Lighting-Gallery.net

General => Off-Topic => Topic started by: lightinglover8902 on February 14, 2018, 09:53:24 PM

Title: Who here does soldering?
Post by: lightinglover8902 on February 14, 2018, 09:53:24 PM
I do a bunch of soldering. Soldering electronics, and soldering wire joints. Do you like to solder electronics, like I do? Plus what soldering iron and what type of solder material, do you use?

For me, I use a Hakko fixed temperature soldering iron with conical tip, and I use lead free based solder. Whats yours?  ;D
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: HomeBrewLamps on February 14, 2018, 11:14:23 PM
I Solder

I use a 120W Craftsman iron and both leaded and unleaded solder.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: 589 on February 15, 2018, 01:51:44 PM
I have a cheap weller iron and only use lead solder.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Ash on February 15, 2018, 03:28:20 PM
I do soldering ! Mostly wires and electronic components, but also did some chip replacements

I have a "simple" (but not cheap or nasty) iron at home and a thermostatic soldering station at the workplace. In the previous one it was a Weller WD1000, in this one a Hakko 888 (real Hakko, not a clone). They both are good stuff. I am occasionally looking through 2nd hand lists to snatch a soldering station for home on the cheap (i'd prefer a used original over a new clone from Ebay)
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: lightinglover8902 on February 15, 2018, 04:44:44 PM
Nice! I also have a Weller soldering iron, a old one, in its original packaging! I have not used the old one yet.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Lightingguy1994 on February 15, 2018, 06:18:15 PM
My soldering gun actually looks like a gun with a trigger and at the end there is just a thick metal that does a u bend. It is an induction powered one so theres a magnetic ballast that makes this wire get hot or something. Its neat and you just press and hold the trigger and it will heat up the u bend and in under a minute its ready. I don't know the brand as it doesn't say..

Not the greatest for small tiny soldering needs but does well for normal and larger but I plan to get a real soldering station someday
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: lightinglover8902 on February 15, 2018, 09:07:54 PM
Oh I didn't know that it has a inductor that heats the tip, I got to go find it. Its in the storage bin somewhere.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Lightingguy1994 on February 15, 2018, 09:28:50 PM
Oh is yours the shape of a gun ? I looked up soldering gun on google and it turned up a bunch of weller soldering guns and they look almost exactly like mine. the part with the u bend seems to be removable by loosening 2 screws. They work great but not for small tiny jobs
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Lodge on February 15, 2018, 09:38:11 PM
My favorite soldering iron is a Butane powered Cheapy from Amazon the Iso-tip it'll run for half an hour before needing to be refilled, with no wires in the way it has a little built in stand that flips out and will solder small SMD stuff and for larger stuff it has a torch tip on it and it fits in your pocket so you can take it to go.. But I do have a plug in Weller when I feel like dragging it out or if it's something I'll be working on for hours..

For solder I like MG Chemicals 96.3% tin, 0.7% copper, 3% silver, but anything that will consume lots of solder it gets 63% Tin, 37% Lead solder..
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: lightinglover8902 on February 16, 2018, 02:31:11 PM
Oh is yours the shape of a gun ? I looked up soldering gun on google and it turned up a bunch of weller soldering guns and they look almost exactly like mine. the part with the u bend seems to be removable by loosening 2 screws. They work great but not for small tiny jobs

Yes it is, I just looked at it. I'll wait till my current one, which is the Hakko iron, dies. Then i'll use the Weller one.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: lightinglover8902 on February 16, 2018, 02:35:23 PM
My favorite soldering iron is a Butane powered Cheapy from Amazon the Iso-tip it'll run for half an hour before needing to be refilled, with no wires in the way it has a little built in stand that flips out and will solder small SMD stuff and for larger stuff it has a torch tip on it and it fits in your pocket so you can take it to go.. But I do have a plug in Weller when I feel like dragging it out or if it's something I'll be working on for hours..

For solder I like MG Chemicals 96.3% tin, 0.7% copper, 3% silver, but anything that will consume lots of solder it gets 63% Tin, 37% Lead solder..

Theres also rechargeable soldering irons. Not just butane ones.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Lodge on February 16, 2018, 05:57:46 PM
Theres also rechargeable soldering irons. Not just butane ones.

