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I had to click, because it turns out that I love soldering. It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you

I had to click, because it turns out that I love soldering. It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too. For anyone reading, the key is to invest in a proper stereo microscope and a decent fume extractor. I recommend this one: https://www.strangeparts.com/a-boy-and-his-microscope-a-love-story/ https://www.strangeparts.com/a-boy-and-his-microscope-a-love... If you're up for a bit of a bonus round, I absolutely love my Pixel Pump. https://shop.robins-tools.com/products/pixel-pump https://shop.robins-tools.com/products/pixel-pump I picked up a used Ninja toaster oven and hacked a https://reflowmasterpro.com/ https://reflowmasterpro.com/ to it. I also modified the plans for Stencil Fix to make it substantially bigger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am3ztQIkss0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am3ztQIkss0 So, I do a fair bit of both reflow and hand SMD soldering at this point, depending on what the situation calls for. It's great fun.

erwincoumans 5mo ago
Agreed on stereo microscope, also suggest flux and a good iron with exchangeable tips and hot tweezers (I enjoy the Hakko).
- wrs 5mo ago
  The new breed of irons with temperature measurement built into the tip (invented by JBC, cloned by Geeboon and similar) is amazing. The tip heats to exactly the temp you want in 3 seconds, then cools down to avoid damage when you put it back in the stand. As you solder, the power is automatically controlled to keep the tip at the specified temp regardless of the load you put on it. I never thought I'd replace the Weller station I've used for 20 years, but I'm glad I did. Edit: For a specific recommendation, look for the Geeboon TC22 on AliExpress or Amazon. Don’t forget the tips, you may need to get them separately.
  - peteforde 5mo ago
    Share a link! Don't be shy.
    - omgtehlion 5mo ago
      any c245 will do (JBC is the best and original, but clones are close)
    - torginus 5mo ago
      I have bought the TC22 after going on r/Soldering and can only stand by the recommendation, its an amazing iron for hobbyists and its ability to put tons of power on a tiny area quickly means basically its 100% easier to work with than a ton of cheap irons, and have a much lower chance of killing components than dicking around with less powerful ones and staying on the pin a long time trying to heat it up while it wicks heat away into sensitive electronics. Doubly so when I mess it up or the solder is not fully melted. Another nice thing is with powerful irons you don't have to overshoot the melting temp of solder as much, and tips with less thermal mass in general can be used. Im a rank amateur so take what I said with a grain of salt. With that said, I have made several cool things in my life that many people've said I could charge money for. I guess you can't really see the mess I made when you can't look inside the housing :) I've purchased it from the GEEBOON Store on Aliexpress (no affiliate or anything just looked up my order history): https://geeboontools.aliexpress.com/store/1103439446 https://geeboontools.aliexpress.com/store/1103439446 All being said you might not be comfortable with supporting the Chinese clone industry, and I can understand that.
  - ssl-3 5mo ago
    It heats to exactly the temperature I want in 3 seconds? Is there evidence to support this claim? (My bullshit detector is making some rather profound gurgling sounds.) edit: Seriously, my dudes. Links, or it never happened. Anecdotes are just anecdotes. Anecdotally, my soldering iron heats up very quickly as well and I'm very pleased with this, but I'm not making a claim that it heats to an exact, unspecified user-selected temperature in 3 seconds. If you want to present a benchmark, then please present the bench -- with the mark.
    - cyberax 5mo ago
      Yup. They specify 3 seconds, but that's for 350C. In my experience, it's always at the right temperature by the time I finish picking it up. It has a 240W power supply, so it's not just marketing.
    - Doxin 5mo ago
      I can make no claims as to the brands mentioned in the parent post, but a 3 second heating time isn't all that fast for a real nice soldering iron. Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then.
      - throwup238 5mo ago
        > Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then. Metcal Fixed Temperature Induction soldering irons. Still the gold standard after decades because instead of using PID with a heating element and sensor, it exploits the curie effect. The tips are made of a special alloy that is only magnetic until a certain temperature after which it doesn’t absorb any more energy from the PSU, which just dumps a constant 25Mhz signal into the tip keeping it at the fixed temperature. When their patents expired a couple of Metcal engineers left to found Thermaltronics, which makes the same soldering iron (they’re even tip compatible!) for 2-3x cheaper. They’re still more expensive than hobbyist soldering irons but well worth the cost for anyone doing a lot of soldering. The Metcal power supplies are beasts though so you can easily pick up a 20 year old unit for a couple hundred bucks on ebay and it’ll run till the apocalypse comes home to roost. I have an old unit made in the late 90s that is still going strong.
- peteforde 5mo ago
