[peteforde]

I had to click, because it turns out that I love soldering. It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too.

For anyone reading, the key is to invest in a proper stereo microscope and a decent fume extractor.

I recommend this one: https://www.strangeparts.com/a-boy-and-his-microscope-a-love...

If you're up for a bit of a bonus round, I absolutely love my Pixel Pump. https://shop.robins-tools.com/products/pixel-pump

I picked up a used Ninja toaster oven and hacked a https://reflowmasterpro.com/ to it. I also modified the plans for Stencil Fix to make it substantially bigger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am3ztQIkss0

So, I do a fair bit of both reflow and hand SMD soldering at this point, depending on what the situation calls for. It's great fun.

[sandreas]

Starting with soldering, I find these 200$+ recommendations (regardless of which tool) hard to justify.

# Soldering iron

I'd recommend the Pinecil V2 with IronOS. https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS

# Solder fume extraction

I've built a simple fume extraction with an old plastic case, a 120mm fan and a sheet of carbon filter attached to a 120mm dryer / air conditioning hose. Around 15$ and good enough for soldering from time to time.

# "Microscope"

I simply use a strong (10x) magnifier glass with a LED ring (around 15$ on Amazon). I can't tell you how often I also used this thing for other purposes.

# Desoldering Pump

Because I needed it (beginners won't) I bought a ZD-8965 for 100 bucks and I'm very happy with this thing.

I have whole list of cheap beginner to intermediate equipment, that'll do until you solder (semi) professionally.

[lelanthran]

I second this comment and it really should have been higher in the hierarchy - WTF are you going to do with an expensive setup that a lit magnifier and controllable iron (with interchangeable tips) can't?

If you need a reflow oven, that's a different thing altogether, and you should probably repurpose an old toaster oven.

I delivered production boards (small run) that looked and worked great using a non-adjustable $10 30w iron (interchangeble tips, though) and a desklamp with the builtin magnifying glass.

You can't really tell the difference between a cheap setup and the expensive solder station I used in a previous employment.

[Liftyee]

Hard to justify for a beginner? Sure.

"Can't tell the difference?" is not true, once you're dealing with small enough parts.

Can I use a magnifier to solder 0.4mm pitch parts? Sure. Would I prefer a binocular microscope? 100%, every time. Both usable, not the same.

[lelanthran]

> "Can't tell the difference?" is not true, once you're dealing with small enough parts.

Yeah, but that's the qualifier - "small enough parts". Go small enough and even an expensive iron isn't going to help you.

[peteforde]

Except that we're on HN so it shouldn't really surprise anyone that I'm using these "expensive" tools to solder and correct 0402 and sometimes 0201 parts.

Effectively impossible without a stereo microscope.

[sandreas]

I soldered a backlight fuse of a Lenovo T480s with a 35$ iron and a 10x magnifier, see [1] (german)

I'm not trying to proof you wrong but sometimes good enough will do. However, good tools are worth the money most of the time.

1: https://www.computerbase.de/forum/threads/t480s-backlight-si...

[peteforde]

This is a weird take to make before you actually ask the question.

I design and prototype devices for a living. I use a combination of reflow and hand soldering depending on which stage of the process I'm working through, and/or how much trouble I might be having with some aspect or another.

For example, there have been times where I've successfully dead-bugged QFN-24 to a PCB, allowing me to verify a fix and save myself several weeks and several hundred dollars.

All of these tools are only expensive in a vacuum. The moment you're relying on them to create products, and assuming you value your time correctly, you can see them for what they are: usually one-time fixed expenses that end up saving you thousands of dollars in board revisions that you never had to order.

Meanwhile, lots of people use cars as part of their job. Even a shit car costs many times what my soldering tools cost, and nobody would show up on HN to imply that they don't need a car.

[bschwindHN]

> # Desoldering Pump > > Because I needed it (beginners won't)

Funny you mention that, because I just instructed someone how to solder for the first time and on probably their 4th joint they needed the desoldering pump because they added too much solder. I think it's easier to teach a beginner how to use a desoldering pump than how to use desoldering braid.

[ssl-3]

I think it's easier to teach how to do good work when the instruction method prevents getting bogged down by fixing mistakes to begin with.

Too much or too little heat/time/solder/whatever? No worries; just move on to the next joint and try to get it a little bit better than the ones before.

This tends to mean working with practice materials instead of with real boards that actually have some future value, and that's quite OK. The practice has value in and of itself.

---

I can't imagine having to stop all forward progress and learn how to fix a thing after so few tries of something new.

