10 ms·

> just be careful not to overspend on your first iron. I first learned how to solder on an ultra-cheap hardware-store unit, and you should, too I beg to differ

• whstl 4y ago
  I agree. I don't personally think it's necessary to go up to €150, but a low-quality entry-level soldering iron will cause a lot of problems, and you'll be blaming yourself for the lack of progress. I learned on a crappy one and always thought I sucked. On university I used one that was alright and it was night and day. It is important that the soldering iron provides the correct amount of heat, and with entry-level irons it's always a gamble, in my experience. On the other hand, spending the €150 from the start will save you a lot of time testing irons.
  • jjoonathan 4y ago
    Those $130-$150 Aixun branded JBC clones on aliexpress make a compelling argument for the price point IMO.
    • rasz 4y ago
      You can start with a little DIY $40 JBC handle + C245 tip + panel controller, add $20 24V/8AA supply and you are good to go.
• CarVac 4y ago
  I 100% agree. They say "a good craftsman doesn't blame his tools" but when you start out you need good tools. A non-temperature-controlled soldering iron is a huge impediment to learning because the temperature varies with usage and so its behavior is hard to predict for a new solderer. Even between temperature-controlled ones there can be a large difference in ability to conduct heat into a part: my Pinecil takes far longer than my Weller (I recommend the WE1010) to heat a joint to the point where solder will melt. (the Pinecil is still nice to have as a mobile soldering setup) More heating duration results in more part damage: overheated ICs and traces popping off the PCB.
  • TylerE 4y ago
    Don't blame tools, but it's okay to blame tool shaped objects.
    • snapetom 4y ago
      Kinda of like the old Chris Berman commercial, "There's no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid people asking questions."
  • bluefirebrand 4y ago
    > They say "a good craftsman doesn't blame his tools" but when you start out you need good tools. Yeah, it's important to realize that saying applied to good craftsmen, not novice craftsmen.
    • CarVac 4y ago
      And intentionally choosing not to blame your tools doesn't transform you into a good craftsman, either.
      • convolvatron 4y ago
        I'm a pretty good craftsman, and if the angle grinder I'm working needs to be held 'just so' to keep it running, weighs twice what my other ones do, and reeks of ozone - I have absolutely no problem saying 'screw this thing' and throwing in the trash. never understood that aphorism
        • bluefirebrand 4y ago
          I think people take it to mean "A good craftsman should be able to make excellent work even with poor tools" But maybe it means "a good craftsman should have the experience to know not to work with poor tools, and if they do work with poor tools and the outcome is bad, it's their own fault for not finding better tools, not the tools fault for being poor" As in, don't blame your tools, you're the one who chose them. And you're always free to choose better tools.
• galleywest200 4y ago
  In this case of soldering I agree, as the tool really does make it easier. Generally for most hobbies I tell people to buy the "cheapest" they can find and if they use it until it breaks then buy the most expensive one you can afford.
  • onceiwasthere 4y ago
    It's kind of interesting how handling this well varies from hobby to hobby and is tricky to balance from person to person. There's the argument that you don't want to spend too much until you get a feel for how interested you are but there's also the effect of quality of tools on enjoyment/annoyance/learning curve that has a big effect on interest a lot of the time. I guess, you're always just gonna wanna google around to get a better idea, but sometimes there's not great googleable info.
  • whstl 4y ago
    I think this might work for some subset of hobbies (can't think of any), but anything that requires some learning or training to improve, crappy tools will hold your progress back and might cause you to drop out. From ping pong balls to guitars...
    • johnwalkr 4y ago
      For working on cars, the standard advice is to buy a basic wrench and socket set from harbour freight, any specialty (non electrical) tools from there as you need them, and then upgrade the few things that end up not being adequate.
  • replygirl 4y ago
    this is fantastic advice for creative outlets, cottage crafts, and low-impact outdoor activities. but it's dangerous in hobbies like soldering or sports, where tools can seriously impact the safety of the operator, or render the operator's work dysfunctional
• Steltek 4y ago
  There are pretty good cheap soldering irons these days too. My $35 Pinecil is pretty fun to use.