  I can't imagine not using flux! I have a Hakko FX-888D. It's pretty good, although I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down to a safe handling temperature. I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please! Another link for folks: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B077BQWMTY https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B077BQWMTY I go through these for solder flux removal like crazy, in combination with an aerosol can of MG Chemicals 4140-400G. Sadly, I think that stuff is unobtainium now.
  - erwincoumans 5mo ago
    >> I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please! Hakko FM2023-05 Mini Hot Tweezers Kit or Hakko FX8804-02 Hot Tweezer for Hakko FX-888 for example. >> I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down I replace tips while hot: the sleeve is not hot.
    - throwway120385 5mo ago
      Depends. The ancient Weller that I have has a sleeve you can unscrew but that sucker gets burning hot, and the thumbscrew locks up unless you cool the tip down, which you can do by holding the thing on your wet sponge.
  - rhinoceraptor 5mo ago
    I swap the tips on my Hakko without letting it cool down, I just use a Knipex pliers wrench so I don't burn myself. I keep my spare tips in an altoids tin, so I can drop the hot one in there without burning anything.
  - sampullman 5mo ago
    How ofter are you switching tips? It's been a while since I did any real soldering, but I don't remember often needing to switch in the middle of a session.
3abiton 5mo ago
Step 1: Have a workshop space Step 2: ? Step 3: Profit
TacticalCoder 5mo ago
> It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too. I don't know. I've got my station, not a bad one: bought it with the help of a buddy who's very good at soldering. He tried to show me. I've got no choice: I own an old vintage arcade cab from the mid 80s and it's located in the middle of nowhere, in a rural area. So I have to fix it myself. And oh boy do I suck at it. I watched vids, countless Youtube vids. It's been 10 years and everytime I need to solder something, I still suck at it. I've come to terms with the fact that there are some things I'm good at and that soldering is never ever going to be one of these. And it's okay. And I'm amazed by people who can solder properly.
- bityard 5mo ago
  I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but if all of your soldering experience is from parts that came out of a 40 year-old arcade cabinet, don't beat yourself up: that is definitely what I would call soldering in hard mode. Depending on where it lived, everything in it is probably oxidized, corroded and covered in dust, cigarette tar, and possibly cooking oil. Even if you can't see/smell any of it, it's still there. Solder only works well on pristine, clean metals. Some metals are just simply marginal, and don't take solder well even if they were ostensibly designed for it. Flux helps, but can only do so much. The semi-good news is that you should stand a chance if you can clean the bejeezus out of whatever it is your soldering a LOT of alcohol and a stiff brush, and maybe some fine-grit sandpaper.
  - opan 5mo ago
    Will second this. When modding Xbox 360s, I used MrMario's guides and he would say repeatedly "clean, flux, tin", kinda stuck in my head. I did also tend to just clean the whole board while it was apart, but especially the point you're about to solder should be clean. I have never used sandpaper on electronics, but I perhaps similarly use a fiberglass pen. Total game changer for getting old cartridge pins to read again for SNES and GBA games and such. Highly recommend picking one up.
  - Doxin 5mo ago
summa_tech 5mo ago
If you don't have space for a microscope, you can also get yourself the long-range (~400mm) 2.5-3.5x magnifiers that you may have seen your dentist wear. They're easily available on Amazon, not too expensive, and comfortable for hours of wearing. These are 2-element lenses that work really well. Higher magnification variants (8x etc) are not nearly as comfy. They get quite long, heavy and expensive. I tried them and did not like them nearly as much. Also beware of short viewing distance, ultra-cheap products that are just a single lens element per eye.
- stavros 5mo ago
  This is a great tip, I use a loupe and it works amazingly well. Cost maybe $10?
  - jrumbut 5mo ago
    Oh yeah, I'm sure that $300 microscope comes in handy but a cheap loupe gets you started. I've found all sorts of other uses for it too.
  - tra3 5mo ago
    Can you share a link?
    - stavros 5mo ago
      Yep: https://a.aliexpress.com/_Eyw9z6E https://a.aliexpress.com/_Eyw9z6E
      - tra3 5mo ago
        Appreciate that, ordered! Hopefully it'll bring my soldering to the next level. Can you recommend something for "helping hands"?
        stavros 5mo ago
        No problem! The only helping hands I'd recommend are https://omnifixo.com/ https://omnifixo.com/. Pricy, but everything else I've tried has too much play and is useless to me. Omnifixo is just fantastic.
raomin 5mo ago
Me too I love soldering. And actually, it's one of the few things that I like more and more, as I realize I've developed a real craftmanship from it. And thank you! I've been looking for a recommendation of a stereo microscope for a long time!
floxy 5mo ago
>It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too. There is a similar vibe with TIG welding as well.
sandreas 5mo ago