We don't throw kids straight into the batting box and watch them strike out ("Sorry kid, maybe you can try again next weekend!"); we instead provide time and materials for them practice with first, let them make mistakes over and over again, and focus on encouraging the successes.

And then -- after enough practice that a good amount of familiarity is instilled -- they eventually get to go play a game of baseball.

Soldering should not be different in this way.

[sandreas]

That might be true in some cases, but you can also use a bit of brass wool to wipe of excess solder. The iron will suck the rest of the connection pretty well.

However, this is also something where it might pay of to buy a good one (ENGINEER SS-03) instead of a cheap knock-off in the long term.

[moepstar]

This thread is no good for my bank account. Ordered

[mrguyorama]

A hand operated solder sucker is like $5 though, they are talking about the station based ones that can be used to desolder the entire board with little effort.

[bschwindHN]

Ah yeah I missed they were talking about the station ones, beginners definitely don't need that.

[tecleandor]

How well does the pump work? A couple times I've had to desolder a connector or IC with lots of pins from a PCB and it's a painful process. I've always wanted to buy one of those, but I've seen lots of reports about getting clogged easily.

I rarely desolder, but I can easily justify a hundred bucks if I can avoid all that hours of work, where I'm also risking damaging an IC, lifting a pad, or something else...

[alnwlsn]

I've used a couple of the ZD- ones and they are ok, but not very good quality. They don't really clog all that often, but they do fill up quickly and are very difficult and messy to clean out. They are also made of cheap plastic which will crack after a while exposed to the heat that it is. The tips for them are also low quality, and the solder will eventually dissolve them, making the hole in the middle of the tip larger and larger until it doesn't work anymore. All of them do technically work, but don't expect them to last.

I went and bought the "proper" Hakko FR-301 and it's an improvement in every way. Well worth the extra $100, and made me wonder why I ever wasted my time with the cheap versions. For whatever reason, the 100V Japan voltage one is about $50 cheaper than the 120V American one, so that's the one I got, but I already happened to have a source of 100VAC handy.

[sandreas]

That was true for the older ZD-* models. The one I mentioned is in a different Ballpark (except you also meant specifically the ZD-8965).

The hakko is way better quality but beneath the price (i have no idea where you got one <300 bucks) there is another disadvantage: there is no Station and the hakko is heavy, so if you need to desolder for more than 30 mins I found it getting uncomfortable pretty quick.

Besides that the hakko is a good device. Too expensive for me though

[alnwlsn]

My region has the Japan voltage version on Amazon for $210.

https://www.amazon.com/Hakko-FR-301-Desoldering-Tool/dp/B07B...

I think the one I had was the ZD-917, which I don't even think anyone makes anymore. Assuming the ZD-8965 made some material improvements, it looks like it has the same style of reservoir with the internal spring, which is one of the main issues I had with it. I found that the spring would become eventually become trapped inside a large solder blob, making cleaning difficult. Then, you have to line up the filter and keep everything together while reinstalling it. For whatever reason, the tolerancing on mine made this especially difficult, and I eventually broke the glass tube when trying to reinstall it (replaced with an aluminium tube). Hakko version has no internal spring, and has enough tolerance to easily remove the reservoir.

The rubber grommet on the front also eventually lost its grip around the small brass tube that comes out from the iron, so it would leak and not suck as hard. The hakko version presses its grommet against a flat plate instead, so that doesn't happen.

Still, both are much better than the "squeeze bulb" style desoldering iron I had before them.

[Zanfa]

It's been awhile, but the best experience I've had desoldering ICs with many pins was with JBCs hot air extractors. They're little metal funnels you put around the component you want to desolder to contain hot air, with a tiny suction cup to lift the part once solder starts to melt.

JBCs stations are expensive though, but you should be able to use just the heat deflectors and a pair of tweezers, rather than a vacuum pump as long as you already have a hot air station.

[beret4breakfast]

Would also recommend soldering wick - it’s just copper braid that you heat alongside the solder you’re removing and it ‘wicks’ away the solder.

[varispeed]

Sometimes you need combination of desoldering gun, wick and also low melt solder and then those "tubes" that repel solder that you can wrap around the leg whilst heating it.

[jsvaughan]

might be worth trying a cheap solder sucker pen if you havent (the mechanical recoil type), significantly better than nothing

[sandreas]

I tried different ones and this is clearly the winner.

Small, silent and reliable for cheap money.

I did some minor mods and use these de-makeup cotton pads because they are cheaper but so far a great experience.

Another important note: don't go cheaper here. These manual desoldering pumps (<30 bucks) are pretty bad and the other zd-... Arent worth the money.