  • squarefoot 4y ago
    Seconded. I have two Weller TCPs and a while ago decided to buy the Pinecil just as a way to support the folks at Pine64. Well, it turned out it's a really good iron, and I use it along the Wellers without noticing any difference.
  • usrusr 4y ago
    Similar story: went from a series of bad cheap irons to a good cheap iron and it was like night and day. I still struggle occasionally, but that's when connecting enameled copper to 1.27 mm crenellated edge connectors, and in my book that's a task where "struggling" isn't actually that bad.
  • diablerouge 4y ago
    I've had a $100 Weller and a $25 Yihua soldering station and found them pretty comparable to each-other. What's most important is that you get an electronics soldering _station_ of some type and not a basic plumbing/electricians iron that is just a pen on a cord. Those are extremely frustrating for working on a PCB.
    • hakfoo 4y ago
      Yeah. I went from various cheap irons to an equally cheap Yihua station, and it's such a quality of life improvement. You don't have to try to fight a too-short cord that's about to pop out of the socket, and the station is a good place to stick a durable rest for the iron that's much heavier than the stupid little stands they sell with pencil irons.
  • stavros 4y ago
    Agreed, the Pinecil is amazing. Get it as your first (and probably only) soldering iron.
• leviathant 4y ago
  Adding to the chorus - I spent $100 on a Hakko in my 30s and upon using it, immediately felt a sizable pang of regret at how much time I'd wasted with my $20 iron over the years. It felt like I must have been doing something wrong, but as soon as I had a decent iron, it's like all the videos I'd watched suddenly made sense.
  • jjoonathan 4y ago
    Yep, ditto, except my realization came from a JBC encounter at work. I had to learn this meta lesson several times the hard way, because media portrayals lie and I had nobody to tell me different. Learn Good Tools -> Learn Bad Tools is easy Learn Bad Tools -> Learn Good Tools is hard. Learning has nonlinear difficulty in the number of variables and bad tools introduce distraction variables. Unless you literally can't afford the good tools, "survey professionals and then buy once cry once" is almost always the right approach.
    • sidfthec 4y ago
      As always, it depends. If I bought the best (or even pretty good) model tool for every hobby I start, I'd be broke. Not every tool needs to be the best.
  • varispeed 4y ago
    Same. When I started to take my hobby seriously I was basically replacing a "cheap" soldering iron every couple of months and tips would have lasted me a couple of week. When I done the maths, it has become quite expensive. So that's when I decided to buy a Hakko FX-951 and I couldn't have been happier. It makes a huge difference between the cheap ones. It's been working well for over 3 years now, no issues. Just make sure to use original tips. I had some knock offs and some have burned off the same day I started using them. Original tips last ages. Don't get me wrong - the cheap ones will work and are great if you need to solder something from time to time. But if you plan to do some serious amount of soldering, don't bother with cheap tools.
  • noworld 4y ago
    I'd say there's a world of difference between a $20 cheap iron and a $50 adjustable temperature station, but once I got to the $50 level I find I can do everything I need to do (including SMD).
• fullstop 4y ago
  Similar story, I went from a $20 no-name iron to a Hakko FX unit and it's night and day.
  • JKCalhoun 4y ago
    Same, but I'll name drop: it was from a shitty Radio Shack pencil iron to the HAKKO.
• ticklemyelmo 4y ago
  They did a poor job of qualifying "cheap". They link to a $50 Harbor Freight unit, which is a proper temperature controlled soldering station. It should certainly be made clear that a $20 wand with no temp control is right out.
• retrac 4y ago
  Agreed. A cheap 40 watt soldering iron is really meant for touching up plumbing. And a cheap 10 watt one will cool down too quickly. Electronics are heat sensitive. A reliable solder joint needs to heat quickly, flux stripping off any oxidized layers, everything melted, before the heat goes up the lead and fries the component. This means you want an iron that is temperature controlled, and heavy enough it has some thermal mass so it doesn't cool quickly. I've worked with cheap irons after getting used to my $60 temperature controlled iron, and yes you can use them, but it requires more experience, skill and care to do well, which in practice is equivalent to saying less reliable results.
• gaze 4y ago
  What people don’t understand is that Hakko and Weller ARE the low end units. The good units are made by JBC, Pace, and Metcal.
