soldering for beginners

[Somerandomtechyboi]

atm i have a crummy 40w soldering iron and some flux cored solder, im planning on buying some flux and solder wick to help with some rather basic soldering jobs that i currently have in mind (soldering things like caps for cap modding, and maybe even desoldering bios chips to see if i can have a ud3r bios on my p5q), i may need a desoldering pump for things like taking off bios chips.  after this i just go straight to bga rework to fix that ud3p, or i just trade my p5q and p5q pro for a ud3r.  i may also look into microsoldering cause i do want to voltmod my g31m s2c for potentially higher fsb, i think sb volt needs to be increased now cause after 542 it just gives a pagefile error aka prob southbridge related, also voltmod nb cause 440fsb max stable is meh

 

anything that im missing?

[Mark Kaine]

just a few things from someone who soldered like a gazillion smds in their previous job: make sure the heat is correct for what you're doing,  the soldering iron clean and get pcb cleaner, i loved that stuff, it makes everything look shiny!  : D

 

 

this especially helped with desoldering (for some reason)

[Somerandomtechyboi]

14 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

just a few things from someone who soldered like a gazillion smds in their previous job: make sure the heat is correct for what you're doing,  the soldering iron clean and get pcb cleaner, i loved that stuff, it makes everything look shiny!  : D

 

 

this especially helped with desoldering (for some reason)

Though how do i clean my soldering iron?  Do i just use some solder wick or something?

[Mark Kaine]

19 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Though how do i clean my soldering iron?  Do i just use some solder wick or something?

you put a bit of normal solder on the tip then clean it off with this while its hot:

 

 

(there are other methods apparently,  but this is really super easy / convenient)

 

also always put some solder on the tip if you aren't using the iron... the solder helps to protect it (lasts twice as long as if you don't do this)

 

[minibois]

Most of the helpful tips have already been mentioned here, but I think it's worth to mention you should get good tools and supplies.

I've just spent the evening trying to desolder something I had put together earlier and had to use a cheap desoldering pump I have. The tool is just not that great, which mean it was a lot more difficult than if I had a good desoldering pump.

 

So the basics for (de)soldering are: iron (preferably station), tin (preferably a couple different sizes), wick (also some sizes), good desoldering pump, tweezers, cleaning agent, and flushcutters. Those are the essentials.

Although I would say "some way to make sure you're not breathing in the fumes" is essential too, that is not one specific tool. That can be a fume exhaust, or just leaving a window open and a fan blowing the fumes towards that window.

Oh and a magnifying glass can be helpful too, depending on the size of component you're working on. I regularly work with 0805 package components, which are 0.079"x0.049" / 2x1.24mm in size. Seeing the value on a resistor, or checking out the joint on one of those components can be difficult just by bare eye (and my eyesight is pretty good).

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 hour ago, minibois said:

tin

Whats a desoldering tin used for?

 

1 hour ago, minibois said:

good desoldering pump

Is there a good brand or something?

[minibois]

4 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Whats a desoldering tin used for?

My list of tools and supplies was based on your goal mentioned in your topic post:

On 12/6/2021 at 3:36 PM, Somerandomtechyboi said:

soldering things like caps for cap modding, and maybe even desoldering bios chips

So the list of tools/supplies was either for soldering, desoldering or both.

When you solder, you use an iron to heat up components and apply tin, those are the most basic tool/supply needed.

wick and a desoldering pump are mostly for desoldering, but can be used in other scenarios too (like when you've soldered something and need to remove some excess solder). The tweezers are to hold something in place/pull on something, which often cannot be held by your hands, because you're working with a hot iron which transfers the heat to the component(s), so you'd burn your hand. The flushcutters are for general use, like cutting legs off of soldered in components and the cleaning agent again is for general use, to clean up the board.

 

The list was general recommendations, for both soldering and some desoldering too.