[eviks]

With you overall, but given the toxicity of the fumes some quality / rated fume extraction might be the one area where cheap/self made item isn't worth it

[rcxdude]

If you're doing it a lot, then it's definitely worth making sure it works properly. If you're doing it occasionally, just make sure the area is well ventilated and you're not outright inhaling the fumes coming off the solder, and it's not likely to make any real difference to the health of your lungs.

[asib]

"Well ventilated" on its own is completely insufficient. If you are soldering without any fan or extraction, you _will_ inhale fumes because you have to look right over your work when you solder, which is exactly where the fumes are.

In general, the danger with soldering fumes is not the average concentration in the room in which you're working over the duration of a session, it's inhaling the very high concentration of fumes right as the soldering happens.

We could debate how much damage this is going to do and whether it's worth worrying about, but there isn't really room to debate that ventilation alone is going to do absolutely nothing.

Well ventilated area + fan is probably okay, but you need the fan right next to your soldering iron or it needs to be a gigantic fan otherwise, again, you are just going to inhale most of those fumes.

[sandreas]

I'd love agree with you... Unfortunately I bought some <50 bucks solder fume extractors and I'm pretty confident to say they don't work reliably.

They also contain a 120mm fans, a carbon filter and NO way to lead the fumes out oft the window.

However, you may be right that professional tools are the better choice in this case

[peteforde]

I had to read your comment a few times to understand the confusion.

The issue is that you've concluded that a $50 fume extractor qualifies as spending real money, when in fact you're still well into the realm of cheap and crappy. What you're describing is quite literally a PC fan blowing into some foam. It's better than nothing, but you'd still be better off with a [real] fan and an open window.

Good fume extractors cost real money yet will seem very cheap if you are running the numbers while waiting for a chemotherapy appointment. JBC makes several, and they are FAR from the most expensive available:

https://www.jbctools.com/fume-extractor.html

Its your life, but IMO you really don't want to fuck around on this detail if you plan to do a lot of soldering. You might not care, but there could be people who love and rely on you to not try and to save a few hundred bucks on the thing that keeps you from premature death.

[DANmode]

Understatement.

[torginus]

I've had bad experiences with USB irons, they generally don't have stellar compatibilty with USB power banks, and when your 60W iron can only draw 20W from your 100W power bank or PSU (but sometimes it works).

They even come with these compatibility wikis of what PSU or bank to buy.

[kittoes]

I simply cannot recommend a Pinecil + compatible 20A battery pack enough. Not being tied to a socket is amazing and the device is good to go in literally seconds!

[torginus]

Dunno, I had a TS80P, and bought a compatible Xiaomi powerbank and had a lot of issues. What sort of worked for me, is they make adapters for Makita batteries that have Weller connectors, those have a lot of juice and are far less fussy.

[sandreas]

Try an INIU ;-)

[seba_dos1]

They rely on compliant power sources, so just make sure you don't use bad ones that only pretend to follow the spec.

[AntiUSAbah]

A desoldering hand pump costs $5. Similiar shitty as a copper wig, works fine though.

[gosub100]

I haven't soldered in a while, but I had really good luck with the metcal models. The tips auto match the proper temp, and don't require as much cleaning.

I can absolutely see how someone would hate soldering without good equipment.

[itomato]

Pinecil is a nice idea until it stops working due to a lack of strain relief for the power input or the clips snap and your tip falls out.

You need a Pinecil to repair your Pinecil and don't forget plenty of spare parts.

[bsoles]

The cheapest Hakko iron (888?) works just fine for me, even for surface mount components.

[snvzz]

>Desoldering Pump

I should have bought my Hakko fr301 way earlier than I did.

[zero_k]

I'll steal your ZD-8965 recommendation :) Thanks!

[TacticalCoder]

> It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too.

I don't know. I've got my station, not a bad one: bought it with the help of a buddy who's very good at soldering. He tried to show me. I've got no choice: I own an old vintage arcade cab from the mid 80s and it's located in the middle of nowhere, in a rural area. So I have to fix it myself.

And oh boy do I suck at it. I watched vids, countless Youtube vids. It's been 10 years and everytime I need to solder something, I still suck at it.

I've come to terms with the fact that there are some things I'm good at and that soldering is never ever going to be one of these. And it's okay.

And I'm amazed by people who can solder properly.

[bityard]

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but if all of your soldering experience is from parts that came out of a 40 year-old arcade cabinet, don't beat yourself up: that is definitely what I would call soldering in hard mode. Depending on where it lived, everything in it is probably oxidized, corroded and covered in dust, cigarette tar, and possibly cooking oil. Even if you can't see/smell any of it, it's still there. Solder only works well on pristine, clean metals. Some metals are just simply marginal, and don't take solder well even if they were ostensibly designed for it. Flux helps, but can only do so much. The semi-good news is that you should stand a chance if you can clean the bejeezus out of whatever it is your soldering a LOT of alcohol and a stiff brush, and maybe some fine-grit sandpaper.