Starting with soldering, I find these 200$+ recommendations (regardless of which tool) hard to justify. # Soldering iron I'd recommend the Pinecil V2 with IronOS. https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS # Solder fume extraction I've built a simple fume extraction with an old plastic case, a 120mm fan and a sheet of carbon filter attached to a 120mm dryer / air conditioning hose. Around 15$ and good enough for soldering from time to time. # "Microscope" I simply use a strong (10x) magnifier glass with a LED ring (around 15$ on Amazon). I can't tell you how often I also used this thing for other purposes. # Desoldering Pump Because I needed it (beginners won't) I bought a ZD-8965 for 100 bucks and I'm very happy with this thing. I have whole list of cheap beginner to intermediate equipment, that'll do until you solder (semi) professionally.
- eviks 5mo ago
  With you overall, but given the toxicity of the fumes some quality / rated fume extraction might be the one area where cheap/self made item isn't worth it
  - DANmode 5mo ago
    Understatement.
  - rcxdude 5mo ago
    If you're doing it a lot, then it's definitely worth making sure it works properly. If you're doing it occasionally, just make sure the area is well ventilated and you're not outright inhaling the fumes coming off the solder, and it's not likely to make any real difference to the health of your lungs.
    - asib 5mo ago
      "Well ventilated" on its own is completely insufficient. If you are soldering without any fan or extraction, you _will_ inhale fumes because you have to look right over your work when you solder, which is exactly where the fumes are. In general, the danger with soldering fumes is not the average concentration in the room in which you're working over the duration of a session, it's inhaling the very high concentration of fumes right as the soldering happens. We could debate how much damage this is going to do and whether it's worth worrying about, but there isn't really room to debate that ventilation alone is going to do absolutely nothing. Well ventilated area + fan is probably okay, but you need the fan right next to your soldering iron or it needs to be a gigantic fan otherwise, again, you are just going to inhale most of those fumes.
_nxwj 5mo ago
I agree it seems like it could be fun. I think I am a bit paranoid about the hazardous chemicals and risk of a burns when using a traditional iron. From what I understand reading the comments, it's gotten much smoother with stencils, SMD, ovens, and so on.
- pipe2devnull 5mo ago
  It’s quite easy to not burn yourself. I’ve done a fair bit of soldering and it has only happened like twice to me and it wasn’t that bad
  - projektfu 5mo ago
    The most important thing is having your workspace organized. Second most important is to put your iron in the holder when you're doing anything else. ADHD types will get more little burns.
BoredPositron 5mo ago
just don't use leaded solder. the absolute obsession of people from NA and lead should be studied.
- projektfu 5mo ago
  I agree it's unnecessary but the rosin is more toxic to the user than the metallic lead. It's better to not make lead e-waste though.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- alnwlsn 5mo ago
  There isn't much advantage to even learning on lead in my opinion, unless your only goal is to work on old stuff that used leaded solder. Any modern or new stuff (i.e. the smallest components) has the whole supply chain designed around lead-free. Lead free boards, using lead free chips, which are meant to take the heating profiles for lead free solder. If working in industry, you'll need to learn lead free eventually, so you had better do it from the beginning. I save my leaded solder for old radios and retrocomputing, but as I would rather not spread lead dust around my work area, I only ever use lead-free solder paste for modern work. Leaded work is easier, a little, but not so much so that I wouldn't consider not learning lead-free.
thenthenthen 5mo ago
Havent clicked but I LOVE SOLDERING! It’s relaxing, gives a real sense of creating something. Yes even soldering hundreds of the same units every day feels just so gratifying somehow… the way you get better and faster every unit, having this batch of new shiny things lined up, giving ‘life’ to otherwise inert pieces of a puzzle. Yes.
fennecfoxy 5mo ago
Not just those things but the biggest helper of all: a set of helping hands. Dios mio, what an absolute pain soldering is without something holding everything in place. It's literally a night and day purchase.
voxleone 5mo ago
What about aluminum? I haven’t been able to find a welder willing to work on my custom bike frame, so I’m considering learning to do it myself after taking a welding course. The custom car builders on TV make it look easy, but aluminum seems like an incredibly difficult material to work with.
- 83 5mo ago
  If you get a quality tig welder aluminum isn't too bad. It's definitely more difficult than steel but I taught myself to weld AL without too much trouble. Practice on some scrap for sure before your bike - it'll be easy to blow a hole in thin bike tube. The biggest challenge I've had in welding aluminum as a hobbyist is that I rarely know what aluminum alloy I'm working with. Most things don't say what type so we're left guessing what filler is appropriate. If you use the wrong filler it could be prone to cracking again in the future. Also for thicker aluminum preheating is very important. The aluminum transfers heat away very quickly so you get cold lumpy welds if you don't have both parts pretty hot at the start.
- ssl-3 5mo ago
