Does anybody using preheating soldering station like this one I find it difficult sometimes to solder ground pads, read that preheating helps. Let me know what you think.

I don't see anything posted so not sure what to comment on that.

The problem with grounds is they absorb heat at a much greater rate than any other pad because that ground plane is all over the board. I've even seen it on something as tiny as a TBS RX. If running the iron in the lower than 700 degrees F it will struggle to cleanly tin the pad unlike the 5v, tx, rx which will flow the solder at that temp with ease.

In that scenario this is where you need to bump up the temperature. You also need a tip with enough mass to harness the heat coming off the actual heating element in the iron itself. This is why I think the real thin conical tips are pretty poor for ground soldering or desoldering where the process is even more tedious. Something more of a chisel type or a flat edge would do better. This is where you need to run lesser expensive irons at full power. If the tip is in good shape and has enough mass and you're still not getting good flow your iron is too weak or the heating element is failing. I bring that up since I've had that happen on an old Hakko $100 station. The element worked flawlessly on an IC but then move on to a heavy ground and watch it struggle to melt. Replace the heating element and all was right again.

Some techs run their iron wide open temp wise all the time since as you get more proficient with the process your dwell time on a given joint gets quicker so you're not on any pad or pin of a part long enough to overheat it. Same goes for soldering xt60 or larger guage battery wiring. A weak iron will cause you to dwell too long and melt the plastic connector holding the pins. Also in the case of a battery solder job is where you'd use your most massive tip like a flat head screwdriver chisel tip that would likely be a little unwieldly on the TX/RX pads of a uart.

Yup, what servo said.
Crank the temp all the way up. Use a larger tip if you have one- if you don’t, lay the tip down on the pad so that more of the soldering iron is in contact with the pad. Use lots of flux, and put a blob of solder on your tip prior to soldering- angle your iron so that that blob is in contact with the pad and wire, it’ll help heat to transfer.

That is missing link https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082H12PPT/?co..._lig_dp_it

(19-Aug-2022, 11:35 PM)niuk Wrote: That is missing link https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082H12PPT/?co..._lig_dp_it

That is completely unnecessary for soldering ground pads. You would be better off spending that money on a better soldering station or various sizes of quality iron tips.

A preheat station has very little use in FPV related solder.

That tool is for shops that do BGA work all day and preheat the pcbs for faster hot air work.

(19-Aug-2022, 11:35 PM)niuk Wrote: That is missing link https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082H12PPT/?co..._lig_dp_it

Nah mate. I'm still learning but I find soldering is a lot like arc welding... Never be afraid to turn the amps up!!

Assuming you have iron with high heat capacity and using 360-400C

The more difficult = the higher quality thicker copper PCB.

Signal pads you can use 300C. I usually use 360C on TS100, and no problems on Mamba stacks or AIO.

But thick copper Tekko32 65A ESC.. wow.. you can feel difference... I used 300C hot air and then soldering was smooth as butter.