Ask HN: Resources to get good at soldering?

While soldering is not that hard, different tasks require different tools. Most of them can be from very cheap to very expensive. As a beginner I'd recommend the following:

A small USB-C soldering iron supported by IronOS[1], e.g. Pinecil vor TS100

A solid stand with brass wool

A KU soldering tip (looks a bit like a knife) for good heat transfer, too small tips are not good

Thin (<=0.5mm) solder wire

No clean flux (not a pen)

Isopropyl alcohol

Solder fume extractor (DIY is OK, if you're building it right) is good for your health

Solder mat (blue silicone)

Multimeter (not too cheap, around 20 bucks)

Self closing tweezers

Normal tweezers

A wirecutter (blue 5 bucks from ali express)

Manual Desoldering pump (engineer ss03 or a clone for cheaper)

Most important is cleaning (alcohol, then flux) and heat transfer (tin your tip, your pads or your wire before putting things together to ensure good heat transfer). Cleanup nicely and tin your tip after soldering to prevent corrosion.

Optional but helpful for more professional tasks:

Hot air station

Auto Desoldering pump (ZD-8965)

Adjustable power supply (fnirsi usbc, 30 bucks)

Oscilloscope (mini beginner with display Cost around 30 bucks)

Capton tape

Solid Copper wire

1: https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS

You don't need any real educational resources to get good at soldering. Any random primer will do. It's genuinely a simple task that doesn't require a lot of explanation or have a lot of tricks.

What gets you good at soldering is just practice. Solder a lot. A fun and easy way to do this is to pick up those cheap ($5 or less) electronic solder-it-yourself kits and do a bunch of them. Include ones that contain small surface mount parts.

You can also practice desoldering on them, or pick up broken electronics and desolder parts from those.

> managed to desolder and resolder a stick but the controller doesn't turn on anymore.

There's a chance to practice repair (which is a completely different topic from soldering)! Odds are very high the problem is that you've made an unwanted solder bridge or you have a cold solder joint.

I understand that there's always a hesitation to invest in what looks like an expensive and large tool, but if there's one thing that I could go back in time and force myself to get years sooner, it's a stereo microscope.

It's the single largest difference between frustrated and feeling like a ninja. You will, quite simply, never regret it.

I recommend this one: https://www.strangeparts.com/a-boy-and-his-microscope-a-love...

Easy. Get the right tool: https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...

My suggestion is, don't start with difficult soldering jobs. Instead, start with something easy, such as a kit that's intended to teach old school electronic assembly. For instance, something like a guitar pedal. Or, solder to the relatively plump terminals of IC breakout boards before trying to solder the IC's themselves.

I learned soldering by playing around with electric guitars, amps, cables, etc.

Once you're ready to move up to more difficult things such as PCB repair and surface mount, you'll have acquired the basic skills and knack.

At the basic level, all you need is a soldering iron, some solder, and basic hand tools that you already have if you're into tinkering. The rest of the stuff can come later as needed.

Don't overlook taking a community college course. You'll have access to the latest equipment without having to own it.

Look for professional or IPC training videos (e.g. https://youtu.be/b15MMzb_GWw )

Like all practical skills, practice!

Soldering new is easier than repair.

Get some dirt cheap ali express electronic kits and solder them up. Or get a load of components and some strip boards. Lead solder is much easier to use.

Basic antex iron. Stand with sponge...dab of solder on the iron, wipe on sponge, push iron against both board and component, feed in solder, admire.

For repair work, you want scrap boards real boards. Desolder all of the components, put them back.

Practice. Buy the fancier stuff once you know why it might be useful.

If you are going to do much soldering you need some kind of extractor. Flux in solder will cause breathing problems fairly quickly.

If you’re wanting to get really serious, there are certification classes. For example, the “j standard” classes are pretty detailed.

https://www.protoexpress.com/blog/ipc-j-std-001-standard-sol...

There are some open source documents that can help you understand the difference between good and not-so-good work. Eg https://nepp.nasa.gov/docuploads/06AA01BA

The best resource to learn the basics that I have seen is a "comic book" that was made about 15 years back [1].

