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The EPE Online Basic Soldering Guide

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Soldering is a delicate manual skill which only comes with practice. Remember that your ability to solder effectively will determine directly how well the prototype or product functions during its
lifespan. Poor soldering can be an expensive business - causing product failure and downtime, engineer's maintenance time and customer dissatisfaction. At hobbyist level, bad soldering technique can be a cause of major disappointment which damages your confidence. It needn't be like that: soldering is really easy to learn, and like learning to ride a bike, once mastered is never forgotten! These ten photos illustrate the basic steps in making a perfect solder joint on a PCB. If you're a beginner, our advice is that it's best to practice your soldering technique using some clean, new parts with perhaps some new stripboard (protoboard). Be sure to avoid using old, dirty parts; these can be difficult if not impossible to solder.

Enjoy! -- Alan Winstanley.
Your board must be clean before you start Boards must be clean to begin with, especially if they're not previously "tinned" with solder. Clean the copper tracks using e.g. an abrasive rubber block.
Clean the iron "bit" (tip) using a damp sponge. The iron featured here is an Ungar Concept 2100 Soldering Station. Clean the tip of the soldering iron
A useful product is Tip Tinner Cleaner A useful product is Multicore's Tip Tinner Cleaner (TTC) - a 15 gramme tin of special paste which cleans and "tins" the iron, in one go.
Insert the components and splay the leads so that the part is held in place. Insert the components and splay the leads
You may cut the wires before soldering It's usually best to snip the wires to length prior to soldering. This helps prevent transmitting mechanical shocks to the copper foil.
Apply a clean iron tip to the copper and the lead, in order to heat both items at the same time. Apply the iron to the joint
Apply the solder to the joint, not to the iron Continue heating and apply a few millimetres of solder. Remove the iron and allow the solder joint to cool naturally.
It only takes a second or two, to make the perfect joint, which should be nice and shiny. Check the Guide for troubleshooting help. A perfect joint should be nice and shiny
This is an example of a dry joint An example of a "dry" joint - the solder failed to flow, and instead beaded to form globules around the wire.
"Solder Wick" is a cheap and very effective way of desoldering a joint. Take care not to overheat the board. Alternatively, use a desoldering pump.

Solder Wick is a good way to desolder a joint
All photos are Copyright © Alan Winstanley 1997. You may download them for personal use, or for training or educational purposes only. They may not be used on a commercial or sponsored web site without the prior permission of the author (conditions apply). If you wish to use these pictures for any commercial reasons, e.g. to enhance any commercial product, enframe in any external commercial web site or apply for any other commercial use, you must seek the author's prior approval first (email Alan Winstanley at ). Please enquire if you have similar macro photography assignments you would like to be undertaken.

For any interested photographers: the photographs were taken by the author using a Minolta X-700 SLR with 50mm Minolta MC manual-focus macro lens at f11-16, coupled to a Minolta Auto 80PX macro ring flash gun. Film was Kodak Gold 200.
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