Soldering Irons

[Anonymous No.176031]

Aren't they useful? Yeah, well, only if you know how to use one effectively. I just got my first soldering iron. Pic is related as it is what I got. My grandfather bought it for me for Christmas.

So, a few things, /diy/!
One, where did you guys learn how to use a soldering iron?
Two, were there any things you learned the hard way?
Three, what are some good newb projects I can do that are cheap, useful and will help me expand my skills?

Thanks in advance if you guys reply!

[Anonymous No.176034]

cant really relate.
my soldering iron is acetylene powered. you connect it to an acetylene B tank

[Anonymous No.176037]

learn by doing. Just solder wires together, or buy a cheap pcb kit and follow the instructions. A pair of wire clippers and a little stand with crocodile clips to hold your work helps a lot.

protip: to strip wires melt the ends then scrape off.
protip2: shrink wrap makes everything better.

[Anonymous No.176041]

>>176037
Thanks for the protip. Can't believe I never thought of that. I suppose I'll just have to fuck around to figure out how to do stuff like you said. ><'

[Anonymous No.176043]

>>176031
>One

By doing, many years later the internet was born and I learned more proper ways of doing it.

>Two

Preventing slippages which can cause nasty burns and to use yellow mustard on burns to prevent pretty much any damage to the skin (google it!)

>Three

Desoldering PCB components. Learn how to ventilate your workspace, learn to sponge correct, learn to flux correctly, learn to use solder removing devices like a desoldering pump and/or solder wick, learn to properly tin the tip, and learn how to manage the tip so it won't corrode away fast.

[Anonymous No.176059]

>>176043
Thanks alot! That was really useful. I'd of never thought yellow mustard.

(also, have to abandon the thread for a bit, but I guess that's ok since I expect it to be slow since I've never gotten many replies on ANY board of 4chan. be back in an hour or so)

[Anonymous No.176062]

>>176059
If you don't know how to solder, the guides from the EEV blog are nice.

[Anonymous No.176073]

>>176059
>I'd of never thought yellow mustard.

I can thank a radio show on NPR called, "The People's Pharmacy" that I happened to be listening to for no good reason.

I keep the mustard in my fridge and put it on burns immediately. I let it sit there for 15 minutes minimum. It stains the skin a little yellow and will stain your clothing so take care around clothing. Then I wipe it off. Soy sauce has the same type of chemical compounds in it that does the same thing for your skin, but is not as easy to apply. Keeping the mustard in the fridge also helps cool the burn.

I once waited 30 minutes before applying the yellow mustard to a burn. It wasn't a bad burn but it swelled and got ugly and all that. compare that to 6 other burns I had that week that were much worse, but had yellow mustard on them 30 seconds after it happened and you can't even find them the next day.

[BSO No.176074]

i learned by doing
practice "tinning" wires to get a feel how the iron works

[Anonymous No.176100]

One: my dad was a navy technician for years before he met my mom. I started playing guitar when I was young, I learned how to do simple soldering around the age of 14.

Two: for god's sake, don't let anything touch your skin. Even by accident.

Three: It depends on what you're actually planning on doing. A lot of what I do now focuses around repairing guitars and equipment, so I haven't had to do much work with PCBs. A couple of days ago I made a simple ABY box out of boredom. It ended up costing around $20 and taking an hour or two. I'm not sure if that's the sort of thing that would help, though.

[Anonymous No.176102]

Never knew about the whole mustard thing.

Was always told to put soap on burns, it helps to take care of all the enzymes and proteins of the skin.
Guy that told me this was a government chemist from 60-70s era USSR, so i trusted him. He was right, it takes care of the burning feeling, but still swells up.

Just jabbed a 600 degree soldering iron into my thumb last Saturday.. starting to swell pretty bad right now i just noticed.
Ran to the bathroom for soap.. when the fridge with mustard was actually closer. .. damnit.

And ofr the OP
Practice tinning wires, splicing wires.
Desoldering things.
Learn how to clean up solder messes, I had to learn that pretty quick with learning to solder on the job while working on guitars.
Also, those project kits sold at some hobby stores are pretty nice ways to learn too.. and after that you have something to show off.

[teka No.176157]

Ventilate Ventilate Ventilate.

And surprisingly enough Radioshack has started to carry tome interested kits again. It can be a bit hit or miss, but there is actually a chance to find something in stock more interesting then an LED blinker.

>not an amazingly great chance, and the help is still only trained in cellphone sales, so beware.
Some places even have the newer rev Arduino now.