  It's difficult find a welder willing to work on an aluminum bike frame not because aluminum is hard to weld. It's not so bad to stick two pieces of aluminum together in a new-to-them way with the right tools as long as maintaining the original strength isn't important. But strength is important for bicycles. And aluminum bike frames are already built down to a given weight -- they don't have much in the way of extra strength to lend. The heat of welding permanently changes the way the surrounding metal works. That's not ideal for safety devices like a bike. Heat treatment can be done later (and is done when aluminum frames are built), but that's a different process to learn and it's pretty far beyond the gamut of what most welders are willing to deal with. Most welders don't have the bike-sized oven that's needed, let alone the training and experience to get it right, and with a sample size of exactly 1 it's a risky operation. It's easy to get things like warped tubes out of this process and turn a beautiful piece of wall art into scrap metal.
jubilanti 5mo ago
It's over $1,000 to buy the products you mentioned. Kind of proves the article/poem right. If the trick is spending 4 figures, that's no trick.
- JKCalhoun 5mo ago
  A thousand grand, (for SMD). I prefer my Hakko, (and THD).
  - peteforde 5mo ago
    I've got nothing against personal projects that use THD. However, unless you're making simple circuits, avoiding SMD means that you are effectively constraining yourself to about 20% of the ICs being produced today. It's also simply a fact that producing a product using THD components is a massive headache. It takes far more manual effort, most contract manufacturers will charge a pound of flesh, and the components are significantly bigger. If none of those resemble problems you have to deal with, then THD is likely going to be great fun for you.
    - JKCalhoun 5mo ago
      No, I was being semi-facetious. I too have learned that a number of components are no longer being made THT. I have done a limited amount of SMT but it is not a lot of fun for me. Instead, I have been testing the waters my SMT PCBs having them also assembled now when I order them. It kind of saddens me though.
- alnwlsn 5mo ago
  The real trick is that it's a skill that you practice and get better at. I was able to do this https://hackaday.io/project/197868-sub-surface-simon https://hackaday.io/project/197868-sub-surface-simon using no magnification, and only cheap soldering tools. You can and should be able to solder SMD with only an iron and tweezers. Not everything; not the smallest stuff, but you don't start there. My sweet spot is 0805 or 0603 size components and 1.27mm pitch SOIC parts, which I actually find easier to solder than through hole, because you never have to flip the board over. My recommendations for most useful tools are a Pinecil, a few packs of cheap flush cutters from Amazon (even expensive ones get dull or break), a cheap pair of sharp tweezers [1], and a tube of flux [2]. You don't always need extra flux if using flux-core solder, but enough flux can turn even the crappiest solder joints into good ones. Most of the rest of the skill comes from being able to brace your hands against things to get fine control, while being far enough away to not burn yourself. Magnification unfortunately comes down to how good your eyes are. If you can see your fingerprints clearly at arm's length, your vision is already good enough. If not, no big deal, get a cheap microscope like this one first [3], or a loupe, or some strong reading glasses, or one of those headband visor things with lenses in them. [1] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/seeed-technology-co-ltd/404070001/5488233 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/seeed-technology-... [2] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/chip-quik-inc/SMD4300-10M/14636536 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/chip-quik-inc/SMD... [3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QB79SN https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QB79SN
pwg 5mo ago
Actually, the "key" to soldering is finally buying oneself a very good iron. I learned soldering years ago (going on 50 or so now) but always used basic "wood burners". But I did enough that I got good at it with the rug burners. A couple years back, I bought a low end no-name temp controlled iron, and it worked ok. A little better than the wood burner, but nothing great. Then about three years ago I bought a used Metcal SP200 Smartheat off of eBay for about $120. The tips are pricey (although Thermaltronics makes clone tips that cost less than genuine Metcal tips) but the difference in soldering performance is like night and day, even when one already knows how, but has just never used the really good systems.
tibbon 5mo ago
I, too, love soldering. I've done it since I was around 6 years old (wood burning before that). It's what I do when I want to zone out and relax. I've found random people at Burning Man and camping events who needed help with electronics, and I was happy to spend my time with an iron helping out - I even carry a butane-powered one on my motorcycle for quick repairs in the field.
BrandoElFollito 5mo ago
> It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too. Over the last 30 years or so I have very (very) occasionaly soldered some basic stuff to build simple IoTs. Everytime this was (and is) a struggle (with a cheap equipment, no practice etc.) And then someday I discovered on Youtube a video of someone resoldering some elements (chips, flat resistors, ...) using some kind of gel and a heat gun (?) and it was mermerizing. So clean, so fluid -- seriously a relaxing experience
bsoles 5mo ago
Once I have developed a technique for soldering surface mount components, using lots of flux, soldering became a joy event for me. The cheapest Hakko iron (888?) and a flat fine tip works great. I have a stereo microscope but I only use it for checking defects afterwards. A 10x magnifier works just fine.

