Presentation on soldering basics at OzKFest 2015

1. Soldering 101
Matt Jenkins <mdj@emdeejay.net>
Stephen Thomas <stephenquoll@gmail.com>
OzKFest April 2015

2. Soldering - What?
• Joining two pieces of metal with a filler
• Humans have soldered for 5000 years
• Easy when you know how
• Practice is important

3. Soldering - Tools
• Good irons are cheap
• “HotRod” irons bad
• Hakko 936 clone stations good (< $50)
• FX-888 even better (Dave said so!)

4. Soldering - Bad Tools

5. Soldering - Good Tools

6. Soldering - Good Tools

7. Soldering - Prep
• Iron preparation is crucial to good joints
• Cleaning
• Chemical
• Flux wool
• Sponge
• Tinning

8. Soldering - Prep

9. Soldering - Prep

10. Soldering - Prep

11. Soldering - Solder
• Thinner is better
• Lead free just makes casual soldering harder
• Buy quality

12. Soldering - Doing it
• Heat the work, not the solder
• For through hole PCB, place iron against
• The land
• The leg
• Flow solder onto land, making a fillet

13. Soldering - Desolder
• Special tools available
• Not necessary for casual use
• Desoldering braid
• Use Goot or other good brand
• Cheap braid is useless
• Vacuum

14. Soldering - Desolder

15. Soldering - Summary
• Good tools!
• Good technique
• Heat the work, not the solder
• Practice on something you don’t care about