[opan]

Will second this. When modding Xbox 360s, I used MrMario's guides and he would say repeatedly "clean, flux, tin", kinda stuck in my head. I did also tend to just clean the whole board while it was apart, but especially the point you're about to solder should be clean.

I have never used sandpaper on electronics, but I perhaps similarly use a fiberglass pen. Total game changer for getting old cartridge pins to read again for SNES and GBA games and such. Highly recommend picking one up.

[TacticalCoder]

Ah thanks to all of you for the nice comments. I didn't really realize this: I may not despair yet and still give it some more tries. I'll probably keep a few tiny PCBs (say from broken computer mouses) around and cut cables (so that they're not oxidized) and give it a go again and see if I can get a bit better at it.

[projektfu]

They make practice projects with lots of joints for a few bucks that you can use to develop technique. Then you can know it's not just technique.

[Doxin]

A glass fiber pen is my go-to for cleaning groddy pads and pins and the like. Works a treat.

[peteforde]

I don't want to flog a dead horse, but can you confirm whether or not you have a stereo microscope or not?

I cannot stress enough that this is not a trivial detail. I spent my whole life thinking that I was simply terrible at soldering. Then I got a proper stereo microscope and now I feel like a freaking ninja.

Seriously, you do not know if you're bad at soldering until you've spent an hour with a proper STEREO microscope. All of the folks saying "just get a 10x magnifier loupe for $5" are completely missing the point.

If you give your brain a stereo view, you will suddenly be like Neo in the Matrix. Thank me later.

[ssl-3]

I also get to fix gear in the middle of nowhere, so I'm sympathetic to that plight.

I used to watch people with fancy-looking soldering irons working quickly on stuff in repair shops. Some of that was technique ("it is a poor craftsman who blames his tools"), but some of it was definitely the irons they were using.

And yet: My first soldering experiences were not very good.

The first soldering irons I had, starting 30 years ago or so, were resolutely terrible. I eventually gained a whole assortment of them -- big, medium, small, and ginormous. They were all awful in their own unique ways, and they all lacked a thermostatic temperature control.

I got better solder (I've become a big fan of Kester 44 in a eutectic 63/37 mix) fairly early on, which helped a ton.

Later, I got better soldering irons.

A dozen years ago I bought a Hakko clone temperature-controlled soldering station from an American distributor. It took genuine Hakko tips just fine, and it was better.

5 or 6 years ago, I got a Pinecil v1. I now own two of them: I bought one as a spare in case one broke somehow (it's hard to fix a soldering iron without a soldering iron), but they've both been reliable. It's miles ahead of what I've used before. The v2 should be a bit better yet, but I do not own one of those. They're rather inexpensive.

These Pinecil irons weren't available a decade ago. I wish they had been.

---

Anyway: With the tools decently in-check, my technique got a lot better in a big hurry. I thought I'd learned to be pretty OK at soldering before with my lackluster tools, but the Pinecil iron (and its consistent temperature, sleep modes, and very quick heat-up) helps me get much better results -- faster.

And it's hackable, which (to me) scores some geek points.

---

I've come to think that anybody can learn to solder electronics with reasonable proficiency. I've taught people to solder who were sure they couldn't do it, including people who started off by being surprised by how hot the hot-bits are and walking them back from the ledge.

As with many other skills, it mostly just takes practice. But that practice should be inconsequential -- it's a lot easier to learn when the result is completely unimportant and inconsequential than on a dear 40-year-old arcade board.

To that end: There's ridiculously-inexpensive kits these days that primarily exist just to teach soldering. I learned through-hole the old-fashioned way (by failing), but back then cheap kits didn't exist at the level they do today. :)

If you can tell me more about the specific problems you're having with soldering, I can provide links to specific, specific soldering kits that may help.

(I can provide hands-on help, too, if you're not too far away. No big deal.)

[TacticalCoder]

> (I can provide hands-on help, too, if you're not too far away. No big deal.)

Arcade cab would be located in France, on the french riviera, 45 minutes from the closest highway, in a sea-side but rural (lots of vineyards) area.

But I want to thank you very much for the explanation and offer to help!

Nothing in particular: typically it's the wiring around the joysticks and buttons that gives me the most trouble for the wire harness kinda "weighs" on it, then kid play like maniacs, and eventually a solder fails and has to be redone.

