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How NOT to solder
#16
Unseen, as this thread is how not to solder, you can easily take all my solders and put in this category for future reference Smile

also for having a chance to have a good solder joint... remember that the tip of the iron needs to be cleaned and replaced ...
if you want a horror story i can share how "bad tip" looks like
All the best
Grzesiek (Grisha/ Greg)

Curently flyable: Nox 5, Minimalist 112
Bench / in progres: fixing Nox 3,  Scrap
thinking about building: 450


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#17
(19-Apr-2017, 09:11 PM)Grisha0 Wrote: if you want a horror story i can share how "bad tip" looks like

Knowing you, it looks like my 60W iron that I drive to extreme temps and use exclusively to quickly DEsolder stuff like LiPo packs I want to dispose of ;p

I have even cleaned it once. On a wooden fence hehe.
Find me on Youtube and Instagram. I currently fly: DRC Aura, NOX5R, Minimalist 112 and drive a scrap RC car
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#18
I'll add that learning how to solder is important, but learning to desolder and "fix" bad joins is more important.

So for every practice joint you do, also practice redoing and removing the wire etc.

Some simple tips:
- A joint rarely gets better by just reheating - usually the flux will have done its time and unless the surfaces are perfect there's little chance of proper adhesion happening

- Adding more solder only adds to the problem - if you're not getting adhesion adding more solder (hence heat and flux) isn't likely to cook the problem away, it may just hide it in a blob

- Add solder to de-solder. Unless you're cleaning up a blob monster adding solder to a joint then applying braid/wick or using a solder sucker makes it easier. Once you've drawn away all the excess solder you should be able to correct the reason behind the bad joint and neatly apply solder to it.

- Take a breath and walk away. If you have a lot of soldering to do, or a lot of tidying to do only start it when you can be in a zen mood. If you make a bad joint or two don't immediately revert to OMG must fix. Re-centre yourself and finish the rest of the joints. Take a deep breath and then setup to fix any bad ones.

Overall remember you are applying heat to heat sensitive parts, the tools used are dangerous to you and your family. I can assure you that grabbing the wrong end of a powered on iron will ruin months of your life (likewise if you subconsciously scratch your head with pens/pencils I can assure you a scolding iron doesn't smooth itches). If you find yourself being distracted, or reorganising your bench/tools job while still holding the iron understand that you need to change that habit.

Soldering iron gets picked up from heavy stand that keeps the hot bits away from anything, joints made iron goes back into stand.

Don't solder when your toddler, cat, or spouse is vying for your attention. Anything that distracts you will lead to an accident, you may just make a bad joint and smoke a flight control, or your child will grab a hot iron off your bench by the cord.

In summary good soldering is a life-skill for anyone, but doing it "right" isn't just about shiny joins!
Builds: Mini-Quad  -  Tricopter 
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#19
That's great advice Aaron, especially if you have young children about!

When I worked fixing minicomputer PCBs I sometimes spent a whole day soldering and burns were inevitable if you tried to go too fast. We kept a can of cooling spray called Burn Eze or something like that within hands reach on the bench. If you managed to spray the burn within a second, there was no serious pain or damage!
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#20
+1 Aaron. Well said. I am also an artist among other things. Ive always said "Dont judge an artist by their finished piece but by the size of their eraser" Wink

Tin yo tip! Also great advice. I always clean and tin just before making a joint and also just after I turn It off to keep a nice layer of solder covering the tip during storage.
The Obsession IS Real!
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#21
(20-Apr-2017, 12:54 AM)Aaron Wrote: ...
Don't solder when your toddler, cat, or spouse is vying for your attention.  Anything that distracts you will lead to an accident, ...

been there done that :Smile
something like 11 pm im finalizing (4 more hours to go) the quad solders... wife starts nagging that we should watch a movie... answer "what" was not among the expected ones.... then i grabed the soldering iron again... wrong side...

that day my wife learned two things:
- i know a lot more curse words than i usualy use
- smell of burned meat out ouf the kitchen is not good

took my around a month+ to get my finger back to the regular usability...
so... pay attention and if distractors are present... stop.
All the best
Grzesiek (Grisha/ Greg)