It goes over the basics and helps you get going. From there I suggest reading posts, watching videos and just talking to people who solder. Find some bare board kits (or your own kits) and assemble them. Soldering, like welding, is one of those things you can learn to do in a day...but it takes experience to get good at it. A lot of what you do is by "feel".

Once you get a hang of it and would like to be able to inspect your own work find a copy of IPC-610A (there are free PDFs online often, otherwise it is expensive). This gives a visual representation of what is a failure or just a process indicator.

edit: Most important. Do not touch the solder to the iron tip. You heat the joint and touch the solder to that. This is the most common newbie mistake you see.

[1]https://mightyohm.com/files/soldercomic/FullSolderComic_EN.p...

1. Use a soldering iron that can hit 400, and use a needle tip

2. Use leaded solder - lead-free is a pain. If you're not doing this for hours every day, even without ventilation, you'll be fine.

3. Heat the pads you're soldering to, not the solder. I used to tell kids to hold the iron to the pad for a count of three, then feed the solder in.

4. Two additional tools I find helpful - a solder sucker and copper wick.

Honestly, just practice with a thing that does not cost a lot of money.

Once you desolder and resolder a full size keyboard multiple times (this is before hot-swap was available), most normal through hole PCB soldering jobs becomes easy.

300C on my TS100 for 63/37 lead (from a cheap brand) for any solder in the past 10 years. No extra flux, clamps or anything, just a wet sponge and an open window (or soldering outside), it sounds very basic but once you know how to solder you can do it anywhere.

For desoldering, a good solder pump will do. If a joint is hard to desolder, add solder and pump it again. You can use solder wick to clean up the hole, or you can just pump it again.

Sure, once you have an actual paying job with disposable income you can get all the nice tools, solder, and all that jazz, but it does not make you better, it just makes it easier.

Though saying that, a Hakko desoldering gun is well worth it - I am still good at using a pump and solder wick, but what a time saver the Hakko is.

I have bought some spare Kester leaded spools in case it gets banned for average the consumer, but nowadays I use lead-free SAC305 solder. It's safer clean-up, the only downside is that it does not look as cool. Also, definitely use an extractor fan for lead-free, the fumes are from lead-free are meant to be way more toxic than leaded - I get a headache from some whiffs compared to many more from leaded soldering (obviously try not to inhale any in the first place!).

most of the youtube videos for soldering are a waste of time as they focus on the rituals of soldering rather than the rationale.

think of soldering as a thermodynamic and metallurgical system to create a solid mechanical/electrical joint - so while welding is a good analogy, it doesn't really give you a good model on what is going on. to get really good at soldering is to get good at understanding the interplay of the factors involved and then predict/manage them.

fundamental to all this is to recognize that the solder is an alloy with eutectic property -- unlike regular metals/alloys, solder doesn't slowly get mushy and then become a molten liquid; instead, at a precise (band) of temp, it just melts, and then when heat is removed/lowered it instantly solidifies. that is why controlling tip temp is critical first step.

second is the thermal mass of the soldering surface; usb/ethernet connectors have higher thermal mass so to achieve eutectic, you need a beefier tip that can deliver, not a thinner tip and holding it longer; higher than normal temps helps here. for smd led, the opposite applies;

third, is the concept of wettability -- thermodynamic affinity between the molten solder and the solid metal pad; to form a perfect bond between the metals, they must be clean and free of oxides, and applying flux reduces these oxides. High wettability means the solder eagerly spreads out and adheres to the surface rather than forming isolated droplets. That's the working principle when drag soldering.

then there is angle of solder tip, fine motor control, etc -- those are easy to come by. I am not a technician, and I was able to drag solder a lqfp64 with not a lot of trouble. of course, i hate school of hard knocks, so i spent time learning about the process first.

Suggested reading: https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Soldering-Guide-Alan-Winstanley...

I've been practicing lately to do A DIY drone build.

This video helped me recently too [1]

Also I take pictures and have Gemini critique, give feedback. It helped me learn about the tips more I didn't realize, after switching my tip from a broader knife one to a chisel one, results way better (for that use cases)

Then I did know I just had to practice and get frustrated and come back, felt like two steps back and one forward, one time I was just suddenly making cold joints left and right. But hours practicing can't be replaced by just reading.

