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sandreas 7 hours ago [-]
While soldering is not that hard, different tasks require different tools. Most of them can be from very cheap to very expensive. As a beginner I'd recommend the following:
A small USB-C soldering iron supported by IronOS[1], e.g. Pinecil vor TS100
A solid stand with brass wool
A KU soldering tip (looks a bit like a knife) for good heat transfer, too small tips are not good
Thin (<=0.5mm) solder wire
No clean flux (not a pen)
Isopropyl alcohol
Solder fume extractor (DIY is OK, if you're building it right) is good for your health
Solder mat (blue silicone)
Multimeter (not too cheap, around 20 bucks)
Self closing tweezers
Normal tweezers
A wirecutter (blue 5 bucks from ali express)
Manual Desoldering pump (engineer ss03 or a clone for cheaper)
Most important is cleaning (alcohol, then flux) and heat transfer (tin your tip, your pads or your wire before putting things together to ensure good heat transfer). Cleanup nicely and tin your tip after soldering to prevent corrosion.
Optional but helpful for more professional tasks:
Hot air station
Auto Desoldering pump (ZD-8965)
Adjustable power supply (fnirsi usbc, 30 bucks)
Oscilloscope (mini beginner with display Cost around 30 bucks)
Oh I forgot... a big magnifier glass (8x to 15x) with an LED light is way cheaper than a microscope and very helpful for small parts soldering (SMD) :-)
JohnFen 1 days ago [-]
You don't need any real educational resources to get good at soldering. Any random primer will do. It's genuinely a simple task that doesn't require a lot of explanation or have a lot of tricks.
What gets you good at soldering is just practice. Solder a lot. A fun and easy way to do this is to pick up those cheap ($5 or less) electronic solder-it-yourself kits and do a bunch of them. Include ones that contain small surface mount parts.
You can also practice desoldering on them, or pick up broken electronics and desolder parts from those.
> managed to desolder and resolder a stick but the controller doesn't turn on anymore.
There's a chance to practice repair (which is a completely different topic from soldering)! Odds are very high the problem is that you've made an unwanted solder bridge or you have a cold solder joint.
brudgers 1 days ago [-]
Or both.
ylynbuilds 15 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
roland35 9 hours ago [-]
With the correct tools and materials soldering can be very easy or with the wrong tools very difficult!
There are probably some great videos on soldering on YouTube, luckily it's a mature field so not much has changed!
Some random tips...
Lead solder is easier to work with, but with lead free make sure you are using the right flux and temperature.
It helps to preheat things as much as you can. You want to have a hot pad and hot lead, then add solder to that. As opposed to putting a blob of solder on the iron and trying to apply it like glue.
Too much heat can damage the board or part of course.
Use the right tips. Fatter tips can help more evenly apply heat.
If there is a lot of copper like a ground plane, it can take longer to heat.
Watch for cold joints!
Just overall think about getting the parts you want solder on hot, touch solder to it, remove heat.
Don't eat it!
zachlatta 9 hours ago [-]
For teens ages 13-18, Hack Club is running a free grant program to help kids learn to solder! They can sign up and get a free kit from us at https://solder.hackclub.com/
half_fish 13 hours ago [-]
This gives me flashbacks to the last time I tried to replace the microswitches in my mouse...
After I finished, the right click felt like it was 'glued down' or 'stuck'...
I never heard the click sound again...
Yep, it was broken.
I've decided never to solder anything ever again...
But good luck to you!
mikewarot 1 days ago [-]
My late friend Ward was a strong supporter of Build-a-Blinkie[1] and their mission to teach people to solder by doing.
My friend Jim's been soldering since the 1950s. We solder a lot of things with leads, for this, his method is to get each item to be joined tinned, then use solder as a mechanical joint. Melt in the solder, remove the iron but hold them together, then once cool, tug on the joint to make sure it holds.
Get a soldering practice kit. If you're doing surface mount, get a SMD one. For next level practice, checkout azonenberg's rework challenge: https://github.com/azonenberg/reworkctf. He also has some YouTube video about it.
A small USB-C soldering iron supported by IronOS[1], e.g. Pinecil vor TS100
A solid stand with brass wool
A KU soldering tip (looks a bit like a knife) for good heat transfer, too small tips are not good
Thin (<=0.5mm) solder wire
No clean flux (not a pen)
Isopropyl alcohol
Solder fume extractor (DIY is OK, if you're building it right) is good for your health
Solder mat (blue silicone)
Multimeter (not too cheap, around 20 bucks)
Self closing tweezers
Normal tweezers
A wirecutter (blue 5 bucks from ali express)
Manual Desoldering pump (engineer ss03 or a clone for cheaper)
Most important is cleaning (alcohol, then flux) and heat transfer (tin your tip, your pads or your wire before putting things together to ensure good heat transfer). Cleanup nicely and tin your tip after soldering to prevent corrosion.
Optional but helpful for more professional tasks:
Hot air station
Auto Desoldering pump (ZD-8965)
Adjustable power supply (fnirsi usbc, 30 bucks)
Oscilloscope (mini beginner with display Cost around 30 bucks)
Capton tape
Solid Copper wire
1: https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS
What gets you good at soldering is just practice. Solder a lot. A fun and easy way to do this is to pick up those cheap ($5 or less) electronic solder-it-yourself kits and do a bunch of them. Include ones that contain small surface mount parts.
You can also practice desoldering on them, or pick up broken electronics and desolder parts from those.
> managed to desolder and resolder a stick but the controller doesn't turn on anymore.
There's a chance to practice repair (which is a completely different topic from soldering)! Odds are very high the problem is that you've made an unwanted solder bridge or you have a cold solder joint.
There are probably some great videos on soldering on YouTube, luckily it's a mature field so not much has changed!
Some random tips...
Lead solder is easier to work with, but with lead free make sure you are using the right flux and temperature.
It helps to preheat things as much as you can. You want to have a hot pad and hot lead, then add solder to that. As opposed to putting a blob of solder on the iron and trying to apply it like glue.
Too much heat can damage the board or part of course.
Use the right tips. Fatter tips can help more evenly apply heat.
If there is a lot of copper like a ground plane, it can take longer to heat.
Watch for cold joints!
Just overall think about getting the parts you want solder on hot, touch solder to it, remove heat.
Don't eat it!
After I finished, the right click felt like it was 'glued down' or 'stuck'...
I never heard the click sound again...
Yep, it was broken.
I've decided never to solder anything ever again...
But good luck to you!
My friend Jim's been soldering since the 1950s. We solder a lot of things with leads, for this, his method is to get each item to be joined tinned, then use solder as a mechanical joint. Melt in the solder, remove the iron but hold them together, then once cool, tug on the joint to make sure it holds.
[1] https://build-a-blinkie.org/events.php