There is but then you have to spend hours recharging the batteries, vs refilling a butane one which only takes like 30 seconds, and I like the pencil tip torch for soldering heavier wires like 10 AWG and for what I paid I can't complain and I only use like one can of butane a year in it..

And those gun style soldering units are good as well you can use thicker wire in place of the tip and make a hot knife to cut out Styrofoam with easy and other then the smell it's much cleaner, and with a little effort you can also use them to install plastic staples and repair broken plastic things.. 
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: lightinglover8902 on February 17, 2018, 09:36:51 AM
@Lightingguy1994. Heres the Weller iron that I have, that is still in it's original packaging, however the packaging did seen better days.

Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Ash on February 17, 2018, 10:38:52 AM
I'm on Butane too - with a Signet iron. But that one is for the times when i'm not soldering at the workbench
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Lightingguy1994 on February 17, 2018, 11:41:13 AM
@Lightingguy1994. Heres the Weller iron that I have, that is still in it's original packaging, however the packaging did seen better days.



Yup mine looks very similar to that
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Mandolin Girl on February 18, 2018, 06:43:25 PM
I've only ever used the electric soldering irons, but a butane one sounds as if it could be a good idea for doing a quick job without the need to set up everything.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: MissRiaElaine on February 18, 2018, 06:49:54 PM
I had a butane one once, don't know what happened to it, but it was useful for quick jobs without having to wait for the electric one to heat up.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: lightinglover8902 on February 18, 2018, 10:26:50 PM
Butane ones are faster at heating up. But induction ones take a minute, once the trigger has pressed.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: tolivac on February 19, 2018, 12:52:09 AM
Used to do soldering a lot---now with the transmitters not many soldered connectors in these-just bolted connectors with huge lugs!
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: funkybulb on February 19, 2018, 01:13:10 AM
My soldering iron is very cheap i call it the poor mans soldering iron. All it is 6 volt lantern battery and two aligator
Clips and 60/ 40 solder and a mechanical pencil lead as my iron. It heats up way faster than any other battery powered iron i ever seen. Plus u can control heat by
Adjusting lenth of pencil lead. I even solder dip package
IC with it  many times. U cant do that with a cold heat iron
That battery power weller yea u have wait 30 sec to heat up. But this take 5 to 10 secs to heat up. Lot time i do this method when do short soldering work. Time it takes my soldering iron heat up do few joints. Let it cool down and put it away. And i am done in 1/3 of time.


Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Lodge on February 19, 2018, 01:22:47 AM
My soldering iron is very cheap i call it the poor mans soldering iron. All it is 6 volt lantern battery and two aligator
Clips and 60/ 40 solder and a mechanical pencil lead as my iron. It heats up way faster than any other battery powered iron i ever seen. Plus u can control heat by
Adjusting lenth of pencil lead. I even solder dip package
IC with it  many times. U cant do that with a cold heat iron
That battery power weller yea u have wait 30 sec to heat up. But this take 5 to 10 secs to heat up. Lot time i do this method when do short soldering work. Time it takes my soldering iron heat up do few joints. Let it cool down and put it away. And i am done in 1/3 of time.