erwincoumans 5mo ago

Agreed on stereo microscope, also suggest flux and a good iron with exchangeable tips and hot tweezers (I enjoy the Hakko).

wrs 5mo ago
The new breed of irons with temperature measurement built into the tip (invented by JBC, cloned by Geeboon and similar) is amazing. The tip heats to exactly the temp you want in 3 seconds, then cools down to avoid damage when you put it back in the stand. As you solder, the power is automatically controlled to keep the tip at the specified temp regardless of the load you put on it. I never thought I'd replace the Weller station I've used for 20 years, but I'm glad I did. Edit: For a specific recommendation, look for the Geeboon TC22 on AliExpress or Amazon. Don’t forget the tips, you may need to get them separately.
- peteforde 5mo ago
  Share a link! Don't be shy.
  - omgtehlion 5mo ago
    any c245 will do (JBC is the best and original, but clones are close)
  - torginus 5mo ago
    I have bought the TC22 after going on r/Soldering and can only stand by the recommendation, its an amazing iron for hobbyists and its ability to put tons of power on a tiny area quickly means basically its 100% easier to work with than a ton of cheap irons, and have a much lower chance of killing components than dicking around with less powerful ones and staying on the pin a long time trying to heat it up while it wicks heat away into sensitive electronics. Doubly so when I mess it up or the solder is not fully melted. Another nice thing is with powerful irons you don't have to overshoot the melting temp of solder as much, and tips with less thermal mass in general can be used. Im a rank amateur so take what I said with a grain of salt. With that said, I have made several cool things in my life that many people've said I could charge money for. I guess you can't really see the mess I made when you can't look inside the housing :) I've purchased it from the GEEBOON Store on Aliexpress (no affiliate or anything just looked up my order history): https://geeboontools.aliexpress.com/store/1103439446 https://geeboontools.aliexpress.com/store/1103439446 All being said you might not be comfortable with supporting the Chinese clone industry, and I can understand that.
- ssl-3 5mo ago
  It heats to exactly the temperature I want in 3 seconds? Is there evidence to support this claim? (My bullshit detector is making some rather profound gurgling sounds.) edit: Seriously, my dudes. Links, or it never happened. Anecdotes are just anecdotes. Anecdotally, my soldering iron heats up very quickly as well and I'm very pleased with this, but I'm not making a claim that it heats to an exact, unspecified user-selected temperature in 3 seconds. If you want to present a benchmark, then please present the bench -- with the mark.
  - cyberax 5mo ago
    Yup. They specify 3 seconds, but that's for 350C. In my experience, it's always at the right temperature by the time I finish picking it up. It has a 240W power supply, so it's not just marketing.
  - Doxin 5mo ago
    I can make no claims as to the brands mentioned in the parent post, but a 3 second heating time isn't all that fast for a real nice soldering iron. Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then.
    - throwup238 5mo ago
      > Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then. Metcal Fixed Temperature Induction soldering irons. Still the gold standard after decades because instead of using PID with a heating element and sensor, it exploits the curie effect. The tips are made of a special alloy that is only magnetic until a certain temperature after which it doesn’t absorb any more energy from the PSU, which just dumps a constant 25Mhz signal into the tip keeping it at the fixed temperature. When their patents expired a couple of Metcal engineers left to found Thermaltronics, which makes the same soldering iron (they’re even tip compatible!) for 2-3x cheaper. They’re still more expensive than hobbyist soldering irons but well worth the cost for anyone doing a lot of soldering. The Metcal power supplies are beasts though so you can easily pick up a 20 year old unit for a couple hundred bucks on ebay and it’ll run till the apocalypse comes home to roost. I have an old unit made in the late 90s that is still going strong.
peteforde 5mo ago
I can't imagine not using flux! I have a Hakko FX-888D. It's pretty good, although I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down to a safe handling temperature. I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please! Another link for folks: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B077BQWMTY https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B077BQWMTY I go through these for solder flux removal like crazy, in combination with an aerosol can of MG Chemicals 4140-400G. Sadly, I think that stuff is unobtainium now.
- erwincoumans 5mo ago
  >> I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please! Hakko FM2023-05 Mini Hot Tweezers Kit or Hakko FX8804-02 Hot Tweezer for Hakko FX-888 for example. >> I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down I replace tips while hot: the sleeve is not hot.
  - throwway120385 5mo ago
    Depends. The ancient Weller that I have has a sleeve you can unscrew but that sucker gets burning hot, and the thumbscrew locks up unless you cool the tip down, which you can do by holding the thing on your wet sponge.
- rhinoceraptor 5mo ago
  I swap the tips on my Hakko without letting it cool down, I just use a Knipex pliers wrench so I don't burn myself. I keep my spare tips in an altoids tin, so I can drop the hot one in there without burning anything.
- sampullman 5mo ago
  How ofter are you switching tips? It's been a while since I did any real soldering, but I don't remember often needing to switch in the middle of a session.

