• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Soldering Skills Any Kits?

wick

wick

Like others, I tend to use suckers, either the thumb-loaded, or the pump-driven kind. I like using wick for cleaning up. If you don't use the right-size iron, I've noticed it has a tendency to solder itself to the parts you're trying to clean.
I've occasionally had the problem that with old wick, the powdered flux has fallen out of the braid, so it's always handy to keep some liquid flux handy.
patscc
 
I personally have just begun to acquire the skill of soldering. Interestingly enough, I did this by doing exactly what barythrin reccommends, although not in the same order. I picked up some Sinclair Spectrums from the same ebay seller and really learned how to solder on it. Then to help advance my rather basic skills I picked up the microKim kit from Vince Briel. This was right when the microKim kit first went on sale, and that was the last time I practiced soldering. Now to prepare me for the rather epic N8VEM kit I intend to buy and build this soldering kit from Make Magazine http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKEL4
It comes with everything you need except for a soldering iron. The kit is put together by Elenco which makes all kind of electronic kits (I built one of their bench top power supplies kits), and is well designed for the person new at soldering.
 
De-soldering the hard part

De-soldering the hard part

I'm not the handiest guy around. But I picked up soldering fast. Heat the item, not the solder. Don't spread it on, etc.

But I find de-soldering VERY difficult.
 
desoldering

desoldering

Look for all those homeless analog tuner TV sets, and practice desoldering on them. (Or any other handy piece of unwanted electronics )
patscc
 
Back when I worked for Tandy, we had the latest-and-greatest Weller vacuum soldering/desoldering stations and they were a pain in the ass. Always having to shove a unbent paperclip down the tube of the desolderer and pulling out the glass tube to clean it.

Same with the Unger stations I bought for my first repair company.

Now I just use a solder sucker and a plain old Weller soldering iron.

You have to develop a technique. The one that works for me is a pin-point tip, heating the pin and pad, with the sucker just off the the side of the joint. When you see the solder point collapse a bit, roll the sucker on to the joint and hit the thumb release when it's just about parallel to the board.

After you've done all the pins, without touching the pad, move the pin side to side a couple of times with the iron tip to break any solder threads still attached to it and move it into the center of the hole and then on to the next.

For me, it's then just a matter of tapping the chip and it falls out into your hand.

After the chip is out, especially if you've had to gently pry and rock the chip out, you probably want to reheat the empty holes and use the sucker on them to clean them right out.

As for braid, it's good for doing larger areas like card edge connectors that needed to be tinned or reflowed and, in my case, I roll the side of the tip down the braid, from one end to the other as I'm lifting it off the area.
 
Last edited:
I always use braid. I just can't get to operate those suckers properly.

For small pads, such as those around IC's I snip the braid on a diagonal at the end so there is a kind of point which fits over the pad.

Tez
 
Dru's technique sounds much better than my first attempts. I purchased some extra Nec PC-8201A to steal the ram chips out of. The ram chips are so expensive, it's cheaper to buy bunches of 8201As and take the chips out of them. I will reread Dru's post about 4 times. My percentage of success was only 50% in my last attempts. Frequently, 2, 3, 4 or more pins on the chip would still have too much solder on them. When I would go in there with my long small flat bladed screwdriver to extract the chip, CRACK! as he breaks off the pins! More practice is required. I still have some motherboards sitting here, waiting.
 
Taking chips out of double- and multi-layered boards is a real PITA! If I am replacing a defective component, I will normally snip the leads with wire cutters and then pull the pin out with needlenose pliers as I heat it. Then use the soldapult to clean the hole. If I actually want to save the chip, I will try to flow a small bit of new solder to each pin to get the old solder flowing and pull as much out with the desoldering pump as I can - removing the remaining bit with the wick. If any pins are still stuck, I will try to wiggle the pin as I heat the pad and while it cools back down. Twenty minutes later :rolleyes: I can usually get the chip out with a chip puller (large tweezers with 90 degree flat ends).
 
Just thought I'd throw out a funny story re: soldering & kits.