  • johnwalkr 4y ago
    You could say they are medium range units (especially since the models usually recommended are not the very lowest end models of those brands), but the gap between a cheapo from the hardware store and a Hakko is like 10x bigger than the gap from Hakko to the highest end model for a professional PCB assembler. Incidentally I work in aerospace and I rarely see anything in lab besides Hakko 800 series, 900 series, or 200 series (rework station).
  • riceart 4y ago
    Hakko is not exclusively low end. They’re used in plenty of manufacturing plants. They’re not selling their $30k rework systems to hobbyists.
  • dale_glass 4y ago
    Hakko is also resting on their laurels. Hakko is what everyone recommends but I have no idea why. It's awful stuff with a design from the 80s. The UI is awful and inscrutable without the manual, the tech is long obsolete. Get a TS80 or something else that's actually modern -- it has excellent temperature control with a tightly integrated thermocouple like one of the expensive Hakkos (FX951), but costs less and actually displays stuff in readable English. It also has nice features like using an accelerometer to sense its own orientation and turn itself off if you leave it lying around, instead of burning a hole through your desk.
    • Kirby64 4y ago
      Every company besides the chinese companies like Pine, Miniware have the same stratification of soldering equipment. Hakko 888 is cheap, and has old style carts. Weller has a similar offering. For the $300-range you get the 'proper' thermocouple-integrated tips like the FX951, and Weller likewise has a similar offering. JBC is a premium brand so they don't have low-end stuff, but their pricing isn't too far out of that range ($500ish?). I agree the Hakko 888 is an outdated recommendation, but it's not really like their company strategy is just outdated. They're business-first, which desires having a full soldering station... not a portable thing like the Miniware/Pine stuff.
• johnwalkr 4y ago
  I 100% agree, the iron linked in the article is actually OK, but overpriced for what it is. The problem is that if you take the advice as written and go to Home Depot, you will end up with a frustrating piece of garbage and give up the hobby before long. But fortunately today there are great, cheap tools. The $35 pinecil and T12 clones (as little as $25 if you can wait on shipping) are as good as $150 units from 10 years ago. I have a Hakko 888 and I haven't used it in years because a pinecil in my desk drawer is so much more convenient. It has enough juice for almost anything you'd find linked on hackernews or hackaday, and when I want to use it I just move a usb-c charging cable from my laptop to it for a while.
  • commoner 4y ago
    I'm very happy with the Pinecil. The $25 price is very reasonable for a reliable soldering iron that is open hardware[1] and runs on upgradable free and open source firmware.[2] [1] Schematics: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinecil:_How_to_Repair#Schematics_and_Board_Data https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinecil:_How_to_Repair#Schemati... [2] IronOS: https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS
• MrBuxley 4y ago
  I wish I'd known this years ago. When I was about 16, I tried my hand at soldering. I had little idea of what I was doing but really tried for several weeks. Nothing worked. I thought all this time it was just me. I mean, it could just be me, but I haven't picked up a soldering iron for many years because of that experience. I might invest good iron and give it a shot again.
  • JKCalhoun 4y ago
    You ought to. A HAKKO (and decent, thin solder) made all the difference in the world when I started back into the hobby.
• myself248 4y ago
  Agreed. Now that the Pinecil exists, the logic of using anything cheaper/worse is absolutely daft. It's $25, there's no excuse for the open-loop garbage anymore.
• WalterBright 4y ago
  Same here. I failed at soldering with my cheap iron, and there was nobody to show me what was going wrong. When I got a job assembling circuit boards, they provided a Weller, and suddenly I was able to make perfect joints every time.
• agumonkey 4y ago
  Yes, "too cheap" is bad for newbies. You need something at least average or you'll struggle progressing. Same thing happened when I learned bass. I was unable to achieve anything after 2 years on a shovel. I then tried a squier special edition.. suddenly everything was getting out. Still a newb but the tool gave me direction on where to work to improve with a lot less effort. I was shocked.
  • K7PJP 4y ago
    > Same thing happened when I learned bass. I didn't enjoy playing until I swapped out the strings on my Ibanez with some Rotosounds. The tonal change was significant.
