Adafruit my beloved
this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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Highly recommend taking an IPC Cert course if you are able!
Do I just search my local community college for "IPC"? Or look somewhere else?
They make an entire guide now just to insult me with their last word, hmpf!
Don't sell yourself short!
Utilize Flux and alcohol. Clean with alcohol utilizing a wipe-clean-wipe method. After soldering with Flux, clean off residual Flux with alcohol. Leaving Flux can promote corrosion. My phone keeps autocorrecting Flux to capitalize it, and I don't care enough to fix it. 🤷♂️
Fun fact, the only way you are getting > 96.2% alcohol is with a molecular sieve and some other random wack shizzle.
Don't drink more than 96%. It's not natural. It's also poisonous.
I couldn't remember what the standard industrial solution was. All I could remember is that it's impossible to have 100% because water is introduced to the solution the moment it's exposed to air.
It's not impossible, just difficult. Depending on how water free you actually need the result do be, you might be able to get away with just a dehumidifier. If that is not good enough, you can put your entire purification process in a box and flood it with an inrert gas like argon or nitrogen. Storing this is not that difficult, but you need to be sure you are in a moisture free environment whenever you open the container.
Another interesting difficulty is you cannot direct distil it to beyond around 90%, because at that concetration water and isopropyl has the same boiling point. So, you need to mix in another chemical like benzene to distill out the water, then you can distill out the addidive as a second step.
One tip that isn't mentioned is DITCH THE CONICAL TIP, USE A CHISEL TIP.
Conical tips have terrible thermal contact, as they have both poor surface area in contact. Also the tip is further from the heating element, preventing it from heating faster.
Additionally that tiny point doesn't store any heat, it cools down significantly as soon as it touches anything. A broad chisel tip stores more heat and is far more appropriate for through hole joints like this.
conicals are good for the small smd parts though, when having a huge contact area and big thermal mass means completely desoldering the part and dragging it off the board when you pull away.
of course, those aren't the conicals on a $20 orange handle plug in iron...
I use a j tip for fine SMD. You still have a fine point but you also have a broad elbow good for drag soldering and other larger components.
Great, now I can blame my past shitty soldering job to the tips!
In all seriousness, thanks for the tips!
I'll give you the tip. But only the tip >:|
This works great if everything is fresh and new, now post a guide about cleaning up/redoing 20 year old solder without burning a hole in the board 😅
That solder wick stuff makes me want to rage
Add generous amount of flux and fresh solder to it
Clean everything with a board cleaner/alcohol.
Use a heat gun for the stubborn things.
Solder wick is fine, but if it's a through hole on a ground plane your going to be there a really long time.
Use the least amount of heat you can get away with.
Sometimes adding fresh solder on top of the old solder helps the heat spread so you can use the wick more effectively.
Constantly use fresh wick, and it it's really stubborn dip your wick in extra flux.
Desoldering guns are awesome, but a little spendy.
I've done the rgb mod for an old NES. The PPU is on a big ground plane and just impossible to get off using a wick. Or you can, but now you've put so much heat into the chip that you fried it. Need a heat gun or hot plate.
Playstation SD card mod is easier than hand desoldering the NES PPU, and it involves scraping away very thin traces and soldering to them.
Massive Ground planes on a multi layer board were my breaking point.
I tried to clean the through holes where a micro USB port was secured and only could get it cleared by drilling out the solder.... (Only had a soldering iron and wick available)
Adding fresh solder can also help if it's leaded / flux cored and the existing solder isn't
What are the ideal iron temps for your typical solder? I have an old Weller system and I feel like my results are way too inconsistent.
As mentioned, you need the pad to be hot for the solder to wick onto it. There is missing info in step 1. Step 1 should say to have a slightly wet iron (solder on the iron). You used this molten solder as the heat transfer medium. Hold the iron so the wet solder on it is touching the pad and lead. This gives more surface area for the heat to travel from the iron to the pad. A dry iron touching a pad will have poor thermal connection, so the pad will take a long time to heat up.
I think an apt comparison is touching hot stuff with a wet glove. With a dry glove, the heat has to conduct through the fabric before heating your hand. With a wet glove, the heat is conducting through the water and burning your hand. The solder, like the water in the wet glove, is a bridge for the iron to transfer heat efficiently to the pad.
I think a lot of hobby soldering guides really neglect the idea of heat transfer and thermal mass.
Have you tried eutectic solder? (63/37 tin/lead)
Probably because it is a "dumb iron" with no thermal control. As soon as it touches anything it cools way down. Nowadays fortunately, cartridge tip irons are cheap if you're willing to buy from China. Cartridge tips have the heating element and temp probe built directly into the tip, heat up and adjust extremely fast to thermal loads.
Check the documentation for your soldering station, if your soldering station doesn't have any documentation you can go with the melting point of the solder itself plus some overhead.
But as illustrated below, it can get a little complicated, if you're doing a lot of soldering with the same solder you'll experiment and figure out what's good for you
Ideally you want to use the lowest temperature you can get away with, using too much temperature can potentially shorten the lifespan of your soldering tips, and potentially damage the printed circuit board.
https://kb.hakkousa.com/KnowledgebaseArticle10297.aspx
lets look at the melting points of common solders:
- Tin/Lead (Sn63/Pb37) - 183°C
- SAC 305 (Sn/Ag3.0/Cu0.5) - 220°C
- SN100 (Sn) - 232°C
Now let's add the 50°C we need for making a good soldering connection:
- Tin/Lead: 183°C + 50°C = 233°C
- SAC 305: 220°C + 50°C = 270°C
- SN100: 232°C + 50°C = 282°C
We now need to consider the type of soldering station we are using......Soldering Station which has very good performance, we should add approximately 100°C as the heat reserve for quick thermal recovery. The resulting temperature settings are:
- Tin/Lead: 233°C + 100°C = 333°C
- SAC 305: 270°C + 100°C = 370°C
- SN100: 282°C + 100°C = 382°C
350°C has been my sweet spot with my hakko soldering station
the 888 dial set to 12-o-clock or one-o-clock lol
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