This is more answering the title.

https://youtu.be/GoPT69y98pY?is=JnURRm3pQOarur9P

Lots of good general soldering tips here. If the DualShock 4 PCB is half as complex as the DualSense PCB, good chance you scratched a trace whole removing the sticks. If you can locate the damaged area you can jump it with a bodge wire (think of it like a wood bridge that broke in the middle so you can't walk across, and you make a small path with planks enough for one person to still cross, restoring the connection). Also make sure you didn't introduce a GND short, you may need to cut a trace in 1 or 2 spots in addition to jumping the damaged area if you did. I had a hell of a time getting out the first analog stick on a DualSense and ended up damaging the PCB. A multimeter in continuity mode is a must here for checking that the signal travels the expected path or finding the issue if it doesn't. It is most likely fixable, it was in my case, though it may take you a few days of troubleshooting. Also I would recommend a desoldering gun if you're going to do this a lot, analog sticks are very difficult to remove with just an iron. Often just the tiniest bit of solder clings to the pins in the holes and it won't budge. A hot air station could also work, but these have a tendency to melt all surrounding plastic before the solder and IMO are a last resort.

Look at the traces that go to the stick or that are near that area, look for scratches.

Hi tosmatos,

Please have a look at PACE soldering/desoldering videos on youtube. They are dated but very good in general. You don't need a lot of videos, just the basics. https://paceworldwide.com/video/basic-soldering-lesson-1-sol...

You don't need to spend a lot of money so I'll keep it simple:

Get yourself a few kits of SMD soldering components and practice. Amazon, AliExpress, whatever.

Some notes on technique:

You will be surprised at the tip size that works well - usually slightly larger is actually better, just need to get comfortable with the angle and size.

Have a magnifying lamp or something like that to help you see better.

You should always use alcohol (70-99% IPA) and flux. Clean everything properly, then flux it, then solder it. Then clean after you're done. Have a few flux pens on hand. MG Chemicals sells these things. You can also get the bottle version and some empty bottles with syringes that mount on top.

Using a "shoe" iron tip is nice because you can angle it between the lead of the component (through-hole) and the pad, and this gives you a little entry way for your solder to flow. The flowing, hot solder will then naturally heat up the rest of the pad. This is a thermal mass effect.

The alternative of having the iron tip on one side of the lead, and the solder wire on the other is not bad either. This makes the solder "flow" across the pad, but it does mean you don't get the thermal mass effect of the first approach. You may need to do this in tighter spaces. Regulate temperature wisely.

For through-hole components, most often the hole itself is plated so it is a double-sided pad, give it an extra 0.5-1s for the solder to go to the other side appropriately.

Make sure you have small wire cutters and nose pliers. The nose pliers are very handy when you need to shape the leads of transistors or chips that have 4-5 legs exactly to the through-hole positioning. Not usual, but not uncommon to see staggered layout.

You will make mistakes. You won't know what you are doing because no amount of tutorials can help here. We have all busted boards for various reasons. Just don't electrocute yourself on high voltage capacitor banks.

I learned by doing an 8 hour soldering session, building an open source ECU for an older car. By the end it was easy! Fresh joints in a kit are easier than repair so it’s a better place to start learning temp control etc.

Old day soldering was much more easy. We had lead in the tin. Today leadless tin makes soldeing very hard. Use flux. Enormous amounts of flux

Find some trash and practice removing parts and soldering them back on first.

Not mentioned here yet but the majority of early soldering attempt failures mostly come from crap irons and crap solder not human issues. You need a decent quality temperature controlled iron and decent quality solder, preferably flux cored if you're doing repairs. Here, I have a second hand Metcal iron which cost less than the much recommended Hakko irons and is orders of magnitude better. Solder, I just use thin 60/40 multicore. Avoid the lead free initially until you have some practice.

Watch soldering videos on youtube. Check the comments to make sure people aren't slating their technique.