    • agumonkey 4y ago
      Heh, my "shovel" was an ibanez sr400 (not the cheapest, maybe 2nd low cost entry) but I have no idea what strings were on. Ibanez thin neck felt like a win at first but it wasn't enough it seems.
  • joshspankit 4y ago
    I’ve been steering parents on this for years: for beginners (especially kids) the difference between a lifetime passion and another hobby on the pile is usually down to the quality of the instrument + the ability to have early wins (and it’s almost impossible to have early wins on a poorly-made instrument)
    • agumonkey 4y ago
      Quite true. Once again, balance is key.
• deleted 4y ago
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• microtherion 4y ago
  I agree, but it makes sense to qualify what features of "good" tools are important for beginners. Temperature control is very important, and you should probably have one even in your first soldering iron. Something like hot air rework, on the other hand, is an advanced feature that you can defer until later. Another not overly expensive tool I wish I'd known about as a beginner is a heated solder vacuum pump, dispensing with the need to juggle soldering iron and a non-heated vacuum.
  • camtarn 4y ago
    > heated solder vacuum pump Huh, I had no idea those were even a thing! Thanks for the recommendation.
    • amelius 4y ago
      You should also look into low melting point soldering alloys, for desoldering work.
• toss1 4y ago
  Hard Agree. Plus, generalize this to all tasks and sports. Bad equipment will give you bad habits right from the start. This does not mean that you should buy the top equipment to begin at anything, but it does mean that you should find out from some knowledgeable people what is the minimum you need so you won't be unnecessarily fighting the equipment and learning bad habits (basically hacky workarounds to the equipment's flaws) that you'll later struggle to unlearn. For some sports or tasks, it's just solid mid-grade equipment, sometimes it's the lower end of the top-grade stuff. Also, even if funds do not limit you, don't start out with the absolute top-level gear. Better to get a solid start, then grow until your skills let you see which aspects of your mid-grade gear start limiting you, then use that info to buy the top level gear that is actually best suited for you.
  • nibbleshifter 4y ago
    There's an exception, IMO, for safety critical items in sports. I've seen so many people show up at climbing walls with cheap carabiners from amazon/etc that aren't rated for climbing, but when you view the listing all the images show climbing.
    • toss1 4y ago
      OMG YES! I wasn't thinking of that aspect. Absolutely, for safety gear, get only top notch equipment!!! Safety gear turns many incidents from something like notifying your family or waking up wondering "why can't I remember or see anything" to something like "damn, that's a huge dent in that helmet" or "so much for those goggles". I've heard participating in a number of sports: "If you only have a $10 head, then sure, get a $10 helmet ..." . . . Indeed, I would NEVER buy any safety-related gear from Amazon or AliBaba. I know too much about Chinese manufacturing, focused entirely on profit, and quality is literally a foreign concept to them. , and that doesn't even start to mention the scams, where they not only illustrate climbing, but falsely claim ratings. I work in carbon fiber design & fabrication, and will never even buy a bicycle made in China, even from a top US company. Just don't do it. Saving a few dozen or hundred dollars or euro is not worth the extra risk.
• nibbleshifter 4y ago
  Its the rule supposedly came up with by Adam Savage - buy cheap tools, use em til you break em, then replace the ones you break with expensive, good tools. The idea of that rule is so new makers can work out what tools they actually are using, so they don't waste a shitload of money. In practice? Some tools are just worth spending the money on upfront, inferior tools will often lead to frustration and failure early on. The problem is people think Adams rule just applies everywhere, because he is famous etc. I actually have a draft blog post on this exact topic that I'm not finished, with examples from my own experiences.
  • gav 4y ago
    I also think he's talking about tools where inferior means build quality vs. performance. You can go buy a bunch of cheap wrenches from Harbor Freight and they'll be just fine compared to Snap-On. > Quality is an issue, true. But for beginning makers there is often no cheaper alternative. Back in the day I’d “test buy” a tool from HFT and then if it was useful I’d invest in a more substantial version. Also browsing their aisles is a singular pleasure. https://twitter.com/donttrythis/status/941149124497305600 https://twitter.com/donttrythis/status/941149124497305600
    • Baeocystin 4y ago
      Also worth noting that often the best approach to take is that the tool itself is a consumable. $19 Harbor Freight grinders won't last as long as $150+ ones, but the ~7 you can buy for the same price will outlast even the most expensive one several times over!
