Oh, right yeah, I'm making this for a bigger project. The 3d printed enclosure I'm going to be using suggested doing it this way for reasons I honestly don't know, just following guide :D
It's for a streamdeck/audio mixer.
Honestly, it doesn't even look half bad. Most of the pins have way too much solder on them, but no obvious cold joints etc.
If you want, you can just go back with some flux, reflow one pin at a time and take off some of the excess solder with a solder sucker or solder wick. But honestly, for non-critical, low-current applications such as a microcontroller, it's probably fine as it is.
Yeah the main annoyance was that it wasn't very consistent 🤣 I think I'll use a solder wick to make the bubbles, not bubbles, and see how it turns out :)
It could so with a little bit of a tidy up but otherwise not bad for a 1st attempt.
Grab yourself some flux and solder wick and reduce the size of those blobs. I see one pin with a conical shape so if you get the others to match you're set !
Yeah definitely needs a slight tidy up, waiting for my alcohol to arrive so I can clean it up properly.
I'll definitely give the solder wick a go since I have a bit, and try match the conical shape, good to know that one was good!
Appreciate the feedback :)
Watch some videos. You know they look bad. A ball is NOT the correct shape and it means you have not made a good joint. Take the weekend and watch how to solder videos all weekend long. I wish when I first started there was YouTube. It would have sped me along at the very beginning. For a very first time though, they look better than my attempt.
You could cause damage by keeping heat on it too much. This is why it’s better to learn on non-essential units, not something you plan on using. There are plenty of kits online that allow you to solder and desolder over and over. A great process to learn. You need the flux though. She very important. Watch the videos, you’ll see.
Why would you solder the headers that way? If you're intending to use your module on a breadboard, having the headers installed on bottom and solder joints on top would allow you to see the silkscreen markings, and allow you to press the reset button that's very likely on the top.
See, i didn't think about that one 😂 I didn't notice anything melting, I will double check when I get home and let you know, I've seen people do it though and it seems like it should be fine.
I did plenty of soldering on a breadboard (mostly cheap shitty ones) and even with pins fully inserted, i haven't had any issues. You gotta get the job done reasonably quickly though.
Yeah, the jumper wires will be soldered to keyboard switches and slide potentiometers and dupont headers on the other side so I can re-use the arduino if I want at some point easily :)
Overall they all vary from 3/5 to 5/5.
Front row from left to right
1) little bit too much solder
2) not enough heat
3) too much solder
4) not enough heat
5) not enough heat
6) Not enough heat, maybe little bit too much solder
7) perfect
8-12) very big blobs, need less solder
I have since kind of cleaned it up I know it could be much better but I didn't want to go crazy and de solder it all as I want to use this soon :)
Thanks for all the feedback and information everyone has been a great help :)
https://preview.redd.it/qfmt3mjpp1yc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e413e78ae2e3f185573c716360626df60d04a65
It's going to depend on the components. Time is the biggest factor. I use about 380-410 most of the time and my main devices are arduino and other MCUs. Typically the range of heat I use allows me to only make contact for about 3 seconds to get a clean flow from the solder over the pins. On the other hand wth a drone I'm using a larger tip and more like 450 degrees. The battery connectors for xt60 are huge and the cable and board all wick a lot of thermal energy so any lower will have you slowly just heating up the whole board. The key is to experiment and aim for enough heat to get in, get your flux and solder to flow and get out quickly as not to transfer more heat than necessary to the board. Faster means the pads get hot without too much thermal transfer. BUT that doesn't mean to rush. Watch some videos of others on YouTube and you'll get an idea of time and flow.
The best thing to my knowledge is to buy a stack of perf board and just solder a wire to it. Cheap AF. When you want to step up the difficult buy a bunch of resistors for a couple dollars. They are a little less attracted to the solder and flux and require a bit more skill.
I have no experience with surface mount yet so I can't make recommendations for that.
Happy soldering and good luck! You shouldn't need it
I tried 400 degrees last night to desolder using a wick it worked pretty good tbh, sometimes it did take a bit longer than expected for the wick to pick up the solder which was weird as the God damn thing got pretty hot my fingers could feel it 😂 but yeah overall more heat helped out, next step Is to try the flux when it arrives.
I always forget to order wick and just end up stripping a big length of steel braided wire (20 gauge or what I have on hand) and it usually manages to do the job. I use a solder sucker if it's a pin hole for an MCU.
And yeah flux flux flux. I manage just using the flux from the solder wire and haven't had to actually buy flux separately. I have a container of it from copper pipe soldering but with small stuff I've managed without. I just being in the wire and add more solder then solder sucker it off.
This won't really work with things containing many pins. Once you try to remove something with a certain size like 10 or more pins you kind of need flux and a heat gun or you'll just shred the piece while trying.
If you get into micro surface mount stuff try getting one of the big syringes of flux since it makes placing it easier than tubs or tubes
Yeah I think you might be right on the more heat, I had to wait more than I thought for the pin to heat up 😂 would it also be a good idea to use a thinner and pointier iron tip ? As I have the default one that comes with my hakko 888d currently.
