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chris/Desktop/New%20Folder%20%283%29/DSCN1712.JPG

[accat13]

Very sorry to hear about your misfortune.I do not own a Wii but maybe if you can get some clearer pictures someone else maybe able to offer some advise on a possible fix.

[Col. Skillz]

yup, at least i didn't mess up my drive though. if i did it again id succeed, the points were just so small it was a shock, and i guess i tried so many times that i just sucked up all the solder on the point i needed.

anyway, ill get a flatmii and just use that. im out 25 bucks because i cant use the chip (the chips works im sure though) but i learned how to solder an open up the wii. I guess I'm just saying that to make myself feel better, heh

anyway, epic fail on my part, im trying to get this thread deleted, thanks for everyones help