Guide to Successful Soldering

Using your soldering iron for the first time.

Here’s the proper procedure before beginning to solder.

-Place the soldering iron in its stand and plug in.  The iron will take a few minutes to reach its operating temperature of about 400°C.

-Dampen the sponge in the stand.  The best way to do this is to lift it out the -stand and hold it under a cold tap for a moment, then squeeze to remove excess water. It should be damp, not dripping wet.

-Wait a few minutes for the soldering iron to warm up.  You can check if it is ready by trying to melt a little solder on the tip.

-Wipe the tip of the iron on the damp sponge.  This will clean the tip.

-Melt a little solder on the tip of the iron.  This is called 'tinning' and it will help the heat to flow from the iron's tip to the joint. It only needs to be done when you plug in the iron, and occasionally while soldering if you need to wipe the tip clean on the sponge

Making a soldering joint.

You will be mainly working with stranded wire, which are many little wires that act like one bigger wire.  This lets the wires flex many, many times without breaking.  Each type of joint is joined very similarly.  One thing that is always done first before you solder the wires together is stripping.  This removes the outer plastic coating to show the bare wire.  Now clean the wires from any dirt or grease that may be on it.  If you are splicing, connecting, two or more wires together, first you must strip the wires, then spread out all the little wires.  Now take both wires and push them into each other.  Now twist them together.  After you twist them together make sure you don’t have any little wires poking out, this may screw up your soldering joint.  Here’s a picture showing this.

Now when that is done, you get to put solder on your joint; finally!  The proper way to do this is to heat up your joint first.  Do this by placing the tip there for a few seconds.  Now feed some solder on the joint, not the iron; but not too much, just enough to cover it.  Now remove the solder and soldering iron. Let it sit for a couple seconds to harden up.

To know if you made a successful joint it should be nice and shiny.  Also give it a slight tug to see if it holds.  Now as the last step take some electrical tape, hot glue and cover the joint you made.  You can also use heat shrink tubing, but this has to be put on before the wires are twisted together.

Now if you are soldering onto a PCB, (breadboard, or stripboard) it is a bit different.  First you must heat up the component lead and the track for a few seconds.  Next feed solder onto the joint.  This will use less solder then connecting wires together will, much less.  Let it sit for a couple seconds to harden and look at it.  It should still be nice and shiny, but it should be cone, or volcano shaped.  Now snip any excess wire off, not the solder though. Here’s a picture that shows most of this.

Troubleshooting

-Solder won't "take" - grease or dirt present - desolder and clean up the parts.

-Joint is grainy-looking - has been moved before being allowed to cool, or joint was not heated adequately - too small an iron/too large a joint.

-Solder joint forms a "spike" - probably overheated, burning away the flux