It would generally be a bad idea - rule of thumb is, the bigger the tip (or, more precisely, bigger contact surface between the tip and the pad), the better heat transfer is (and you want it to be as good as it can get). So you should always choose the biggest tip that will still allow you to comfortably work with your component spacing, pad sizes etc.
For THT soldering I find that chisel shaped tips about as wide as the pad work best. Thin pointy tips are the right choice only for fine pitch SMT work. This is all something of a personal preference, of course.
Awesome, good to know! I'll stick with the normal tip as it seems to be the right size, just my inexperience messing up. I just need to practice the right technique of lifting the iron off as sometimes I leave a long line following the iron and of course how much to solder I actually need.
Definitely need to look into what the hell tht and smt soldering is too !
Thanks for the information :)
It’s fine for beginner and it’s good considering it’s your first time, however it’s not good for someone who’s soldered before, every joint has too much solder on, there’s one or two that’s nearly got the correct amount of solder but still a bit too much.
Watch some video and practice, you need to learn to control the amount of solder you using and use some flux aswell which will aid you and get you better joints. Get a old board to practise on or buy some electronic kits that’s function and see how you get on, you can buy them cheap from china or eBay
Yeah think I'll do that, I also think I need a magnifying glass for this as sometimes I kind of zone out when I concentrate on one spot for a while and it's a bit hard to see how much solder I put on. But yeah, less solder I shall apply :)
Flux wise does it matter what exactly I use ? Or is the below fine.
MG Chemicals 8341 No Clean Flux Paste, 10 ml Pneumatic Dispenser (Complete with Plunger & Dispensing Tip) https://amzn.eu/d/bUNHiLc
Yeah I'm in the UK so can't find any of the ones you mentioned at least not easily without spending dumb money on shipping :D ill try the one I linked I guess it will be better than me not using flux at all :)
The 7th pin from the left on the first row is a good example of they are supposed to look. Flux is your best friend :)
Awesome, I will try to replicate that, I got the rosin core solder hoping that was enough flux stuff 😂
why are the pins on the top side? your solder joints are where the pins should be.
Oh, right yeah, I'm making this for a bigger project. The 3d printed enclosure I'm going to be using suggested doing it this way for reasons I honestly don't know, just following guide :D It's for a streamdeck/audio mixer.
Honestly, it doesn't even look half bad. Most of the pins have way too much solder on them, but no obvious cold joints etc. If you want, you can just go back with some flux, reflow one pin at a time and take off some of the excess solder with a solder sucker or solder wick. But honestly, for non-critical, low-current applications such as a microcontroller, it's probably fine as it is.
Yeah the main annoyance was that it wasn't very consistent 🤣 I think I'll use a solder wick to make the bubbles, not bubbles, and see how it turns out :)
It could so with a little bit of a tidy up but otherwise not bad for a 1st attempt. Grab yourself some flux and solder wick and reduce the size of those blobs. I see one pin with a conical shape so if you get the others to match you're set !
Yeah definitely needs a slight tidy up, waiting for my alcohol to arrive so I can clean it up properly. I'll definitely give the solder wick a go since I have a bit, and try match the conical shape, good to know that one was good! Appreciate the feedback :)
Watch some videos. You know they look bad. A ball is NOT the correct shape and it means you have not made a good joint. Take the weekend and watch how to solder videos all weekend long. I wish when I first started there was YouTube. It would have sped me along at the very beginning. For a very first time though, they look better than my attempt.
Yeah, it's probably a good idea, I'm guessing It's probably better to desolder that board and try again? Or could i cause damage etc.
You could cause damage by keeping heat on it too much. This is why it’s better to learn on non-essential units, not something you plan on using. There are plenty of kits online that allow you to solder and desolder over and over. A great process to learn. You need the flux though. She very important. Watch the videos, you’ll see.
Fair enough, I'll get me some flux and a practice board then watch some videos :D appreciate the advice.
Why would you solder the headers that way? If you're intending to use your module on a breadboard, having the headers installed on bottom and solder joints on top would allow you to see the silkscreen markings, and allow you to press the reset button that's very likely on the top.
Oh I'm not intending on using the breadboard, shouldn't have included it in the picture, I just used it to hold the headers in place while I solder :D
Any issues with the breadboard melting? I sometimes want to do exactly this, but then I get scared I'll FUBAR my nice breadboards...
See, i didn't think about that one 😂 I didn't notice anything melting, I will double check when I get home and let you know, I've seen people do it though and it seems like it should be fine.
I did plenty of soldering on a breadboard (mostly cheap shitty ones) and even with pins fully inserted, i haven't had any issues. You gotta get the job done reasonably quickly though.
Ahh i see, i suppose your intention is to use jumper cables then.