3abiton 5mo ago

Step 1: Have a workshop space Step 2: ? Step 3: Profit

TacticalCoder 5mo ago

> It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too. I don't know. I've got my station, not a bad one: bought it with the help of a buddy who's very good at soldering. He tried to show me. I've got no choice: I own an old vintage arcade cab from the mid 80s and it's located in the middle of nowhere, in a rural area. So I have to fix it myself. And oh boy do I suck at it. I watched vids, countless Youtube vids. It's been 10 years and everytime I need to solder something, I still suck at it. I've come to terms with the fact that there are some things I'm good at and that soldering is never ever going to be one of these. And it's okay. And I'm amazed by people who can solder properly.

bityard 5mo ago
I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but if all of your soldering experience is from parts that came out of a 40 year-old arcade cabinet, don't beat yourself up: that is definitely what I would call soldering in hard mode. Depending on where it lived, everything in it is probably oxidized, corroded and covered in dust, cigarette tar, and possibly cooking oil. Even if you can't see/smell any of it, it's still there. Solder only works well on pristine, clean metals. Some metals are just simply marginal, and don't take solder well even if they were ostensibly designed for it. Flux helps, but can only do so much. The semi-good news is that you should stand a chance if you can clean the bejeezus out of whatever it is your soldering a LOT of alcohol and a stiff brush, and maybe some fine-grit sandpaper.
- opan 5mo ago
  Will second this. When modding Xbox 360s, I used MrMario's guides and he would say repeatedly "clean, flux, tin", kinda stuck in my head. I did also tend to just clean the whole board while it was apart, but especially the point you're about to solder should be clean. I have never used sandpaper on electronics, but I perhaps similarly use a fiberglass pen. Total game changer for getting old cartridge pins to read again for SNES and GBA games and such. Highly recommend picking one up.
- Doxin 5mo ago

summa_tech 5mo ago

If you don't have space for a microscope, you can also get yourself the long-range (~400mm) 2.5-3.5x magnifiers that you may have seen your dentist wear. They're easily available on Amazon, not too expensive, and comfortable for hours of wearing. These are 2-element lenses that work really well. Higher magnification variants (8x etc) are not nearly as comfy. They get quite long, heavy and expensive. I tried them and did not like them nearly as much. Also beware of short viewing distance, ultra-cheap products that are just a single lens element per eye.

stavros 5mo ago
This is a great tip, I use a loupe and it works amazingly well. Cost maybe $10?
- jrumbut 5mo ago
  Oh yeah, I'm sure that $300 microscope comes in handy but a cheap loupe gets you started. I've found all sorts of other uses for it too.
- tra3 5mo ago
  Can you share a link?
  - stavros 5mo ago
    Yep: https://a.aliexpress.com/_Eyw9z6E https://a.aliexpress.com/_Eyw9z6E
    - tra3 5mo ago
      Appreciate that, ordered! Hopefully it'll bring my soldering to the next level. Can you recommend something for "helping hands"?
      - stavros 5mo ago
        No problem! The only helping hands I'd recommend are https://omnifixo.com/ https://omnifixo.com/. Pricy, but everything else I've tried has too much play and is useless to me. Omnifixo is just fantastic.

raomin 5mo ago

Me too I love soldering. And actually, it's one of the few things that I like more and more, as I realize I've developed a real craftmanship from it. And thank you! I've been looking for a recommendation of a stereo microscope for a long time!

floxy 5mo ago

>It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too. There is a similar vibe with TIG welding as well.

sandreas 5mo ago

Starting with soldering, I find these 200$+ recommendations (regardless of which tool) hard to justify. # Soldering iron I'd recommend the Pinecil V2 with IronOS. https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS # Solder fume extraction I've built a simple fume extraction with an old plastic case, a 120mm fan and a sheet of carbon filter attached to a 120mm dryer / air conditioning hose. Around 15$ and good enough for soldering from time to time. # "Microscope" I simply use a strong (10x) magnifier glass with a LED ring (around 15$ on Amazon). I can't tell you how often I also used this thing for other purposes. # Desoldering Pump Because I needed it (beginners won't) I bought a ZD-8965 for 100 bucks and I'm very happy with this thing. I have whole list of cheap beginner to intermediate equipment, that'll do until you solder (semi) professionally.

