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.
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Finally... cleaning. Back in the day I learned to use a wet sponge, but this metal wool method is much better.
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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.
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This is WAY harder than I remember it being 20y ago.
Plus eyesight really sucks for such fine work now. Even with magnifying glass and reading glasses.
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Ok, much to report. I really leveled up my soldering game today 😎. First up, let’s try this tip tinner stuff. It’s a hard-packed powder… but it works! Stabbing tip in was hard but I kinda just rolled the tip and it it tinned it better than I can.
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Next up. Leaded vs. unleaded. I started with Wtctin unleaded and it was really hard, so I bought Wyctin unleaded to try. Then on reco, bought Kester in leaded and unleaded pen form factor. Latter is the test subject.
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For the test, I actually have a thing to do. Ordered some battery holders and one a set of with a broken lead. Let’s repair it with a butt join.
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Whoa leaded worked beautifully! MUCH easier than unleaded. Wicks nicely.
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Tried unleaded too (also Kester) and it didn’t work at all. Wouldn’t melt except if directly touched to tip. I ended up just using leaded for this second join. The A-B test turned into an A-A test. I thought my temperature (750) was high enough for both. 🤔
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Now let’s check out this solder wick stuff.
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Again I have an actual task. I ripped leads of this motor accidentally. There are still solder globs left that I need to remove to add new leads.
First attempt… I… errr… soldered the wick onto the glob 😳. Wick gets hit btw. It looks like copper strands loosely woven with fiber. It wicks but also sticks.
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Let’s melt the glob and get wick off… back to square one with slightly deformed glob.
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Take 2: it worked. Trick is to hold object in place and pull the wick the moment it’s done wicking. Yay. Now we have a motor with holes in tabs visible.
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Gonna use 22 awg solid core leads because that allows other bare end to snap neatly into breadboard holes. No need to crimp on a pin. Any time you can avoid crimping you should.
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First attempt bad. Hole still visible and lead is insecure. Added more globbiness to fill it.
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Other lead went easier. I’m using leaded all the way btw. No video of active work since I don’t have separate camera set up and am using phone.
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Snip excess lead wire and add a zip tie for strain relief (the leads broke because I was doing an experiment with sloppy workholding). So long as I don’t run the motor too hot it should be fine.
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Test passes
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Next up. Another motor repair job, tougher. Remember how in first soldering attempt I managed to rip the tab off? Gonna try salvaging that motor.
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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.
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The problem is: what’s left of the copper tab is under some plastic tab. My idea is to just use a solder blob itself as a tab and hope enough gets under plastic to form a connection.
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First attempt didn’t work. Plastic melted a bit and solder beaded up. It doesn’t bond to plastic maybe? No picture to show since only 2 hands.
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Brainwave! Since wick was sticking to the tab last time, maybe that can be a feature here! Idea is maybe solder-soaked wick will bind to both lead wire and plastic housing AND maybe deep under plastic tab and make contact. Put some wick under wire and try to glob up both!
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Result: I got a physical join after a couple of false starts. But is there electrical contact??
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Holy crap it worked! I’m a genius!
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Solder on other lead and we’re done. *Looks around smugly, super-impressed with himself*
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Okay, last solder experiment of the day. Let’s try leaded on a pcb. With some of the new 24 awg solid core I bought. Result: beautiful. Far better than the older lead-free soldering I did on same board.
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(top row is old lead-free, bottom row is new ones with leaded… night and day)
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Final task for the day: test out the heat gun and shrink tubes I bought. This I’ve done before… in 1998.
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Let’s add a heat shrink to the battery holder lead I fixed earlier. Slide it on, grab gun…
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And… it just worked. No story here. I have a nicely fixed batter holder now.
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Let’s wrap for today with a clean-up note. I’ve really learned to appreciate the value of leaving a workshop as clean as you can for next time. Silicone mat is a mess after all that genius work. But I have discovered an easy genius clean-up hack: a bit of tape!
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Voila!
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On the menu for next time: trying to solder leads onto male JST connectors. These are designed for board-to-wire boardside, not wire-to-wire, so you have to solder on rather than crimp on.
Also: try these solder-seal connectors that can be done with a heat gun.
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Fixed a charger for the halo strap that got chewed up by cat. Had to cut away chewed up part, strip the two coax conductors and solder them. Worst job ever but it does work again. I ended up twisting ends together pointed the same direction. It was too hard to do a butt join.
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For extra credit fixed chewed up MacBook charger too. Cats are a menace. They almost cost more in chewed up cords and cables than food.
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I’m unbelievably bad at soldering
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