While there actually is "desoldering tin" (it's a special low temperature tin, to make desoldering easier), the tin I mentioned was just 'regular tin', which is used to solder and also to desolder.

[mariushm]

Motherboards have multiple layers full of thick copper. Especially around the VRM area, anything connected to a voltage and a ground plane, will be soldered to THICK copper traces.  Those copper traces will absorb heat like a heatsink, so a weak soldering iron will be pointless.

 

You would need a soldering iron that can push a lot of heat in the tip - ideally, you need a soldering station which can read the temperature of the soldering iron tip and react by increasing the power sent to the tip to "fight" against the thick copper traces.

 

Next most important thing after a good soldering station is FLUX ... doesn't matter if the solder has flux inside, you can't use too much flux.  I buy mine from TME.EU in bottles of 100ml or 500ml and it's cheap at a few euro for a 500ml bottle... it's from a brand AG Thermopasty, Topnik 83 no-clean flux. I buy it liquid but there's also gel/cream varieties.

 

The flux is inactive in its default state but as it gets heated by the heat of the soldering iron getting close to the area where it's applied, the flux becomes acidic and attacks the surface, corroding the layer of oxides and crap that's above the copper and tin or whatever the metals are covered with.

Solder wire has a flux core, and the idea is that as you bring the solder to the leads and the soldering iron tip the flux melts faster than the actual solder, flowing down onto the leads or area you want to solder attacking the oxides and cleaning the area, and then the solder can form a chemical reaction and make a good joint between the metals.

But if your soldering iron is too hot, the flux can be burnt or evaporated before it manages to attack the surfaces, or the solder melts too fast and doesn't give enough time to the flux to work.

 

Cleaning the tip can be done in various ways ... but really the worst way to clean a tip would be by thermally shocking the tips by wiping them on the wet sponge most cheap soldering irons come.

Use those coil of steel wire or use plain chemwipes or paper towels and apply a thin layer of solder every time before you turn off your soldering iron and stop using it.

 

I keep posting these Pace tutorial videos because they're very good, while the equipment in the videos is kinda outdated, the information and the techniques are still valid.

Lessons 1 and 6 are a must watch - the others lessons are also good, but for example lessons 2...5 deal with specific type of terminals that are less popular now, so it wouldn't be useful to you.  

 

This video below is a bit over the top ... paranoid level of handling your solder wire and your iron, but it shows what I mean about just using a paper towel or a dry chemwipe to clean the solder iron tip before using it, and tinning it after use.

This is actually how I clean my iron tips nowadays, i just wipe the solder directly into a waste basket or a cup and apply fresh solder - solder is quite cheap so it's better to just tin the tip more often. If I have to look more "professional" I use one of those balls of steel wire

 

You'll notice he also wipes the solder wire with isopropyl alcohol to remove any impurities from the wire (for regular people, this isn't really needed, especially if you just unspooled a bit of solder wire and you know it's not dirty.

 

He also cuts a small segment from the solder wire with the idea that if someone used the solder wire before him, he has no way of knowing if that person cut a segment of solder wire or just used directly with the iron tip ... and if so, he has no way of knowing how much flux core is gone from the center of the solder, as the flux melts at lower temperatures and it's possible you still have solder but no flux in the center.

 

 

As for soldering wick and soldering pumps  ... I use a more fancy solder sucker with aluminum body. They work well, but the problem is few people use them properly because they don't get the sucker tip / nozzle all the way near the solder because they don't want to burn the plastic nozzle with the iron tip.... and because of this you don't get good suction.

The trick is to cut a small segment of silicone tube and slide it over the nozzle of the solder sucker, so now you can basically put the silicon tube over a lead or directly on the solder iron tip and it won't burn and you get very good suction.

 

I had a lot of bad experience with wicks, but it was mostly because I went with cheap stuff, that had none or low percent of flux in them ... the braids don't work without flux.  Nowadays, I just pour some liquid flux on the solder wick even if the wick is supposed to have flux from the factory.