Curently flyable: Nox 5, Minimalist 112
Bench / in progres: fixing Nox 3,  Scrap
thinking about building: 450


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#22
Ow, ow, ow! Smile

Not quite quad related, but if you've just finished repairing a huge 17 inch square card like this:

[Image: NM2-card_zpsiyywgiq0.jpg]

and you accidentally knock it off the bench, whatever you do, suppress the urge to catch it. I didn't and for a fraction of a second, started to feel proud of my snake like reflexes in stopping a few thousand pounds worth of electronics from hitting the floor. Then the pain hit me.

I'd caught the card with my thumb on the component side and my fingers on the other side. In the time it took for my hand to grip, the razor sharp legs of all the through hole soldered chips had gone straight into my fingertips and then cut each one of them to shreds before the card stopped moving!
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#23
Ouch! that definitely doesn't sound peasant.

Quick question Unseen and other experienced solderers... I have an adjustable temp iron. I've been practicing... I've ran into temp issues on both ends (too high, too low)... What should I use to determine the best temp? Is there a formula to use based on the mix of the solder, is there maybe something on the solder packaging itself, or is there just a rule of thumb of where to start and what to look for?
carl.vegas
Current Quads: Operational: Diatone GT2 200 In need of repair: Bumble Bee, tehStein,  Slightly modified Vortex 250 
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#24
The most commonly available solder is 60/40 tin/lead. This is the only solder a hobbyist should think about using and it should be solder that has a core of flux. This type of solder melts between 183–190 °C (361–374 °F).

Your soldering iron should be set to a temperature between 320 to 370 °C (600 - 700 °F) for this type of solder.

For soldering small wires, the lower temperature will be plenty. For larger wires and ground pads that steal the heat away from your iron quickly, raising the temperature will help a little. Don't leave the iron idling at high temperatures as the tip will quickly become damaged.

What to look for? Well, if your temperature is too low, the solder won't melt instantly as you touch it to the tip and it will take too long to heat up the parts you are trying to solder. If the temperature is too hot, the flux will immediately burn off in a cloud of smoke as you touch the solder to the tip. If the flux burns off really quickly and leaves a black residue, your iron is too hot. If you notice your tip starting to rapidly turn blue or dark grey, that's also a sure sign of the temperature being too hot.

When soldering fine stuff, you want to be able to do the job as quickly as possible - no more than a couple of seconds to solder the motor wires to an ESC for example. If I'm soldering the signal wires from an ESC to the flight controller and I've pre-tinned both the wire and the pad, re-flowing the solder to join the two together takes a fraction of a second.

Even when soldering heavier stuff like a PDB, you still want to be able to get the joint soldered quickly and certainly in less than five seconds. The longer your iron is heating things up, the more you risk damaging things.

If you're trying to solder a PDB or a difficult connection that sucks all the heat from your iron and even though you have the temperature turned up, you're not able to solder the joint quickly, then either you're not using the right tip, or the iron simply does not have enough power (wattage) to supply heat faster than the work piece can wick it away.
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#25
(23-Apr-2017, 11:17 AM)unseen Wrote: The most commonly available solder is 60/40 tin/lead. This is the only solder a hobbyist should think about using and it should be solder that has a core of flux. This type of solder melts between 183–190 °C (361–374 °F).

Your soldering iron should be set to a temperature between 320 to 370 °C (600 - 700 °F) for this type of solder.

For soldering small wires, the lower temperature will be plenty. For larger wires and ground pads that steal the heat away from your iron quickly, raising the temperature will help a little. Don't leave the iron idling at high temperatures as the tip will quickly become damaged.

What to look for? Well, if your temperature is too low, the solder won't melt instantly as you touch it to the tip and it will take too long to heat up the parts you are trying to solder. If the temperature is too hot, the flux will immediately burn off in a cloud of smoke as you touch the solder to the tip. If the flux burns off really quickly and leaves a black residue, your iron is too hot. If you notice your tip starting to rapidly turn blue or dark grey, that's also a sure sign of the temperature being too hot.

