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This looks like a recipe for cold solder joints and solder bridges and doesn't seem like it saves time. What you really want to do when you have dozens of jump
by duped 4y ago
This looks like a recipe for cold solder joints and solder bridges and doesn't seem like it saves time.
What you really want to do when you have dozens of jumper wires is to do an array-of-struct to struct-of-array transform on the steps. Instead of cutting, stripping, tinning, and soldering one wire at a time, cut all your wires, then strip them all, then tin them all, then solder them one by one.
Here's a pro tip: when you tin the wires, lay the iron flat on your workbench with tip out into air and tin by laying the end of the wire on top and then adding the solder.
Another pro tip: use a pair of needle nose pliers to bend the tinned leads by a little over 90 degrees to make a little hook. When you solder to the board you can apply a little tension and let the solder flow into the hole. Makes very string solder joints.
- austinjp 4y ago> do an array-of-struct to struct-of-array transform on the steps I call this "pin-making" after Adam Smith's famous/apocryphal account of the division of labour in a pin factory [0] and do it in pretty much every area of my life :) [0] https://www.econlib.org/library/topics/highschool/divisionoflaborspecialization.html https://www.econlib.org/library/topics/highschool/divisionof...
- Whitespace 4y agoIf you have that many stripped wires to tin, you can use a tub of flux and a solder pot. Dip the wires into the flux, then quickly dip it into the solder pot. Perfectly tinned end with no plastic melting. Really hard to mess up vs a soldering iron, a wire, and solder wire. You can even dip multiple wires into the flux and solder bath at the same time, as well as use the flux tub again before you solder the tinned wire to the contact.
- bsder 4y agoYeah, every time I see a soldering "tutorial" that doesn't use separate flux--I facepalm. Flux is probably more important than the solder for good joints. A syringe of paste flux makes life ridiculously easier.
- gw99 4y agoI did several years in production engineering. We never used flux. Not once. It’s a crutch for people who don’t know how to solder. What we did was use solder that wasn’t shitty. Big fan of felder 62/36/2 but it ain’t cheap. We also cleaned stuff properly before soldering it. The reason people tend to flux things to death is that they didn’t clean the oxide layer off before soldering. Or used shitty solder.
- linker3000 4y ago"It’s a crutch for people who don’t know how to solder." This needs shouting from the rooftops. So many people get sucked into the groupthink on this; yes it helps with less-than-perfect beginner's soldering skills, but it should not be normalized. Flooding every joint with extra flux is unnecessary and a waste of money. /Pet peeve (well, one of them!)
- randombits0 4y agoWe all don’t get to work on nice, new, shiny PCBs. Sometimes other things get in the way. I have three different kinds of flux, two types of solder, copper wick, three solder suckers, two guns, and a scratch pen. I’m not out to practice the art, I just want to be effective.
- bsder 4y agoSorry, I'll fight you very strongly on this. Most soldering that relies on effects from solder surface tension simply will not work without quite a bit more flux than you can get from the core of a solder wire. Drag soldering, for example, won't work on quad flat pack chips without quite a bit of flux. And while my techs will absolutely back you up that my soldering skill sucks, to a person they ALL use solder flux for their soldering. Not even a single exception. And they're all trained to NASA aerospace standards. Now, maybe you can be more skilled than they are and get away without using solder; however, back down here in reality, the rest of us punters will just add flux when soldering stuff, thanks.
- bitdivision 4y ago
- duped 4y agoTotally true, but you don't always have a solder tub or tub of flux laying around. The other advantage of this approach is it's easier to avoid tinning under the insulation
- denkmoon 4y agoWhat is the impact of tinning under the insulation?
- userbinator 4y agoMakes stranded wire turn solid and likely to break at that point.
- mdturnerphys 4y agoAnd if you have a lot of wires to strip, get a compound automatic wire stripper or a laser wire stripper.
- lagrange77 4y agoThere are laser wire strippers? Shut up and take my money.
- mdturnerphys 4y agoHere's the one I've used: https://www.laserwiresolutions.com/product/mercury-4/ https://www.laserwiresolutions.com/product/mercury-4/
- b112 4y agoThis... how, why, what? It has to be fake. Right? We're supposed to be using lasers to ... well, shoot at space ships, not cut plastic wire wrapping!!
- techdragon 4y agoWhen all you have is a laser, every problem looks like something to be ablated.
- mechanical_bear 4y agoThat has to be expensive.
- rkagerer 4y agoAwesome. How do they know when to "stop"? EDIT - found the answer: > Because the metallic conductor is essentially a mirror at the wavelength of the laser, the process is effectively “self terminating”, that is the laser vaporises all of the insulating material down to the conductor and then stops, so no process control is required to prevent damage to the conductor.
- an_aparallel 4y agosolder pots!! Thank you for your comment :) This is awesome. i dont know why i've never seen these before.
- teaearlgraycold 4y agoOh no. We’ve invented the assembly line again.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoAnother pro tip, get a better soldering iron than the one in the video. Soldering stations aren't cheap (Hakko is my somewhat-budget-friendly favorite) but that (plus good solder) will make you realize you've been able to solder all along: it's just that you were using crappy tools.
- salmo 4y agoA few years back I bought a Chinese hot air rework station for <$200. Maybe like “Ayoye” or something with a lot of vowels. It has a soldering iron with a vacuum pump as well. I never really use the hot air part but am in love with the iron. I can dial in the temp and avoid breathing fumes directly. It is so much nicer to use than my old Weller with a temp dial.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoYeah, I have been disappointed with Weller. Still, anything's probably better than the Radio Shack pencil iron I started out with (and thought I was bad at soldering).
- spookthesunset 4y agoLiterally, right? No wonder so many people think they suck at soldering! I know I did! Turns out it’s not me, it’s the tools! Once I got a real iron, a real solder, and a real part holder my skills are infinitely better. I enjoy soldering now!
- salmo 4y agoSame. I still break out my Radio Shack desoldering iron from time to time, but only for things that can take the abuse.
- Ccecil 4y agoThe Aoyue hotair station I have has a soldering iron which is a clone of a hakko 936. Uses the same tips even. I almost exclusively use my Metcals now...the Aoyue has a tip for inserting heat set brass inserts to 3d prints nowadays, I don't use it to solder much. Sidenote: My hotair station is almost 8 years old...still works fine. So for the money it was worth it for sure.