      • dandelany 4y ago
        Assuming you place no value on your own time & frustration…
        • Baeocystin 4y ago
          FWIW, I learned this approach while working in the trades as a welder. You have consumables in stock and ready to go, and that includes extra grinders. Some tools you do take the time and effort to really take care of, of course, but a lot more than you might think are in the cattle not pet category of things.
• dusted 4y ago
  I have to agree, when I was 7 or 8 I started out with a "pen" and it sucked, I got a WE-WHS40 for my 10 year birthday, now I'm 37, and.. I'm still using that one.. The transformer inside broke lose after I dropped it.. but.. for everything small-ish, it's whate I still use to this day.. I have a butane powered cheap chinese iron (that will eat away at the tip at each use, and leak itself empty within a week from filling it) for heavier connections.. Those two together cover everything I do. One thing though.. I disagree with wet sponge, they're annoying and flimsy.. A brass sponge is so much nicer in my opinion.
• tengbretson 4y ago
  Definitely skip the hardware store soldering irons, but that doesn't mean you have to spend a ton. I got a knockoff Hakko 936 for like $20 and I have no complaints.
  • mwbajor 4y ago
    As much as I love metcals, we had a $100 Aoyue hot-air station in graduate school that probably soldered on 500+ custom ASICs over its lifespan. The thing with prototyping chips (as with anything else) is you don't want to insert a variable (bad solder joints) into something that might have other unknown variables (the chip). The $100 hot air station broke somewhere around chip #400 and we just kept cobbling it back together. I think its still working to this day.
• petsfed 4y ago
  I love the $1400+ solder station I use at work. If I could have one at home, I totally would. Solder tweezers and a heated solder vacuum are very useful. But I am pretty handy with the $130 Hakko I got from adafruit back when I got one for home use. I soldered for a long time with a cheapy $40 Weller I got off of amazon, although I won't go back to it any time soon. Getting a brass sponge and tip tinner really made that thing viable as a daily driver though. I think that's the difference he was trying to illustrate: if you can't do a basic through-hole board with a 40W pen-style iron from the hardware store, it ain't the tool.
  • sulam 4y ago
    What brand is your station at work?
    • petsfed 4y ago
      It's a Weller. I used to work at a place that had the Weller WXR3003N. $3360 of pure joy. The one I work with now is a Weller WX2021N, which Newark has for $1400. The tool quality on either is phenomenal, but definitely not necessary for learning on. Some control over temperature, peak temperature hot enough to melt lead-free solder are really all you need to learn with. I don't want to be a neo-luddite, but you end up learning a lot of tricks with a sub-par iron that I rarely have to use with the high-end tool, but I'm glad I know. For instance, its rare with the high-end tools that I have to glob a bunch of solder onto a joint during rework, but I had to do that all the time with the cheap tool. But now, if I just can't get a joint hot enough to melt, I know that that is an option.
• mwbajor 4y ago
  Cheap isn't bad in this case because of the iron: it gets hot and melts solder. Many people including myself learned on $10 radio shack irons. What people like adam savage are overlooking in their explanation is details, in this case, cheap irons dont have the selection of tips you need. To most people "cheap soldering iron" is what you get at home depot now which has a tip the width of a pencil, hardly suitable for component soldering. Also, here is another tip, adjustable temperature is not needed, its a useless feature. You want to get heat into a component and off. You'll fry a component more quickly if you heat it up a million times at a lower temperature setting trying to solder that pulldown resistor to the huge ground plane. In the end, your temperature setting will always be at maximum and you'll just need to hit it quick with the iron: on and off. Along those lines, a the perfect iron has no temperature setting but can sink alot of heat into a component. Metcals are 40W or 80W in power and are used extensively to solder 0402 and below. The tips come in different heat settings but are really meant for leaded vs. non-leaded solder which flow at different temps. Overkill? no, again, get the heat in, flow the solder and off as quick as possible even when you are soldering to a plane.