In 1974 I worked at a Radio Shack in Cupertino, CA. Back then the Shack sold lots of kits. Many of them were returned when the purchaser couldn't get the kit to work, of course it was the kit's fault, not the purchaser. I would take all the returned kits home and fix them (on my own time) then we would use them as displays in the store. Strobe lights, color organs and the like.

Anyway. One day this couple returned a kit that the husband had been unable to make work. After the manager returned the couple's money he handed me the kit and told me to take it home and fix it. I opened the box and found that many of the traces on the board were burnt and lifted. The couple were still in the store so I approached them and asked the husband what kind of soldering iron he used. He told me that he had used his soldering gun. I explained to him in the most diplomatic way I could that soldering guns put out 100-200W of heat which was too much, a 25-30W soldering pencil was much more suitable to solder components on a printed circuit board. He seemed to accept my input without issue but his wife said abruptly, "Don't you tell my husband how to solder! He's an engineer!" I just turned and walked away. That night after I spent an hour or so repairing burnt traces and unsoldering and resoldering parts he had put in backwards, I had the color organ working fine.
 
rebeltaz said:
If I actually want to save the chip, I will try to flow a small bit of new solder to each pin to get the old solder flowing and pull as much out with the desoldering pump as I can
Click to expand...

Yes, adding a little bit more solder to the pins first is good and usually what I do, I just forgot to mention it. It's automatic for me. I'm not good at teaching people to do things I know how to do.

You can do this several times if you let the pin and pad cool down between attempts.
 
Fezzler said:
What's a pin tip?
Click to expand...

If you mean a pin-point tip, most good soldering irons have interchangable tips. A pin-point tip comes to a sharp point. I used to use a chisel point tip with a V filed in the middle of the chisel, but, I find the pin-point better for sticking in the holes to get the last of the solder out of them.
 
Druid6900 said:
If you mean a pin-point tip, most good soldering irons have interchangable tips. A pin-point tip comes to a sharp point. I used to use a chisel point tip with a V filed in the middle of the chisel, but, I find the pin-point better for sticking in the holes to get the last of the solder out of them.
Click to expand...

Careful with filing tips! The Wellers use iron-plated tips. Filing through that will cause the tip to deteriorate in nothing flat.

If my iron's tiop gets badly gunked up because it collided with some plastic or hot glue, I'll use a bit of 00 steel wool to clean it, followed by a wipe on the cleaning sponge and re-tinning.

In the old days of the big American Beauty irons (you know, the ones you pick up by the wrong end if you're not careful...What's that smell?), we used to tin the bare copper tips with hard (melts at 1100F) silver solder to make them last longer.
 
Terry Yager said:
Whatever happened to the 'GoodOl'Daze', when engineers would listen to RatShack techs, cause they actually knew sum'n?

--T
Click to expand...

I was at RS once when a lady was in there trying to buy a wall-wart for her cordless phone. The phone called for a 12v 300mA supply. The only thing the RS salesguy could find was a 12vdc 600Ma supply. He actually told her that that would not work because it was too big. I caught her on the way out, told her who I was and what I did for a living. I told her the supply would work and tried to explain that the 600Ma meant that that was the maximum it could supply - not what it was going to push into her phone. She was still hesitant, so I gave her my card and told her that if she bought that supply and it fired the phone, I would fix the phone for free.

Needless to say she was happy, but I just couldn't believe that that was the type of people they hire. RS even refused to hire my dad once, claiming that he was "over qualified" for the position! I guess knowing electronics isn't a desired trait when selling electronics.....
 
rebeltaz said:
Needless to say she was happy, but I just couldn't believe that that was the type of people they hire. RS even refused to hire my dad once, claiming that he was "over qualified" for the position! I guess knowing electronics isn't a desired trait when selling electronics.....
Click to expand...

Good heavens, no! No customer wants to hear "I know it looks good to you, but these are built with cheap "Rulycon" electrolytic capacitors and you'll be lucky to get a year out of it before they go kablooie".
 
patscc said:
I've noticed in stores that a lot of customers like to feel smarter/superior to the salesman. Go figure.
patscc
Click to expand...

Not me. Hell, if I am asking a salesman a question, it's because I don't know. If I already knew the answer, I wouldn't need to ask....:rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top