Now on the plus side I did buy a chinese JAMMA harness and did manage to solder everything but the result is fuglier than fugly: that's why I say I'm really bad at it. Basically I can do "gross" soldering, but not nice looking, precise ones.

I'll practice a bit though after the kind words from everybody.

[ssl-3]

Yeah, France is a little bit out for me. There's quite a big pond between here and there. :)

So... joysticks, and buttons. Don't those have microswitches? With connectors on each switch?

Crimping the correct mating terminals can be more reliable than soldering. (Crimp-on connectors are what keeps airplanes up in the sky.)

Perhaps the right answer to soldering arcade controls is to stop soldering altogether. :)

Solder does have a big advantage, though, in that it is very universal. Any random copper wire can be glued onto any random terminal with molten metal, and that's pretty neat because it doesn't take any specialized parts or tools to make this work.

---

Anyway, I promised to help. For that kind of soldering, my usual workflow goes like something like this:

1. Cut off the end of the wire (for nice clean copper) and strip back the insulation a bit.

2. Heat up the iron and prep it (apply solder, wipe it off along with oxides, maybe apply more solder; it should be shiny and wet, but not with globs of stuff on it)

3. Tin the exposed copper wire. Heat it up while applying solder, until the solder flows through the strands freely. Too hot/too long means that a bunch of solder flows down past the insulation, which isn't ideal. Too cold/not long enough means that it kind of globs instead of flows. Perfect is somewhere in the middle. Set it aside to cool down.

4. Tin the terminal. Just heat it up with solder applied, until there's a neat little easily-flowing pool of it, and then let it cool down some. If the solder's flux core starts to burn, you're taking too long. If it blobs, it's not hot enough or not clean enough. Somewhere in the middle is, again, perfect.

5. Stick them together. Place the tinned wire on the tinned terminal so they "want" to rest together naturally (there's jigs that help with this kind of fixturing). And then, heat up the combination of the two with the iron. The solder that's mixed up with the wire will become one with the pool of solder on the terminal, and that's good. Often, there's no additional solder required for this step (but sometimes it's useful to add more). Again: Too hot and the solder flows away and the flux burns. Too cold, and it looks weird and instead of glassy. In the middle is good.

6. Remove heat. Don't move anything but the iron; just let the temperature drop until things turn solid.

Anyway, wire is easy to find. And a bag of cheap switches shouldn't cost too much. :)

---

Now, that said: I live in the States, where we never adopted RoHS. It's very simple for me to get solder with lead in it and that's the usual thing to see on any repair bench.

Lead-free solder is relatively unusual, and is not something I care to work with any more than I have to. I do not enjoy encountering it during repairs, mostly because it seems like it takes an astounding amount of heat to get it to do anything but laugh at me.

And really, for occasional hobbyist use, lead isn't a problem: Wash your hands afterwards, keep your work area clean, and don't let kids play with it. :)

What kind of solder are you using?

[summa_tech]

If you don't have space for a microscope, you can also get yourself the long-range (~400mm) 2.5-3.5x magnifiers that you may have seen your dentist wear. They're easily available on Amazon, not too expensive, and comfortable for hours of wearing. These are 2-element lenses that work really well.

Higher magnification variants (8x etc) are not nearly as comfy. They get quite long, heavy and expensive. I tried them and did not like them nearly as much. Also beware of short viewing distance, ultra-cheap products that are just a single lens element per eye.

[dtgriscom]

I have a Donegan DA-5 OptiVisor Headband Magnifier. They're nice, because the lenses are prism'd so that you can focus on something close without having to go cross-eyed.

[stavros]

This is a great tip, I use a loupe and it works amazingly well. Cost maybe $10?

[jrumbut]

Oh yeah, I'm sure that $300 microscope comes in handy but a cheap loupe gets you started. I've found all sorts of other uses for it too.

[tra3]

Can you share a link?

[stavros]

Yep: https://a.aliexpress.com/_Eyw9z6E

[tra3]

Appreciate that, ordered!

Hopefully it'll bring my soldering to the next level.

Can you recommend something for "helping hands"?

[stavros]

No problem! The only helping hands I'd recommend are https://omnifixo.com/. Pricy, but everything else I've tried has too much play and is useless to me. Omnifixo is just fantastic.

[pwg]

Actually, the "key" to soldering is finally buying oneself a very good iron. I learned soldering years ago (going on 50 or so now) but always used basic "wood burners". But I did enough that I got good at it with the rug burners.

