[jessevdk]

You can try something similar to this (although more related to the older barrel technique) at home with a soldering iron . Melt some tin at the tip while holding the iron at a sufficiently large enough height over a glass of water. It takes some practice to make nice round balls, but it works!

[stiff]

Loosely related anecdote: in a technical electronics high school my teacher showed us, as a cool trick to impress us, how to actually solder this way - you make a nice little ball from tin with the soldering iron, put it over the first pin of a multi-pin chip and let the ball freely fall through the other pins. It takes a lot of practice, but bits of tin stick to pins forming proper soldering joints and the (somewhat smaller) ball continues to fall. If you are good at it it's really faster then soldering each pin separately.

[zokier]

I'm very sceptical that such procedure would produce proper solder joints. Proper joint requires that both the lead/pin and the pad are heated. Some metallurgy guru could chime in and explain why that is.

[Stratoscope]

When the metal is hot, solder remains melted, flows onto the metal and bonds to it. In fact, when soldering you should heat only the metal parts first and not the solder directly, and then apply the solder to the metal parts where the soldering iron touches them. You never heat solder directly with the soldering iron and expect it to stick to cold metal.

When the metal is cold, the molten solder freezes up as it touches it, making electrical contact but not really sticking. So sometime later, as a result of thermal expansion or mechanical flexing, the solder joint becomes unstuck. This is called a "cold joint".

It's also essential to use flux when soldering. Most solders used in electronic hand-soldering have a rosin flux core in the middle. The rosin melts first onto the metal you're heating, preventing the heat from forming an oxide layer so the solder can bond to the metal. (I think the flux also helps break down any existing oxide layer, not too sure on that part.)

This teacher's technique would result in unreliable cold joints all up and down the pins.

Search for "cold solder joint" for more information and photos of cold joints.

[Bob_Sheep]

It sounded like a bad description of drag soldering which involves dragging a ball of solder over the pins with the iron and relying on the solder mask and surface tension to make a good connection on each pin.

[stiff]

Yes, judging from YT videos of drag soldering, this was what he did, except unlike people in those videos, he did it holding the circuit board vertically and hence it was one very quick move. Bear with me: this was almost ten years ago, I had nothing to do with electronics since, and I am not a native speaker of English!

[ohazi]

Friendly reminder to exercise common sense when you do this. Wear eye protection, long sleeves, possibly gloves. And ffs DON'T FLING THE IRON. Your aim is not as good as you think it is. :-)

Also, lead. Don't use a drinking glass.

[networked]

>Also, lead. Don't use a drinking glass.

I can't check it for myself now but I assume this would also work with lead-free solder. Not that you should put any kind of solder in your drinking glass.

[DanBC]

I did this, but using lead. Yes, I was young and stupid. It did work nicely though.

Also, at school, our chemistry teacher heated a rod of glass and asked a boy (who was grabbing an end of the rod in pliers) to run across the room, creating a thin thread of glass.

I don't think they'd do that in schools today, but maybe I'm wrong.

[quchen]

In what way is practice useful here? Determining the correct height to get good spheres, having a steady hand when dropping it?

[jessevdk]

It's been some time since I did this, but yes, it's mostly the correct height + keeping the hand steady when the drop falls. I think getting the height right is more critical. You need enough time to have the drop cool down. On the other hand, higher means also larger impact which can splat the drop more easily.

[hrkristian]

I would imagine that could be solved by keeping the water at or near a boiling point; breaking the surface tension of the water while still being cool enough to let the tin completely solidify.

[alan_cx]

Try it.