eviks 5mo ago
With you overall, but given the toxicity of the fumes some quality / rated fume extraction might be the one area where cheap/self made item isn't worth it
- DANmode 5mo ago
  Understatement.
- rcxdude 5mo ago
  If you're doing it a lot, then it's definitely worth making sure it works properly. If you're doing it occasionally, just make sure the area is well ventilated and you're not outright inhaling the fumes coming off the solder, and it's not likely to make any real difference to the health of your lungs.
  - asib 5mo ago
    "Well ventilated" on its own is completely insufficient. If you are soldering without any fan or extraction, you _will_ inhale fumes because you have to look right over your work when you solder, which is exactly where the fumes are. In general, the danger with soldering fumes is not the average concentration in the room in which you're working over the duration of a session, it's inhaling the very high concentration of fumes right as the soldering happens. We could debate how much damage this is going to do and whether it's worth worrying about, but there isn't really room to debate that ventilation alone is going to do absolutely nothing. Well ventilated area + fan is probably okay, but you need the fan right next to your soldering iron or it needs to be a gigantic fan otherwise, again, you are just going to inhale most of those fumes.

_nxwj 5mo ago

I agree it seems like it could be fun. I think I am a bit paranoid about the hazardous chemicals and risk of a burns when using a traditional iron. From what I understand reading the comments, it's gotten much smoother with stencils, SMD, ovens, and so on.

pipe2devnull 5mo ago
It’s quite easy to not burn yourself. I’ve done a fair bit of soldering and it has only happened like twice to me and it wasn’t that bad
- projektfu 5mo ago
  The most important thing is having your workspace organized. Second most important is to put your iron in the holder when you're doing anything else. ADHD types will get more little burns.

BoredPositron 5mo ago

just don't use leaded solder. the absolute obsession of people from NA and lead should be studied.

projektfu 5mo ago
I agree it's unnecessary but the rosin is more toxic to the user than the metallic lead. It's better to not make lead e-waste though.
deleted 5mo ago
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alnwlsn 5mo ago
There isn't much advantage to even learning on lead in my opinion, unless your only goal is to work on old stuff that used leaded solder. Any modern or new stuff (i.e. the smallest components) has the whole supply chain designed around lead-free. Lead free boards, using lead free chips, which are meant to take the heating profiles for lead free solder. If working in industry, you'll need to learn lead free eventually, so you had better do it from the beginning. I save my leaded solder for old radios and retrocomputing, but as I would rather not spread lead dust around my work area, I only ever use lead-free solder paste for modern work. Leaded work is easier, a little, but not so much so that I wouldn't consider not learning lead-free.

thenthenthen 5mo ago

Havent clicked but I LOVE SOLDERING! It’s relaxing, gives a real sense of creating something. Yes even soldering hundreds of the same units every day feels just so gratifying somehow… the way you get better and faster every unit, having this batch of new shiny things lined up, giving ‘life’ to otherwise inert pieces of a puzzle. Yes.

fennecfoxy 5mo ago

Not just those things but the biggest helper of all: a set of helping hands. Dios mio, what an absolute pain soldering is without something holding everything in place. It's literally a night and day purchase.

voxleone 5mo ago

What about aluminum? I haven’t been able to find a welder willing to work on my custom bike frame, so I’m considering learning to do it myself after taking a welding course. The custom car builders on TV make it look easy, but aluminum seems like an incredibly difficult material to work with.

83 5mo ago
If you get a quality tig welder aluminum isn't too bad. It's definitely more difficult than steel but I taught myself to weld AL without too much trouble. Practice on some scrap for sure before your bike - it'll be easy to blow a hole in thin bike tube. The biggest challenge I've had in welding aluminum as a hobbyist is that I rarely know what aluminum alloy I'm working with. Most things don't say what type so we're left guessing what filler is appropriate. If you use the wrong filler it could be prone to cracking again in the future. Also for thicker aluminum preheating is very important. The aluminum transfers heat away very quickly so you get cold lumpy welds if you don't have both parts pretty hot at the start.
ssl-3 5mo ago
It's difficult find a welder willing to work on an aluminum bike frame not because aluminum is hard to weld. It's not so bad to stick two pieces of aluminum together in a new-to-them way with the right tools as long as maintaining the original strength isn't important. But strength is important for bicycles. And aluminum bike frames are already built down to a given weight -- they don't have much in the way of extra strength to lend. The heat of welding permanently changes the way the surrounding metal works. That's not ideal for safety devices like a bike. Heat treatment can be done later (and is done when aluminum frames are built), but that's a different process to learn and it's pretty far beyond the gamut of what most welders are willing to deal with. Most welders don't have the bike-sized oven that's needed, let alone the training and experience to get it right, and with a sample size of exactly 1 it's a risky operation. It's easy to get things like warped tubes out of this process and turn a beautiful piece of wall art into scrap metal.