A couple years back, I bought a low end no-name temp controlled iron, and it worked ok. A little better than the wood burner, but nothing great. Then about three years ago I bought a used Metcal SP200 Smartheat off of eBay for about $120. The tips are pricey (although Thermaltronics makes clone tips that cost less than genuine Metcal tips) but the difference in soldering performance is like night and day, even when one already knows how, but has just never used the really good systems.

[jubilanti]

It's over $1,000 to buy the products you mentioned. Kind of proves the article/poem right. If the trick is spending 4 figures, that's no trick.

[alnwlsn]

The real trick is that it's a skill that you practice and get better at. I was able to do this

https://hackaday.io/project/197868-sub-surface-simon

using no magnification, and only cheap soldering tools.

You can and should be able to solder SMD with only an iron and tweezers. Not everything; not the smallest stuff, but you don't start there. My sweet spot is 0805 or 0603 size components and 1.27mm pitch SOIC parts, which I actually find easier to solder than through hole, because you never have to flip the board over.

My recommendations for most useful tools are a Pinecil, a few packs of cheap flush cutters from Amazon (even expensive ones get dull or break), a cheap pair of sharp tweezers [1], and a tube of flux [2]. You don't always need extra flux if using flux-core solder, but enough flux can turn even the crappiest solder joints into good ones.

Most of the rest of the skill comes from being able to brace your hands against things to get fine control, while being far enough away to not burn yourself.

Magnification unfortunately comes down to how good your eyes are. If you can see your fingerprints clearly at arm's length, your vision is already good enough. If not, no big deal, get a cheap microscope like this one first [3], or a loupe, or some strong reading glasses, or one of those headband visor things with lenses in them.

[1] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/seeed-technology-...

[2] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/chip-quik-inc/SMD...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QB79SN

[JKCalhoun]

A thousand grand,

(for SMD).

I prefer my Hakko,

(and THD).

[peteforde]

I've got nothing against personal projects that use THD.

However, unless you're making simple circuits, avoiding SMD means that you are effectively constraining yourself to about 20% of the ICs being produced today.

It's also simply a fact that producing a product using THD components is a massive headache. It takes far more manual effort, most contract manufacturers will charge a pound of flesh, and the components are significantly bigger.

If none of those resemble problems you have to deal with, then THD is likely going to be great fun for you.

[JKCalhoun]

No, I was being semi-facetious. I too have learned that a number of components are no longer being made THT. I have done a limited amount of SMT but it is not a lot of fun for me.

Instead, I have been testing the waters my SMT PCBs having them also assembled now when I order them. It kind of saddens me though.

[peteforde]

I never said anything about there being "one weird trick", just that I love soldering and I do it quite often. It's therefore not at all surprising that I would invest in good tools, especially given that my eyesight has failed a lot faster than I am comfortable with in my late 40s.

As I wrote about it in my comment, I started to list some tools that I have come to appreciate. I didn't even mention my pick and place or my CNC. Does it upset you that I have these, too?

Quite simply, you don't need to buy anything to practice this skill, but a stereo microscope is strongly recommended to anyone doing this multiple times a week.

[gosub100]

That's about the same amount as any other beginner hobby. Welcome to being an adult and stuff costing money.

[peteforde]

Seriously!

People are so quick to get upset when they learn that other folks prioritize different things than they do.

[raomin]

Me too I love soldering. And actually, it's one of the few things that I like more and more, as I realize I've developed a real craftmanship from it.

And thank you! I've been looking for a recommendation of a stereo microscope for a long time!

[fennecfoxy]

Not just those things but the biggest helper of all: a set of helping hands.

Dios mio, what an absolute pain soldering is without something holding everything in place. It's literally a night and day purchase.

[erwincoumans]

Agreed on stereo microscope, also suggest flux and a good iron with exchangeable tips and hot tweezers (I enjoy the Hakko).

[wrs]

The new breed of irons with temperature measurement built into the tip (invented by JBC, cloned by Geeboon and similar) is amazing. The tip heats to exactly the temp you want in 3 seconds, then cools down to avoid damage when you put it back in the stand. As you solder, the power is automatically controlled to keep the tip at the specified temp regardless of the load you put on it. I never thought I'd replace the Weller station I've used for 20 years, but I'm glad I did.

Edit: For a specific recommendation, look for the Geeboon TC22 on AliExpress or Amazon. Don’t forget the tips, you may need to get them separately.

[peteforde]

Share a link! Don't be shy.