Got a photo of it ? I've seen a diesel engine glow plug being used for this but never a pencil ...
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: funkybulb on February 19, 2018, 01:36:57 AM
If  you took a pencil lead across a 6 or 9 volt battery terminal u can get nice glow. But u dont need a glowing
Lead to melt solder.  So u just clip one lead to bit of solder
And the other lead on pencil about 2 inches for low heat
And shorter lenth to increase the temprature on the pencil
Led.  Also 1 inch number 2 pencil makes  good emergency
Incandescent lighting on 12 volt  battery.  until carbon get consume with air. Carbon is resistive but conductive.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Medved on February 19, 2018, 03:39:34 AM
On butane soldering irons I'm strongly missing some a thermostat function. It does not have to be that much accurate at all, +/-25degC (for max to min gas flow or for the hysteresis thresholds) regulation range should be by far good enough while still possible to make in a simple, pure mechanical form (e.g. a bimetallic thing controlling the gas flow), but the existing ones are very very difficult to set so they have sufficient heating power when using and on the other hand wont overheat when idling for some minute or so. Mainly because the operating position tends to affect the gas flow rate in very unpredictable manner.
I may understand it is not present on the cheapest models, but the expensive ones may have tons of fancy features (integrated ignitor,...) but even a simple thermostat is still missing.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: tolivac on February 20, 2018, 12:57:49 AM
Lamp battery soldering iron-at least with these no worry of induction into circuits as from AC powered soldering irons-interesting idea-would be good in emergencies as well.Some of the solder connections in the transmitters you use the small welding torch or the toolbox butane torch.both work in this situations.We have the small soldering irons and guns in the shop for PC board work.and solder suckers,too.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Ash on February 20, 2018, 10:43:45 PM
Lamp battery soldering iron-at least with these no worry of induction into circuits as from AC powered soldering irons-interesting idea-would be good in emergencies as well.Some of the solder connections in the transmitters you use the small welding torch or the toolbox butane torch.both work in this situations.We have the small soldering irons and guns in the shop for PC board work.and solder suckers,too.
Direct connection of low impedance 6VDC source into the base of some BJT, or to data pin of some IC while its VCC is not powered, and possibly in the reverse polarity, will damage them much more readily than microAmperes of induced current
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: funkybulb on February 20, 2018, 11:04:11 PM
Yes been doing this merhod  for a while and all i am doing is 1 pin at time on Dip IC. If i am n space too tighrt where
I can touch both pins at same time then it going to be a
Problem. And i am soldering some Cmos chips
Even using this method doing one pin at a time
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Ash on February 21, 2018, 03:18:53 AM
Depending on how you solder, you might apply the voltage momentarily between a pin and its PCB pad (while they are not yet connected to each other), closing the circuit through the component, some other pin, and the PCB tracks instead of directly through the pin which you are soldering
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: MissRiaElaine on February 21, 2018, 07:16:16 AM
@Lightingguy1994. Heres the Weller iron that I have, that is still in it's original packaging, however the packaging did seen better days.
They're certainly good irons, but a little OTT for PCB work  :D
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: lightinglover8902 on February 21, 2018, 02:43:31 PM
You have the same one that has a trigger, @MissRiaElaine?
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: MissRiaElaine on February 21, 2018, 03:41:47 PM
You have the same one that has a trigger, @MissRiaElaine?
I did have one a while ago, but not now. I only have a couple of 15W Antex irons, one of which is 12V for use in the car (when I had one..!). I don't do all that much now, when I first got my amateur radio licence I was building all sorts of stuff, but then other things tended to take over, not least of which was resurrecting my lighting collection after many years away from it.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: lightinglover8902 on February 21, 2018, 04:41:25 PM
I didn't know you have a 12v soldering iron. Is it good?  :)
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: MissRiaElaine on February 21, 2018, 05:18:51 PM
I didn't know you have a 12v soldering iron. Is it good? :)
Just the same as a normal one, just a different supply voltage :D
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Mercurylamps on February 22, 2018, 02:17:59 AM
I do soldering when I need to. I have both a butane and regular 240v soldering iron and use whatever is convenient.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: tolivac on February 24, 2018, 01:17:32 AM
Solder guns and Sensitive circuit boards-knew someone that tried using a soldering gun on a board that has COMOS devices-they were blown from the induction effects from the solder gun-there is a VERY strong AC electromagnetic field around the solder gun tip.Have seen warnings NOT to use soldering guns on boards-only pencil type irons with grounded tips-and the tip energized from a LV power supply.
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: Ash on February 24, 2018, 04:58:33 AM
The real problem is most likely unearthed iron and capacitive (or resistive, if isolation is compromised) leakage from 230V line power to the tip

The advantage of LV soldering irons is not as much the LV itself, but the fact that they can be left unearthed without resulting in the same leakage. This means, that the iron does not hard short to Earth everything you touch with it - So it might prevent damage when you handle the board and somehow you are at some potential, or when the board is still energized (something as trivial as a CMOS backup supply battery or charged capacitor in there)
Title: Re: Who here does soldering?
Post by: lightinglover8902 on March 02, 2018, 06:16:48 PM
Guys my tip of my Hakko iron is starting to get some of the residue, and i'am cleaning it with the gold tip cleaner. Should I get a new tip?