[HiPhish]

I love soldering, even though my skill ceiling is SMD components. There is something almost spiritual and humbling about soldering because you cannot force your will onto the solder, you have to listen to what the solder wants to do and work with it, not against it.

When I first tried my hand at soldering I was using the "butter knife" method: apply solder to the iron, then try to smear it onto the wire like spreading butter with a butter knife. Of course the solder would never stick to where I wanted it to go. I had to learn that solder goes to where the heat is, so I instead had to heat the components or wires instead and then feed the solder onto the hot components. I also had to learn that a soldering iron is not a pencil, sometimes even when doing small parts you want to use the large tip. Don't try to tell the solder where to go, instead apply a big blog and watch it snap into place on its own.

Last year I installed an HDMI mod[1] into my Wii, this has been so far the hardest project. It took me many attempts to get it right, mainly because I was working against the solder instead of with it. But now that I have succeeded I could easily do it over and over again (not keen on the disassembly and reassembly of the console though).

EDIT: while I'm at it I might as well mention the iron I was using: the Pinecil[2]. It's a really neat and fast soldering iron at a very cheap price. Great for people like me who don't want hardware store cheap garbage, but also cannot justify buying an entire soldering station.

[1] https://electron-shepherd.com/collections/kits-mods/products... [2] https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...

[dekhn]

Several tips helped me move from "painting with solder" to "hmm, that's acceptable": "heat the component, not the solder", "taping things to the table saves a hand", "use an analog, not digital, soldering iron", "clean your tip clean". Those, combined with practice, mean that I can do basic electronics work. I still accidentally melt insulation, and damage things from time to time.

Switching from a Weller to a Pinecil was also pretty nice although I'm sure everything I do, I could do with my analog weller.

[birdsongs]

Flux, liberally applied, is the sudo of soldering. It lets you force your will and make the solder do what you want. No one ever uses enough. I always have either a pen with a felt tip, or a syringe of chip quik.

It (a good proper flux) is what most people are missing when they struggle with SMD, the flux makes the solder almost magnetic and it jumps perfectly to the pad and the component. Mess up, make a bridge or bad connection? Add more and wave the tip through like a magic wand. Poof. Fixed.

Thanks for coming to my Church of Flux presentation.

[fennecfoxy]

For sure. If you watch x device repair videos they tend to flood the general area with flux and it works to great effect.

[birdsongs]

I do the same. Flood and get the joints perfect, then clean with either IPA or a can of flux off.

[seba_dos1]

And don't ever think the flux core within the solder will be enough.

[throwup238]

The flux in flux core solder is completely useless for PCB soldering, It needs to already be on the PCB when the molten solder meets it because its main purpose is wetting the surfaces and reducing the surface tension of the solder so that it flows easier. Properly fluxed solder behaves very differently from the stubborn solder balls people normally experience when starting out.