[torginus]

I have bought the TC22 after going on r/Soldering and can only stand by the recommendation, its an amazing iron for hobbyists and its ability to put tons of power on a tiny area quickly means basically its 100% easier to work with than a ton of cheap irons, and have a much lower chance of killing components than dicking around with less powerful ones and staying on the pin a long time trying to heat it up while it wicks heat away into sensitive electronics. Doubly so when I mess it up or the solder is not fully melted. Another nice thing is with powerful irons you don't have to overshoot the melting temp of solder as much, and tips with less thermal mass in general can be used.

Im a rank amateur so take what I said with a grain of salt. With that said, I have made several cool things in my life that many people've said I could charge money for. I guess you can't really see the mess I made when you can't look inside the housing :)

I've purchased it from the GEEBOON Store on Aliexpress (no affiliate or anything just looked up my order history):

https://geeboontools.aliexpress.com/store/1103439446

All being said you might not be comfortable with supporting the Chinese clone industry, and I can understand that.

[omgtehlion]

any c245 will do (JBC is the best and original, but clones are close)

[ssl-3]

It heats to exactly the temperature I want in 3 seconds? Is there evidence to support this claim?

(My bullshit detector is making some rather profound gurgling sounds.)

edit: Seriously, my dudes. Links, or it never happened. Anecdotes are just anecdotes. Anecdotally, my soldering iron heats up very quickly as well and I'm very pleased with this, but I'm not making a claim that it heats to an exact, unspecified user-selected temperature in 3 seconds. If you want to present a benchmark, then please present the bench -- with the mark.

[rcxdude]

This is what JBC's marketing claims: https://www.jbctools.com/top10.html

Though from looking at some of the chatter about it online, this is only one specific tip they make under ideal conditions, and it seems like often they overshoot the temperature by more than a little on warmup (though this will be the slowest to recover with the tip just held in air as opposed to when actually soldering). Either way, I've used similar products and this kind of speed isn't a crazy suggestion to me.

[cyberax]

Yup. They specify 3 seconds, but that's for 350C. In my experience, it's always at the right temperature by the time I finish picking it up.

It has a 240W power supply, so it's not just marketing.

[fennecfoxy]

Depends on mass/element power.

My TS101 heats up in like 3-4 seconds (330c) on a 100W laptop PD USB C. It doesn't have a lot of mass but it's perfect for microcontroller related stuff. Just not power electronics.

[Doxin]

I can make no claims as to the brands mentioned in the parent post, but a 3 second heating time isn't all that fast for a real nice soldering iron. Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then.

[throwup238]

> Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then.

Metcal Fixed Temperature Induction soldering irons. Still the gold standard after decades because instead of using PID with a heating element and sensor, it exploits the curie effect. The tips are made of a special alloy that is only magnetic until a certain temperature after which it doesn’t absorb any more energy from the PSU, which just dumps a constant 25Mhz signal into the tip keeping it at the fixed temperature.

When their patents expired a couple of Metcal engineers left to found Thermaltronics, which makes the same soldering iron (they’re even tip compatible!) for 2-3x cheaper. They’re still more expensive than hobbyist soldering irons but well worth the cost for anyone doing a lot of soldering. The Metcal power supplies are beasts though so you can easily pick up a 20 year old unit for a couple hundred bucks on ebay and it’ll run till the apocalypse comes home to roost. I have an old unit made in the late 90s that is still going strong.

[wrs]

I understand the skepticism, but it's really just a simple application of negative feedback. There's a 200W-ish variable power supply, a thermocouple right at the tip, and a software PID controller. So it's no mystery why it works so well.

Live demonstration: https://youtu.be/BepVEStPmJk

[peteforde]

I can't imagine not using flux!

I have a Hakko FX-888D. It's pretty good, although I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down to a safe handling temperature.

I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please!

Another link for folks: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B077BQWMTY

I go through these for solder flux removal like crazy, in combination with an aerosol can of MG Chemicals 4140-400G. Sadly, I think that stuff is unobtainium now.

[erwincoumans]

>> I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please!

Hakko FM2023-05 Mini Hot Tweezers Kit or Hakko FX8804-02 Hot Tweezer for Hakko FX-888 for example.

>> I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down

I replace tips while hot: the sleeve is not hot.

[throwway120385]

Depends. The ancient Weller that I have has a sleeve you can unscrew but that sucker gets burning hot, and the thumbscrew locks up unless you cool the tip down, which you can do by holding the thing on your wet sponge.

[rhinoceraptor]

I swap the tips on my Hakko without letting it cool down, I just use a Knipex pliers wrench so I don't burn myself. I keep my spare tips in an altoids tin, so I can drop the hot one in there without burning anything.

[sampullman]

How ofter are you switching tips? It's been a while since I did any real soldering, but I don't remember often needing to switch in the middle of a session.