• i-use-nixos-btw 4y ago
  Completely agree. The lesson I learned was to not buy generic brand stuff from Amazon. The one I have is dreadful. The temperature dial is meaningless, the grip gets hot with the iron, and the tips that come with it* are absolutely awful. Even at low soldering temperatures they can’t take the heat, and at this point all of them have their cracked, chipped, or have otherwise become completely blunt. But hey I got a nice generic tool bag full of wires that don’t conduct, insulation tape that doesn’t insulate, tiny screwdrivers, blunt snips, and “lead-free” solder that absolutely has lead in it. * and it seems to be a fitting that nothing else will fit apart from the rubbish tips that come with a thousand other almost-identical generic soldering irons you can get from Amazon.
• m463 4y ago
  I also wonder about the new breed of smart irons. ts-100, pinecil are microprocessor controlled irons and aren't expensive.
  • foldr 4y ago
    They work great in my experience. I solder small surface mount stuff so the relative lack of power isn’t an issue.
• bsder 4y ago
  Agreed. There is a huge difference learning to solder SMDs with a Metcal or Thermaltronics system vs a Weller or Hakko system. I cry for all the time I wasted soldering before finally sucking it up and getting a Metcal.
• HopenHeyHi 4y ago
  Look if I can't flash my own IronOS firmware unto my USB-C powered TS100 iron what is even the point? What am I, a farmer? https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS I didn't spend hours watching YouTube reviews comparing soldering irons for nothing. This is $70 well spent. In case anybody thinks I am being sarcastic, I am actually not. Look into it, worth it.
  • breput 4y ago
    I was thinking this same thing - get a good T100-ish iron (preferably a Pinecil[0]), a 60W USB3 power supply, some good 60/40 solder, and you're at least 90% of the way to a real professional soldering station. [0] https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-soldering-iron/ https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...
• userbinator 4y ago
  Price isn't the main differentiator, it's temperature control and an iron that isn't so big it's hard to maneuver. $20 is enough to buy a decent temperature-controlled iron these days (mainly clones based on the Hakko 936 design).
• cglace 4y ago
  Meh, I began my soldering journey with a modest $20 unit. As I worked with it, I learned to adapt to its limitations. Eventually, I decided to upgrade to a superior unit, which undoubtedly saved me a significant amount of time. However, the initial investment wasn't necessary for me to get started. In my experience, it's crucial to have a versatile set of soldering tips to handle various scenarios. Attempting to solder small pads with a massive tip can be a daunting task, just as using a minuscule tip to heat up a large pad linked to the ground plane can prove to be ineffective. It's all about having the right tool for the job.
  • millzlane 4y ago
    Same experience. I recently bought a music activated led glasses soldering kit from Amazon. I put it together with an iron kit that was 20 bucks on amazon. Also I bought a more expensive yuhaun hot air/soldering station (name might not be exact) I used the $20 iron to solder my drone connection and it work perfectly fine with proper technique. I cannot tell the different in build between the 20 unit and the more expensive station. Also the brass sponge in the hakko cleaner is nothing more than a chewy boy brass sponge. $1 at your local shady gas station.
    • rasz 4y ago
      > iron kit that was 20 bucks on amazon >yuhaun hot air/soldering station (name might not be exact) >I cannot tell the different sadly thats because they are most likely the same crap using 900 series tips
• nmfisher 4y ago
  Totally agree. My first soldering iron was a cheap ($20) Chinese POS that simply couldn't get hot enough. Every time, I'd end up with crusty misshapen blocks because the solder would partially solidify before it even came off the tip of the iron. Got fed up and bought a moderately expensive iron, and the difference was night and day. There's no need to splurge on a high-end soldering iron straight away, but definitely don't get the cheapest one you can find.