Removing some parts, like DIP packages really does need specialist irons with vacuum pumps built in to not mangle them. Desolder braid and solder suckers are absolutely no good for that sort of stuff and tend to lift pads.

NAVAIR 01-1A-23

https://www.robins.af.mil/Portals/59/documents/technicalorde...

I was a 2M Mini/Micro repair technician for a few years in the Navy. That book was our school and manual.

Don't hold the iron by the hot end. I taught my children to solder when they were younger and despite telling them they both did it (once).

My late friend Ward was a strong supporter of Build-a-Blinkie[1] and their mission to teach people to solder by doing.

My friend Jim's been soldering since the 1950s. We solder a lot of things with leads, for this, his method is to get each item to be joined tinned, then use solder as a mechanical joint. Melt in the solder, remove the iron but hold them together, then once cool, tug on the joint to make sure it holds.

[1] https://build-a-blinkie.org/events.php

If you need to remove components with many pads, like connectors, it can be daunting without Low Temp Solder Wire. Chip Quik. Btw, I use acetone for cleaning PCBA's, and actually almost every day, and right now, in a professional R&D lab. Residues of soldering wire, after SMT component removal, before new component gets in - it goes away with cotton bud soaked in ace in a few strokes. Never destroyed anything in my whole professional life, 35+ years now, working in consumer and industrial PCBA repair service. Isopropyl works of course, but slowly, and not so clean pcb stays. Depending on the type of soldering wire. I never use lead-free for repairs. During soldering though hole, you need few seconds to heat up the pcb copper and a component lead. They should be on on the same temp for second or two when solder gets melted around. You can even see pad hole capillary sucking melted solder. I've seen young people soldering THT, by shortly touching component pin and and a pcb pad. This looks baad.

My skill went up quite a bit when I started watching Louis Rossmann's explainer videos. He mainly does component level repair of macbooks and he covers his troubleshooting approach and the equipment he uses is nothing you can't replicate at home. I don't bother pulling out microscope for repairs and just stick with magnifying glass.

The US Army Field Manual: https://archive.org/details/TM9-237

Get a job where you’re soldering all day, or doing audio repair or something like that. Embrace the fumes. Sloppily test live equipment. Remove and replace amplifier chips on amp boards 8 hours a day. Any company near you importing large amounts of audio or dj or stage equipment from China will need someone doing repairs and QC.

With the correct tools and materials soldering can be very easy or with the wrong tools very difficult!

There are probably some great videos on soldering on YouTube, luckily it's a mature field so not much has changed!

Some random tips...

Lead solder is easier to work with, but with lead free make sure you are using the right flux and temperature.

It helps to preheat things as much as you can. You want to have a hot pad and hot lead, then add solder to that. As opposed to putting a blob of solder on the iron and trying to apply it like glue.

Too much heat can damage the board or part of course.

Use the right tips. Fatter tips can help more evenly apply heat.

If there is a lot of copper like a ground plane, it can take longer to heat.

Watch for cold joints!

Just overall think about getting the parts you want solder on hot, touch solder to it, remove heat.

Don't eat it!

Helping Hands! Articulating clips on a heavy base, sometimes with a magnifying glass, to help you keep two objects or two parts of an object at some specific angle/distance/etc. so that all you need to worry about is the fumes.

Exhaust fan! Put your station next to a window, both for light and ventilation.

The principle behind a lot of good advice here is “creating the conditions for solder to naturally go where you want it to”. Cleaning, tinning, preheating are all part of creating those conditions.

So the moment you find yourself fighting or forcing the solder, it’s better to step back and create the right conditions.

I'll also echo the "practice kit" thing, especially for desoldering- solder stuff on, take it off, do it agin.

Also, good tools and supplies- kester solder and liquid flux.

It took me quite a while to figure out that my preferences are for desoldering braid that's been soaked with liquid flux- if I use a manual pump it's going to be rough. I am hoping to get a hot air station at some point but I haven't been doing enough work to justify it over my ancient hakko.

The biggest thing for me was just being brave enough to go for it and give it a try, and then learning how to undo your mistakes. Re-do things you’re not happy with with braid, reflow things with flux, etc. I’ve torn vias out of old valuable boards doing restoration, and I learned trace repair and fixed it.