jubilanti 5mo ago

It's over $1,000 to buy the products you mentioned. Kind of proves the article/poem right. If the trick is spending 4 figures, that's no trick.

JKCalhoun 5mo ago
A thousand grand, (for SMD). I prefer my Hakko, (and THD).
- peteforde 5mo ago
  I've got nothing against personal projects that use THD. However, unless you're making simple circuits, avoiding SMD means that you are effectively constraining yourself to about 20% of the ICs being produced today. It's also simply a fact that producing a product using THD components is a massive headache. It takes far more manual effort, most contract manufacturers will charge a pound of flesh, and the components are significantly bigger. If none of those resemble problems you have to deal with, then THD is likely going to be great fun for you.
  - JKCalhoun 5mo ago
    No, I was being semi-facetious. I too have learned that a number of components are no longer being made THT. I have done a limited amount of SMT but it is not a lot of fun for me. Instead, I have been testing the waters my SMT PCBs having them also assembled now when I order them. It kind of saddens me though.
alnwlsn 5mo ago
The real trick is that it's a skill that you practice and get better at. I was able to do this https://hackaday.io/project/197868-sub-surface-simon https://hackaday.io/project/197868-sub-surface-simon using no magnification, and only cheap soldering tools. You can and should be able to solder SMD with only an iron and tweezers. Not everything; not the smallest stuff, but you don't start there. My sweet spot is 0805 or 0603 size components and 1.27mm pitch SOIC parts, which I actually find easier to solder than through hole, because you never have to flip the board over. My recommendations for most useful tools are a Pinecil, a few packs of cheap flush cutters from Amazon (even expensive ones get dull or break), a cheap pair of sharp tweezers [1], and a tube of flux [2]. You don't always need extra flux if using flux-core solder, but enough flux can turn even the crappiest solder joints into good ones. Most of the rest of the skill comes from being able to brace your hands against things to get fine control, while being far enough away to not burn yourself. Magnification unfortunately comes down to how good your eyes are. If you can see your fingerprints clearly at arm's length, your vision is already good enough. If not, no big deal, get a cheap microscope like this one first [3], or a loupe, or some strong reading glasses, or one of those headband visor things with lenses in them. [1] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/seeed-technology-co-ltd/404070001/5488233 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/seeed-technology-... [2] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/chip-quik-inc/SMD4300-10M/14636536 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/chip-quik-inc/SMD... [3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QB79SN https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QB79SN

pwg 5mo ago

Actually, the "key" to soldering is finally buying oneself a very good iron. I learned soldering years ago (going on 50 or so now) but always used basic "wood burners". But I did enough that I got good at it with the rug burners. A couple years back, I bought a low end no-name temp controlled iron, and it worked ok. A little better than the wood burner, but nothing great. Then about three years ago I bought a used Metcal SP200 Smartheat off of eBay for about $120. The tips are pricey (although Thermaltronics makes clone tips that cost less than genuine Metcal tips) but the difference in soldering performance is like night and day, even when one already knows how, but has just never used the really good systems.

tibbon 5mo ago

I, too, love soldering. I've done it since I was around 6 years old (wood burning before that). It's what I do when I want to zone out and relax. I've found random people at Burning Man and camping events who needed help with electronics, and I was happy to spend my time with an iron helping out - I even carry a butane-powered one on my motorcycle for quick repairs in the field.

BrandoElFollito 5mo ago

> It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too. Over the last 30 years or so I have very (very) occasionaly soldered some basic stuff to build simple IoTs. Everytime this was (and is) a struggle (with a cheap equipment, no practice etc.) And then someday I discovered on Youtube a video of someone resoldering some elements (chips, flat resistors, ...) using some kind of gel and a heat gun (?) and it was mermerizing. So clean, so fluid -- seriously a relaxing experience

bsoles 5mo ago

Once I have developed a technique for soldering surface mount components, using lots of flux, soldering became a joy event for me. The cheapest Hakko iron (888?) and a flat fine tip works great. I have a stereo microscope but I only use it for checking defects afterwards. A 10x magnifier works just fine.