Soldering Tips Or What To Do While You Wait For Your Boards

[pigyboy]

I saw a post by Jamiroking who is starting his first project. Great to have you on board!  I thought maybe a soldering tutorial would help some people. This is by no way a complete primer just some quick ramblings. 
So, here's what to do while you wait for your boards:

Learn to solder the best you can.
Search the net for some tutorials. Youtube may have some good ones.
Basic rules I follow are:
1.Keep the tip of the iron cleaned and tinned with solder. Use a small dab of solder on the iron to form a        "bridge" that transfers the heat to the component and board then sparingly feed enough solder to form the joint.
2. Remember that boards and components like transistors are easily destroyed by heat from the iron.  
3. I use one of those big magnifying glasses with a light in it that mounts on the edge of the desk. I think it is 15x and it makes things WAY easier.  It also makes your work look better and you have less chance of cold solder joints.
4.Get good thin, solid, silver solder that has NO ROSIN core. I never use any rosin core(I think that is what it is called, rosin core or resin core) and buy some liquid flux. It comes in little pen sized bottles so you can squirt a little on the place you need it.
5.I tack the side of one lead of the component I am soldering to the board with a small solder bridge. This allows you to cut the leads to the right length before you solder it permanently and it holds the components to the board so they don't fall out when you turn it over. . I use the lead of a .5 watt resistor as my guide to how tall I cut my component leads. I always cut my leads before I do my permanent solder joint to the board.
6. After I mount a few components this way I pop it in my little Pana-Vise under the magnifying glass. I feed solder over the top of where I cut the components til it forms a concave(looks like the sides suck in) volcano around the component lead. If the volcano bulges you are using too much solder.  The cores of most component wires are copper and will corrode and oxidize over time. When you cover your cuts with the solder it prevents this.
7. You want to try to 'tin' or coat the traces of your pcb's if they have exposed copper traces between the solder joints.  Don't do this if you feel unsteady with the soldering iron or think you may short out two traces by globbing too much solder on them. The solder keeps the copper from oxidizing, turning green and corroding. I am not sure how MadBean does all his boards. Meaning if they come pre-tinned or not. I think I read he is not pre-tinning them anymore. I don't blame him as if you don't have a wave soldering machine to do it it is very time consuming by hand.
8. Clean the traces of your board before you start.  I use either paint remover and a towel, a piece of steel wool or the easiest is a pencil eraser. Just scrub them till they are shiny and then try to keep your fingers off!
9. I do jumpers, resistors, diodes and any components that ride low to the board first. Then small caps, big caps on up in size of the rest of the components.
10.Clean and inspect your work. Use rubbing alcohol and a toothbrush to scrub the traces clean and shiny. Use Q-tips to shine up the solder joints. Clean, clean clean....

Everybody else feel free to add any ideas to this

[Jamiroking]

Thanks for the soldering tips. I got my boards and (most of) the components and it makes everything make a lot more sense having something in front of me. A lot of "Oh! THAT'S what they talking about!" moments. Anyways, I had a few questions about your tips.

1) Everywhere else I've read that I should be using rosin-core solder. I know acid-core solder would obviously eat through the traces but I was wondering why you recommend to avoid the rosin core stuff.

2) Just how temperamental are transistors? Enough to require always require sockets or could someone being careful to heat sparingly solder them directly to the board.

3) There seems to be a lot of debate about the tinning of the traces. How much of it is a necessity to ensuring your board still functions in a year and how much of it is just builder's OCD (which I know is highly contagious).

Other than that, Thanks a lot for the help. I soldered my first resistor to my first pcb and then realized I was using the wrong pcb. So far that's been the only mistake so far! fingers crossed.

[Haberdasher]

3) There seems to be a lot of debate about the tinning of the traces. How much of it is a necessity to ensuring your board still functions in a year and how much of it is just builder's OCD (which I know is highly contagious).

Id be interested to read some opinions on this subject myself.

[irmcdermott]

3) There seems to be a lot of debate about the tinning of the traces. How much of it is a necessity to ensuring your board still functions in a year and how much of it is just builder's OCD (which I know is highly contagious).

Id be interested to read some opinions on this subject myself.

me too

[Jamiroking]

This is unrelated to the question I asked but I'd also like to add a soldering tip for any newbies that I just discovered.

If you're like me, you forgot to order the single row sockets for transistors or maybe Smallbear's were just a little too pricey for you. I found these 6 pin IC sockets at my local electronics storefor $.19 each. Take your wire cutters and clip it right down the middle. Snip snip and you have a perfect 3 pin transistor socket that is even easier to solder than the single ones since the other legs hold it in place.

[stecykmi]

2) Just how temperamental are transistors? Enough to require always require sockets or could someone being careful to heat sparingly solder them directly to the board.

Transistors are more hardy than IC's. Most of them can stand up to high heat for a little while.

I tend to socket my transistors, but it's more so I can experiment with different transistors later if I want to. I always socket my IC's.

This is unrelated to the question I asked but I'd also like to add a soldering tip for any newbies that I just discovered.

If you're like me, you forgot to order the single row sockets for transistors or maybe Smallbear's were just a little too pricey for you. I found these 6 pin IC sockets at my local electronics storefor $.19 each. Take your wire cutters and clip it right down the middle. Snip snip and you have a perfect 3 pin transistor socket that is even easier to solder than the single ones since the other legs hold it in place.

I often do the same thing, but I buy large IC sockets and clip them down, usually the +40-pin sockets for PIC-chips but I get the biggest I can find. However, $.19 is a really good deal and I think is actually cheaper than buying the large 40-pin sockets.

Just remember, you need to buy the machined pin type sockets, not the leaf type. Unfortunately, the leaf-type tend to be much cheaper.

[Jamiroking]

This seems to be the best place to just put tips for newbies so:

Do not "test" an LED by sticking it to a 9v.

When you do it once you will lose an LED
After two, you will feel like an idiot....*grumble*

[pigyboy]

This seems to be the best place to just put tips for newbies so:

Do not "test" an LED by sticking it to a 9v.

When you do it once you will lose an LED
After two, you will feel like an idiot....*grumble*

Yeah, we have all done that one. Use the diode check setting on your DMM. There is enough juice in the meter to light a light emitting DIODE and it won't burn it up!

[Jamiroking]

Yup....probably should get one of those.....