[BrandoElFollito]

> It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too.

Over the last 30 years or so I have very (very) occasionaly soldered some basic stuff to build simple IoTs. Everytime this was (and is) a struggle (with a cheap equipment, no practice etc.)

And then someday I discovered on Youtube a video of someone resoldering some elements (chips, flat resistors, ...) using some kind of gel and a heat gun (?) and it was mermerizing. So clean, so fluid -- seriously a relaxing experience

[floxy]

>It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too.

There is a similar vibe with TIG welding as well.

[thenthenthen]

Havent clicked but I LOVE SOLDERING! It’s relaxing, gives a real sense of creating something. Yes even soldering hundreds of the same units every day feels just so gratifying somehow… the way you get better and faster every unit, having this batch of new shiny things lined up, giving ‘life’ to otherwise inert pieces of a puzzle. Yes.

[tibbon]

I, too, love soldering. I've done it since I was around 6 years old (wood burning before that). It's what I do when I want to zone out and relax. I've found random people at Burning Man and camping events who needed help with electronics, and I was happy to spend my time with an iron helping out - I even carry a butane-powered one on my motorcycle for quick repairs in the field.

[3abiton]

Step 1: Have a workshop space Step 2: ? Step 3: Profit

[bsoles]

Once I have developed a technique for soldering surface mount components, using lots of flux, soldering became a joy event for me.

The cheapest Hakko iron (888?) and a flat fine tip works great. I have a stereo microscope but I only use it for checking defects afterwards. A 10x magnifier works just fine.

[voxleone]

What about aluminum? I haven’t been able to find a welder willing to work on my custom bike frame, so I’m considering learning to do it myself after taking a welding course. The custom car builders on TV make it look easy, but aluminum seems like an incredibly difficult material to work with.

[ssl-3]

It's difficult find a welder willing to work on an aluminum bike frame not because aluminum is hard to weld. It's not so bad to stick two pieces of aluminum together in a new-to-them way with the right tools as long as maintaining the original strength isn't important.

But strength is important for bicycles. And aluminum bike frames are already built down to a given weight -- they don't have much in the way of extra strength to lend.

The heat of welding permanently changes the way the surrounding metal works. That's not ideal for safety devices like a bike.

Heat treatment can be done later (and is done when aluminum frames are built), but that's a different process to learn and it's pretty far beyond the gamut of what most welders are willing to deal with. Most welders don't have the bike-sized oven that's needed, let alone the training and experience to get it right, and with a sample size of exactly 1 it's a risky operation. It's easy to get things like warped tubes out of this process and turn a beautiful piece of wall art into scrap metal.

[83]

If you get a quality tig welder aluminum isn't too bad. It's definitely more difficult than steel but I taught myself to weld AL without too much trouble. Practice on some scrap for sure before your bike - it'll be easy to blow a hole in thin bike tube.

The biggest challenge I've had in welding aluminum as a hobbyist is that I rarely know what aluminum alloy I'm working with. Most things don't say what type so we're left guessing what filler is appropriate. If you use the wrong filler it could be prone to cracking again in the future.

Also for thicker aluminum preheating is very important. The aluminum transfers heat away very quickly so you get cold lumpy welds if you don't have both parts pretty hot at the start.

[_nxwj]

I agree it seems like it could be fun. I think I am a bit paranoid about the hazardous chemicals and risk of a burns when using a traditional iron. From what I understand reading the comments, it's gotten much smoother with stencils, SMD, ovens, and so on.

[pipe2devnull]

It’s quite easy to not burn yourself. I’ve done a fair bit of soldering and it has only happened like twice to me and it wasn’t that bad

[projektfu]

The most important thing is having your workspace organized. Second most important is to put your iron in the holder when you're doing anything else. ADHD types will get more little burns.

[BoredPositron]

just don't use leaded solder. the absolute obsession of people from NA and lead should be studied.

[alnwlsn]

There isn't much advantage to even learning on lead in my opinion, unless your only goal is to work on old stuff that used leaded solder.

Any modern or new stuff (i.e. the smallest components) has the whole supply chain designed around lead-free. Lead free boards, using lead free chips, which are meant to take the heating profiles for lead free solder. If working in industry, you'll need to learn lead free eventually, so you had better do it from the beginning.

I save my leaded solder for old radios and retrocomputing, but as I would rather not spread lead dust around my work area, I only ever use lead-free solder paste for modern work.

Leaded work is easier, a little, but not so much so that I wouldn't consider not learning lead-free.

[projektfu]

I agree it's unnecessary but the rosin is more toxic to the user than the metallic lead. It's better to not make lead e-waste though.