• zenexer 4y ago
  While we’re at it: 1. Don’t use a wet sponge. If you have a good soldering iron with good tips, you’ll want to use something that looks like a ball of metal shavings instead. It’ll work better, and you won’t oxidize your tips. They’re cheap and last quite a while. Some nicer irons ship with those in addition to or instead of sponges. I haven’t had much luck using these with cheap soldering irons, though, for whatever reason. 2. With a bad soldering iron, you’ll likely find yourself stuck in a cycle of cleaning the tip, tinning the tip, removing oxidation, and, ultimately, replacing the tip. It’s horribly frustrating. If this sounds like your soldering experience, ditch the wet sponge and get a better iron. It’s not you; it’s your tools. 3. Prep is important, especially when doing repairs. Older electronics have a lot of oxidation and are harder to solder. Spend more time on prep, less time on soldering. Don’t try to reuse the solder that’s already on the board. 4. Get Kapton tape (generic name: polyimide tape). Don’t bother getting a combo pack of different sizes; just stick to the half-inch size. Use it copiously. It’s cheap on AliExpress and will save you a lot of trouble. Tape All The Things. Avoid electrical tape; it melts, ruins soldering iron tips, and leaves a nasty residue. 5. Cheap dental explorers and scalers make for great prep tools. They’re cheaper than picks you might get from a hardware store, and they’re usually sharper. 6. Get desoldering wick and flux. The flux core inside the solder often isn’t enough for repair work. Soldering wick is the best way to remove old, stubborn solder. Soak it in flux first if you’re really having trouble. Some people say to get high-quality desoldering wick, but I’ve found soaking cheap wick in flux to be about as effective. 7. I keep isopropyl alcohol in a little squirt bottle and use it to clean off any grime, electrolyte, or whatever else might have accumulated on the PCB.
• ahonhn 4y ago
  I've not done much soldering because the cheap soldering iron I bought to do occasional fixes can't actually melt solder.
• pfannkuchen 4y ago
  Espresso machines are the same way. I worked for years at my steaming on a cheap machine, never quite getting it right. Then I get a La Marzocco and steaming is easy, barely any technique to it. Kind of demoralizing. Guitar tone is the same, at least for overdriven guitar, and still to some extent for clean.
• hilbert42 4y ago
  I learned to solder electronic components together by age 12
• Fradow 4y ago
  I'm going to differ with you and a lot of other people echo-ing. Sure, if you know you'll do a lot of soldering, by all means take the expensive iron. But if you only need to fix an appliance here and there? Go with the basic one. I've been using the same cheap iron someone gifted me 10 years ago (probably a 30€ one or so), and ... it works. It takes some time to heat up, so I'll just turn it on and go grab a coffee, and it's not super clean or whatnot ... but I fix appliances, I don't care as long as it's fixed. I'm not trying to get good at soldering either. I'm probably bad, but I don't really care. My appliances get fixed regardless. I really only need a basic level that's used once, perhaps twice a year, and for that, the cheap soldering iron is more than enough.
• deleted 4y ago
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• hilbert42 4y ago
  I learned to solder electronic components by age 12, and later I ran an electronics operation where all of my staff could solder proficiently—they had to as bad soldering could easily have jeopardized the functioning of critical equipment. (Back then, anyone interested in electronics had to be up to speed with soldering or they couldn't do the job. Then soldering wasn't seen as a novelty or something unfamiliar as many of these posts indicate, it was taken for granted that everyone knew how to solder proficiently.) That preface was necessary to indicate how vital hand soldering skills were to electronics and communication industries and to show that what I say next comes from long experience. Bluntly, you're right to quote that text as not good advice as without certain stipulations it's very misleading; and that your own experience from using better soldering tools is exactly what is to be expected (it's the right advice). In short, don't use cheap crappy soldering equipment even as a beginner (you'll likely develop bad, hard-to-shake habits), rather buy the best you can afford. Moreover, one should not only buy a decent soldering iron with variable temperature control (or tips that work at different temperatures) but also it should support the wattage necessary to keep the tips at the correct temperature for the type of work you anticipate doing. Same logic applies to your ancillary tools and consumables: use high quality solder with cored flux and always have a range of gauges to hand, always use 'solder wick', and or a decent desoldering tool, have syringes of flux† with correct size dispensing nozzles (flat-end/orifice hypodermic-like needles); and always have plenty of isopropyl alcohol (propan-2-ol) and suitable brushes for removing surplus flux/cleaning up (if it's unavailable then at a pinch use 95% or greater ethanol as a substitute). I can't go into good soldering techniques here but I'll finish by saying always solder at the correct temperature and always clean (wipe) your iron's tips before use (and don't 'burn' them by leaving them switched on for long periods when not in use). † There's different types of flux for different jobs—a flux, say, for reflowing IC leads on a PCB will use a different type to that used for soldering old components whose tinning may be slightly oxidized.