Soldering best practices

[taybrynn]

I solder in a room on a bare concrete floor with a hardboard tabletop ... in my mini man cave under the stairs.  There is very little static there and nothing metallic in the room.  I do ground myself on the adjacent door hinges, just to be safe.  No fleece allowed -- lol.  This year, I'm adding internet radio down there as I have no idea how I spent that much time in silence last year.

[chrisatpsu]

I rub a balloon for about 15min until my hair stands up nice and tall, then I grab all the parts from the kits out of the esd bags...   

[taybrynn]

   LOL !!!  -- thats good

[RJ]

You bunch of wussies!

I solder with a soldering gun in on hand and a Van de Graaff generator in the other wearing wool socks and running with sharp objects around a concrete swimming pool only 5 minutes after eating and with no floaties on!

Get with the program!!

RJ 

[smeighan]

I rub a balloon for about 15min until my hair stands up nice and tall, then I grab all the parts from the kits out of the esd bags...   

Is this so you can create a spark-i-nator 5000?

[rimist]

You bunch of wussies!

I solder with a soldering gun in on hand and a Van de Graaff generator in the other wearing wool socks and running with sharp objects around a concrete swimming pool only 5 minutes after eating and with no floaties on!

Get with the program!!

RJ

I can do you one better... I used my thumb to push back down on a half inch piece of wood that popped up while using my table saw without a blade guard. I only wish I was making it up. Luckily, I only shaved about an eighth inch of skin and nail off the corner of my thumb.

-Rimist (via Tapatalk)

[tbone321]

Blade guard   What's a blade guard?

[Night Owl]

I don't use an anti-static strap either.  But it's so humid, there isn't really a problem with static.  I have a $22 adjustable pencil iron from Adafruit that has worked well for me.  Although I am seriously considering a Hakko FX-888.  Best soldering accessory I have is a brass sponge tip cleaner.  Cleans the tip without dropping the temperature like a wet sponge will. 

     

[pk]

Ditto on the brass sponge... I picked one up at the Dollar Store.

Another handy thing is a fan to draw the fumes away from you so you don't breathe them.

I recall when I went to soldering classes to get certified, the instructor said it should take 5 seconds to make a connection - from the time you touch the iron on the joint to the time you remove the iron.  Does anyone else remember this?

[RJ]

Time is dependant on a lot of things, he likely said it should not take more than 5 seconds, this is a old rule of thumb to keep people from over heating items. If it takes more than 5 seconds you are on the part too long and should let it cool and see why it is taking so long to heat the joint.

RJ

[smeighan]

One other question.

I have a Hakko FX-888 soldering station with a 1.6D tip.

What temperature do you set your solder irons?

I was thinking it would be around 400C?

Thanks

[pk]

I set mine at 340C to 350C.  When I solder the center pins of the triacs on the Express (they are thermally connected to the heatsink.  I crank the temp to 400-420C.  You mentioned you had experience soldering years ago...  it will come back to you.

[smeighan]

I set mine at 340C to 350C.  When I solder the center pins of the triacs on the Express (they are thermally connected to the heatsink.  I crank the temp to 400-420C.  You mentioned you had experience soldering years ago...  it will come back to you.

1971 to 1975. I do expect to remember, but almost 40 years.

I remember the scariest thing at Hughes was when they testedt the wiring harnesses for the F-14. They called the station the Hi-Pot for High potential. I thin it was 1-2000 volts. If there were any weak spots in the harness there was a sound like an explosion and the system shut itself off.

The harness was toast, better there than in the airplane.

I also remember the wave solder machine. 3'x5'. we used it to fixe the backplanes of HP 2100 and 21mx computers. That was an 8 layer board and there would be bad joints say between layer 2 and 6.


those were the days ...