How to solder?

[sandman001]

Go for as thin of wire as possible, I used 30Ga and it almost seemed too big.

 

[ToolBox]

as quoted in my earlier post: "one more tip, i usually use the flat side of the tip to heat the wire to be soldered, and it seems to melt and flow the solder into the wire, and to the iron. many folks use only the very tip, and that's fine if it's a tiny spot you plan to solder, but for wires, i use one of the flat sides of the iron tip."

Its really hard to solder it on a little controller leg not using the tip. If the tip can't heat it, then I risk overheating (applying heat to long) or slipping and applying heat to the wrong leg.

I'll get some more practice and worry about this when the real vmodd time comes. Anyways, I got some self tinning stuff form radioshack. IT seems simple, heat up, dip in this stuff and then wipe on spunge. Does it work very well?

 

[madsam]

i agree, soldering smaller items could be a task. the only thing i can think of at this point, is to use thin solder, thin wire, and be sure there isn't much air movement at the time you try to solder.....and hopefully the room temp isn't too cold either.

usually it takes a bit longer to melt solder on the tip of the iron, as compared to the sides, but i now understand the side is too big, and too wide to do a neat job on your specific application.

i can't place the problem...i can only wonder why yours doesn't seem to get hot enough to do this job. either the room is too cool, or the iron isn't powerful enough, or something. this solder should melt easily with the tip of the iron. i can only assume at this point...maybe your solder isn't thin enough?

one thing for sure, you'll want to be patient til we can figure out what isn't working for you......... you don't want to melt the solder and drip it in place,.....that'll only cause problems.

i'm going to say good luck for now....but, i will continue to try to figure out why this isn't working for you.

is it possible the tip isn't screwed in securely? a bad connection could result in a cooler iron... too bad we don't know the actual temp of the iron......when i soldered on my job, we used expensive soldering irons that had a temp selector, which went from the low 700's to around 800 degrees....... we usually set it to 750...i think..... anyways, i am suspecting there is some reason your iron isn't getting hot enough for you.... i soldered a lot in my time, and it seriously bugs me that i can't get you up and running.......lol

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

If you're attempting to solder something attached to a multilayer PCB (like a motherboard), it's probably dissipating the heat from the iron too fast. My 45 watter seems to do ok with multilayer boards, but sometimes has difficulty. My 25 watt iron doesn't go near multilayer boards - doesn't have the power to do them.

I'd love to have a good temperature control solder station, but I get by with what I have

Incidentally the 45w iron is a 15 year old Radio Shack - goes through tips like I go through Dr Pepper, but otherwise works quite well. It was the most expensive one they had, and I'm not sure their newer ones are as good.