The only way of doing less mistakes with expencive boards is doing more mistakes with crap boards. Soldering literature suggests that a repair man should not do anything except repairing some electronics.

Probably your board has some uncleaned flux which makes some parasitic capacitance which make your board feel dead. Also expencive boards typically have some easy to break signalizers that someone not skilled was here. Visual control is a king.

Build a keyboard. By the end you should be well aware with soldering (and how to remove parts that you put on the wrong side of the PCB).

You might want to try this: https://appliedinspirations.com

Get a soldering practice kit. If you're doing surface mount, get a SMD one. For next level practice, checkout azonenberg's rework challenge: https://github.com/azonenberg/reworkctf. He also has some YouTube video about it.

You can buy a whole lot of practise kits on Amazon. Start with push-through components and move on to surface-mount if you fancy that.

I'd recommend checking out one of the many youtube channels who do repairs for an idea of the tools and stuff you need. Many have links and most use similar tools.

For $300 in tools from AliExpress you can have a pretty complete setup.

Avoid the Hakko FX-888D soldering station. This device has one of the most bizarrely obtuse interfaces I have encountered in ages, seemingly designed to make basic adjustments as difficult as possible, and to encourage accidental decalibration of its temperature settings with no indication to the user that it has happened. I wish I had returned mine while I had the chance.

If you live near a makerspace / hackerspace, I would definitely recommend doing projects there. Mine has a weekly electronics projects and repair night with free access. This has two main benefits:

1. Access to a bunch of different equipment without breaking the bank. Want to try out a bunch of different kinds of flux? See what kind of de-soldering tools are good for different tasks? Now you can!

2. Access to expertise and moral support. Trying to do everything by yourself is no fun. A YouTube video can be helpful but it's no substitute for a knowledgeable friend or more experienced mentor.

I recently did an RTC battery substitution on my Framework laptop's mainboard, and I could do it with confidence because I had good tools and people to consult at my makerspace.

Here’s a great series from Pace Electronics from 1980:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837&si=srD8...

I have not found a modern resource that explains it better.

For me, as there are so many "variables" when soldering, the most difficult thing is knowing what's wrong.

For example, you end up with a poor soldering. You try again, and again, but it doesn't get better. Maybe only worse. But what was wrong?

- Was the temperature OK? (And is my iron reporting the real temperature? Should I spend another 300 bucks in a soldering tip thermometer?)

- Maybe the solder I bought is not appropriate?

- Was it the flux? Did I apply it correctly?

- Also, is this tip the best one for the job? Besides, I could have damaged it before when trying to solder and it's not good anymore, although looks good to me

- Or my technique isn't good enough. Am I drag soldering this right? Maybe I should apply heat for longer? But what if I damage the component?

The main insight you need to have:

The things you want to solder need to be at a minimum temperature for the solder to properly flow.

Parts with a lot of metal attached to it will need more time to get hot. Most notorious are pads connected to a large (ground) plane.

If the solder does not flow properly because of this, increase the time of contact between your soldering iron and the items, add a small amount of solder to the tip to increase contact area. Or use a heat gun in your other hand or a preheater. Or buy a soldering iron with more power.

Flux will help too.

Use a fan to draw the fumes away from you, at a minimum. If you do this on a daily basis, get a fume extractor.

There are many more tips on the internet. The first thing I mentioned is the most important one, imho.

MG chemicals liquid rosin with a needle applicator should be an excellent upgrade from what you’re used to.

Get a ts101

It makes me look like i know what I’m doing

This gives me flashbacks to the last time I tried to replace the microswitches in my mouse...

After I finished, the right click felt like it was 'glued down' or 'stuck'...

I never heard the click sound again...

Yep, it was broken.

I've decided never to solder anything ever again...

But good luck to you!

Two tips I learned from Sorin's yt channel:

- Bend the tips

- Don't buy an expensive iron, use a cheap one and assist it with a hot air gun

Sorin is incredibly skilled. Here he is fixing a ribbon cable:

https://youtu.be/P81IG0DZ1kg?t=494