And while you are there.. Engineers Notebook or Engineers Mini-notebook. Forrest M. Mimms is a righteous dude.

[Anonymous No.176382]

Flux is a necessity when soldering.
Keep the tip tinned with solder.
Clean the tip when solder stops sticking to it.

Watch this amazing soldering:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uiroWBkdFY

[Anonymous No.176610]

>>176157
>the help is only trained in cell-phone sales

Not even that. I've been inside that organization. They do not train, they just hire anyone who can pass the personality test, take them on at minimum wage, and do not train them.

Then, if they manage to sell a decent quantity of cell phones, they keep them on staff, otherwise they cut their hours or outright fire them. Also $50 commission on a new cell phone or satellite TV contract.

[Anonymous No.176613]

I have that one, it's great. Protip: Keep it on 3. Any higher than that and it's too hot, you'll get oxidation on the tip.

[Anonymous No.176734]

>>176382
>vid

Damn, that's skill and good tools.

[Anonymous No.176790]

Get a temperature-controlled soldering station and you'll never use a regular iron again.

[Anonymous No.176798]

nice OP, my first iron was just that; an iron. No base. It was used cheap stand alone radio shack unit. I got it when I was 9. I started out by re soldering wires that broke of the circuit boards of my toys I had disassembled.

[Anonymous No.176997]

Best thing I can recommend about soldering is NASA's Student Workbook for Hand Soldering. It has lots of nice pictures and different ways to solder wires, tin wires and so on and explains how to use various tools correctly. It is a bit long but it will definitely explain exactly how to solder things correctly.

[Anonymous No.177030]

>>176043

Second the desoldering pump. I solder so infrequently that I don't have the skills to be sure I can avoid using too much.

[Anonymous No.177047]

1. youtube has some great tutorials
2. not to hold the hot bit. its a right of passage
3. voltage regulator circuit / anything arduino or netduino / 555 timer circuit / LED cube

[Anonymous No.177375]

You guys have been very useful, thanks alot!
Sorry I didn't come back in an hour. :/ I sorta... yeah, first there was a family emergency, then I got the opportunity to stay the night at my girl's house.

[Anonymous No.177394]

It's easier to solder a PCB that has a solder mask (green coating), compared to one without. Therefore, I recommend prototyping boards with solder masks.

[Anonymous No.177415]

To start off, you did good getting a soldering station. There are better ones, but a WLC100 is still worlds easier to handle than a pencil iron.

Hakko 936-12 here.

I recommend tip cleaning wool rather than sponges for cleaning an iron tip. They don't thermally shock it like a wet sponge does.

>>176031
>to strip wires melt the ends then scrape off

Shouldn't need to be said but don't use your iron to do this. Use a lighter or something. And ventilate.

[Anonymous No.177418]

FLUX!
Flux is the almighty god of soldering.

Even this acid-based plumbing shit that will probably dissolve your tip in a couple months will be the best thing to happen to your solder joints.
Get a decent flux pen from Sparkfun though.

[Anonymous No.177421]

>>177418

Or, y'know, use rosin core solder.

Though a flux pen is still handy for touching up joints where the flux is already boiled off.

[Anonymous No.177423]

>>177415
Or these scouring pads from a buck store. Stick a couple in an empty jar of baby food and you got a tip cleaner.

[Anonymous No.177427]

>>177423

Oh fuck no, don't do that unless they're made of copper or brass. That thing is made of steel and will do horrible things to your tip cladding.

[Anonymous No.177577]

>>177418

FUUUUUU!!! DON"T use acidic flux for electronics!
Not unless you want your circuit boards to turn into a green mess of corrosion in no time flat.....

Just use flux cored solder, it's cheap and convenient. I have always used it, and beyond SMD work etc, have never had a problem.

>>177415

I use one of these at work, I like it over the new FX-888, mainly because it doesn't look like it was designed by a clown on crack.

[Anonymous No.177598]

I tried learning to solder by using a POS Radioshack iron for about 4 months, but most of my joints ended up being cold or real shitty. NEVER use those, they suck ass.

As for practice, you have to know what a good solder joint looks like and emulate. I used to work at a small electronics company (contractor now) and I've probably done about 30,000 or so solder joints. It's a skill I have that's taken years to master. I actually helped my replacement troubleshoot his circuit yesterday - cold joints were to blame.

[Anonymous No.177713]

1-with my dad

2-it can burn hard

3-weld a stereo p2 plug, it may be tricky