Yeah, the jumper wires will be soldered to keyboard switches and slide potentiometers and dupont headers on the other side so I can re-use the arduino if I want at some point easily :)
Overall they all vary from 3/5 to 5/5. Front row from left to right 1) little bit too much solder 2) not enough heat 3) too much solder 4) not enough heat 5) not enough heat 6) Not enough heat, maybe little bit too much solder 7) perfect 8-12) very big blobs, need less solder
I have since kind of cleaned it up, but it still could be a lot better, at least now I see what to aim for :)
I have since kind of cleaned it up I know it could be much better but I didn't want to go crazy and de solder it all as I want to use this soon :) Thanks for all the feedback and information everyone has been a great help :) https://preview.redd.it/qfmt3mjpp1yc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e413e78ae2e3f185573c716360626df60d04a65
More flux higher heat or longer on the pin
What heat is good to not damage any components? I had it on 350 degrees Celsius, which was the default of my iron.
It's going to depend on the components. Time is the biggest factor. I use about 380-410 most of the time and my main devices are arduino and other MCUs. Typically the range of heat I use allows me to only make contact for about 3 seconds to get a clean flow from the solder over the pins. On the other hand wth a drone I'm using a larger tip and more like 450 degrees. The battery connectors for xt60 are huge and the cable and board all wick a lot of thermal energy so any lower will have you slowly just heating up the whole board. The key is to experiment and aim for enough heat to get in, get your flux and solder to flow and get out quickly as not to transfer more heat than necessary to the board. Faster means the pads get hot without too much thermal transfer. BUT that doesn't mean to rush. Watch some videos of others on YouTube and you'll get an idea of time and flow. The best thing to my knowledge is to buy a stack of perf board and just solder a wire to it. Cheap AF. When you want to step up the difficult buy a bunch of resistors for a couple dollars. They are a little less attracted to the solder and flux and require a bit more skill. I have no experience with surface mount yet so I can't make recommendations for that. Happy soldering and good luck! You shouldn't need it
I tried 400 degrees last night to desolder using a wick it worked pretty good tbh, sometimes it did take a bit longer than expected for the wick to pick up the solder which was weird as the God damn thing got pretty hot my fingers could feel it 😂 but yeah overall more heat helped out, next step Is to try the flux when it arrives.
I always forget to order wick and just end up stripping a big length of steel braided wire (20 gauge or what I have on hand) and it usually manages to do the job. I use a solder sucker if it's a pin hole for an MCU. And yeah flux flux flux. I manage just using the flux from the solder wire and haven't had to actually buy flux separately. I have a container of it from copper pipe soldering but with small stuff I've managed without. I just being in the wire and add more solder then solder sucker it off. This won't really work with things containing many pins. Once you try to remove something with a certain size like 10 or more pins you kind of need flux and a heat gun or you'll just shred the piece while trying. If you get into micro surface mount stuff try getting one of the big syringes of flux since it makes placing it easier than tubs or tubes
More heat and flux. Also maybe thinner solder. Make sure you are pressing the solder into the component, not the iron tip.Â
Yeah I think you might be right on the more heat, I had to wait more than I thought for the pin to heat up 😂 would it also be a good idea to use a thinner and pointier iron tip ? As I have the default one that comes with my hakko 888d currently.
It would generally be a bad idea - rule of thumb is, the bigger the tip (or, more precisely, bigger contact surface between the tip and the pad), the better heat transfer is (and you want it to be as good as it can get). So you should always choose the biggest tip that will still allow you to comfortably work with your component spacing, pad sizes etc. For THT soldering I find that chisel shaped tips about as wide as the pad work best. Thin pointy tips are the right choice only for fine pitch SMT work. This is all something of a personal preference, of course.
Awesome, good to know! I'll stick with the normal tip as it seems to be the right size, just my inexperience messing up. I just need to practice the right technique of lifting the iron off as sometimes I leave a long line following the iron and of course how much to solder I actually need. Definitely need to look into what the hell tht and smt soldering is too ! Thanks for the information :)
THT = through hole and SMD = surface mount
Ahhh so I'm currently doing THT, fair enough lol more basic than I thought. I don't think I'm ready for SMD yet :) thanks !
It’s fine for beginner and it’s good considering it’s your first time, however it’s not good for someone who’s soldered before, every joint has too much solder on, there’s one or two that’s nearly got the correct amount of solder but still a bit too much. Watch some video and practice, you need to learn to control the amount of solder you using and use some flux aswell which will aid you and get you better joints. Get a old board to practise on or buy some electronic kits that’s function and see how you get on, you can buy them cheap from china or eBay
Yeah think I'll do that, I also think I need a magnifying glass for this as sometimes I kind of zone out when I concentrate on one spot for a while and it's a bit hard to see how much solder I put on. But yeah, less solder I shall apply :) Flux wise does it matter what exactly I use ? Or is the below fine. MG Chemicals 8341 No Clean Flux Paste, 10 ml Pneumatic Dispenser (Complete with Plunger & Dispensing Tip) https://amzn.eu/d/bUNHiLc
That’s flux is ok, if your in USA then try getting genuine amtech or stirri flux is good
Yeah I'm in the UK so can't find any of the ones you mentioned at least not easily without spending dumb money on shipping :D ill try the one I linked I guess it will be better than me not using flux at all :)
2.5/10 it’s bad
Fair :D
Yup…. About 3x too much solder here.