Conversation

Screwed up badly attempting to solder leads onto a motor. Ended up ripping the delicate copper lead off because I couldn’t quite figure out how to do it quickly with a light touch. 😢 Setting this aside for now. This is advanced green belt stuff. I’m still yellow belt.
Image
2
6
Latest: tried soldering parts onto a perfboard. This was easier than the motor but harder than wire joins. They tell you to heat the joint first for a couple of seconds before adding the solder. Easier said than fine. These are bad joints but at least I didn’t damage parts.
Image
Image
1
1
Initially I was bad at cleaning and running the tip. Either I’d end up with tiny beads on the tip, or a large blob.
Embedded video
0:08
369 views
1
2
But I’ve discovered tinning the tip is not optional. Heat transfer is nearly non-existent if you don’t. Here’s crappy current state after post-session tinning.
Image
1
1
I think the trick is to let the tinning blob flow around and down the cone/chisel tip? Dunno. Definitely not like applying paint. More like trying to get a drop of water to coat an oily toothpick tip. To be investigated further 🧐
3
1
Flux is shady stuff. It does allow solder to wet metal better but is a mess to apply and creates liquid goopy conditions at joint 😡. The solder is rosin-core so can kinda work without flux, but I wanna master flux use. It’s hard to apply. I use a q-tip.
4
2
Next: 1. Try leaded solder 2. Learn wicking 3. Figure out how to connect adjacent holes in perfboard with a bit of solder. Or do I have to put 2+ leads into single hole? 🤔 4. More tinning-the-tip practice. 5. Try motor leads again Next level: build actual circuit.
8
7