When soldering fine stuff, you want to be able to do the job as quickly as possible - no more than a couple of seconds to solder the motor wires to an ESC for example. If I'm soldering the signal wires from an ESC to the flight controller and I've pre-tinned both the wire and the pad, re-flowing the solder to join the two together takes a fraction of a second.

Even when soldering heavier stuff like a PDB, you still want to be able to get the joint soldered quickly and certainly in less than five seconds. The longer your iron is heating things up, the more you risk damaging things.

If you're trying to solder a PDB or a difficult connection that sucks all the heat from your iron and even though you have the temperature turned up, you're not able to solder the joint quickly, then either you're not using the right tip, or the iron simply does not have enough power (wattage) to supply heat faster than the work piece can wick it away.

Good tip on the lead only, and thanks for the temp suggestion and ways to tell if I've got it right. That's a huge help!

Most of the rest of this I am doing because I learned it from this thread actually so it looks like I am on the right path. I bought a little practice kit for like 10 bucks on amazon and while I have some joints that match some of the photos above I am already 10x better than I ever was when I last soldered anything years ago. At this point I feel I'd only have about 30% chance of screwing something up bad enough that it wasn't repairable or was difficult to repair. I figure another few hours of practice and I should be in a spot where I am only about 5-10% chance of screwing something up but with a 90% chance of repairing whatever I screw up. I'll make sure to get in at least a couple hours of desoldering just to be sure I am able to recover if needed! 

The good news is that I have 2-4 weeks to wait for shipments from china Smile

Thanks unseen and everyone else for a great lesson in soldering! It's already paying off.
carl.vegas
Current Quads: Operational: Diatone GT2 200 In need of repair: Bumble Bee, tehStein,  Slightly modified Vortex 250 
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#26
Practice makes perfect and you're doing exactly the right thing by learning to solder well before you start attacking flight controllers and things you can't afford to destroy through inexperience.

When I got my hot air rework station, I bought several surface mount practice kits to play with so that I could get a proper feel for temperature settings and how to use the hot air stream without blowing the components off the board or melting the glue that holds the copper tracks on the board.

[Image: smd_zps25oielwb.png]
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#27
unseen board brought back memories of when I was a teenager and worked part time in two places - one where I had to resolder (due to the joints fatiguing over time with heat cycles etc) mainboards of arcade machines as part of refurbishing them the other old Wang computer hardware. The stench of the dirt, dust and condensed nicotine/tar from cigarettes burning off at the same time... horrendous, cuts and scratches from the leads always ended up infected and very painful.

I'm not even going to start of bathing components in Carbon-Tetrachloride to clean the board with bare hands!

With regard to temperatures - I do super fine stuff around 280C iron temp, with 0.5mm solder. The lower temp and super fine solder with a little experience is easy to work with.

320C is a good alround temperature and work up from there depending on the job.
Builds: Mini-Quad  -  Tricopter 
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#28
I worked at a place that fixed these boards down to chip level. The card in the photo there is a CPU, all made from TTL logic. The memory boards were the same size and had a small army of static RAM chips. Upgrading the memory capacity consisted of cutting the 48 memory chips from the board, removing the pins, cleaning the through holes and then soldering in 48 new chips with twice the capacity. I could do one memory upgrade per day.

And yes, I cleaned off the flux with a brush and lots of carbon tetrachloride!

It's amazing that we're still alive to be honest. Smile
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#29
Anyway, back to the real subject matter of the thread - how NOT to solder!

This one is an excellent warning to anyone who is thinking about turning their hand to a micro flight controller stack like the Piko BLX. If you can't solder well, leave well alone!

[Image: horror_zps7lsd7dt1.jpg]

The title of the post I found this in was "HELP please I smoked something".

No sh*t Sherlock! Rolleyes
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#30
I am sorry, Artur, but I have to share your soldering pic Big Grin haha
It might work, but it would be nice to have a bit more solder on those ESC pads

[Image: betaflight-f3-fc-10.jpg]
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