Difference between revisions of "Soldering"

Revision as of 11:21, 15 January 2010

(Text description explaining what is soldering)

Soldering basics

Use right heat for soldering.

Before you solder the components, you should clean your board or use flux (or both, which is really good).

We are soldering to make the components combined to the circuit board.

We want to have everything shiny.

For more information on good soldering and bad soldering go to Good Vs. Bad Soldering.

We have different types of methods.

• Method 1 - Pin by pin soldering
• Method 2 - Flood and suck soldering
• Method 3 - Solder paste
• Method 4 - make some solder blobs on the board and then heat them up and stick the component in the solder.

Also see desoldering for information on how to un-solder.

Steps

• use double-stick tape or a vice to lightly hold down the board

• Heat the iron to around 640-740 Fahrenheit (340-400 Celsius). It depends of what kind of solder you are using but the kind we use at the FabLab works best around this temperature.

• clean the board with a small towel with spritt ,notice that I said towel, that is because if you use tissue paper your circuit board is always going to want to rip the tissue and leave tissue particles left on your board, the reason for this is if there is some fat or water particles on the board the solder will not combine as well or not all.

• start shining the soldering iron with heating it up and coating it with solder.

• There are many methods to solder as I already mentioned and it's you that is going to find out what fits you the best.

Keep in mind

• You want to use as little tin as possible.
• You want to make it flow under the pins on the components, not over them.
• You want to make it shiny, which means little amount of solder and do not heat it too much because if you do you are going to make the solder gray and messy. The main reason for that is because if its gray and messy it is not going to conduct the electricity well.
• You don't want air bubbles in your solder and the thing that is going to prevent air coming in it while your soldering is the "flux" which is inside the tin we are using in the lab. Notice that the flux is not going to work as well if its heated to much and might cause it to have air bubbles.
• If you heat too much your components may melt, a common problem is the prossessor, because it is so fragile. You may overheat and melt the inside of the processor and it will not show on the outside.

Good tricks

• Hold the components down with tweezers either rounded or flat.

• A good one is to have the rounded tweezers facing the other way it's supposed to, that is going to give you allot of grip on the components.
• You can also hold soldering wire in your right hand fingers and your iron in the right hand as well and then the rounded or flat tweezers in your left hand. (Not for everyone but once you master it, its going to be easier for you to solder.)
• If you are soldering a very small component its good to put a very small amount of soldering wire on the circuit base and then put the component on the solder and heat up, so now you have the first leg of the component bounded and it should now be really easy for you to solder the other legs.