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What things am I a dumbass about?
(lemmy.nz)
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this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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For microsoldering: you want the quick 861dw or one of the knockoffs and a bunch of tips. Sometimes you can get away without a microscope but usually you need one of those too. You need a swing arm mount for it because you often won’t be able to position your board under the objective of a tabletop mount.
You 100% cannot get away without a fume extractor. You’re gonna need low melt solder and flux, so you also need to be wearing disposable gloves.
You need a board holder because once all the solder in the area is liquified you don’t want the heavier parts sliding off the board because it’s propped up on a piece of wood at a ten degree angle.
If you wanna extend the amount of work you can do with just a decent iron: use flux and low melt to get everything on your usbc liquid at the same time so you can lift it off the board.
I found that using a soldering iron to be unweildy, which could either be a bad iron or my poor skills. I was thinking of maybe investing in future for one of those hakko hot air rework stations and see if it is any easier. Right now that's on hold, but totally something I want to try in the future, maybe as a hobby.
Start with the hakko 888 or the weller equivalent. Learn how to solder big stuff first like tinning wires without burning up the insulation, big through hole joints according to the nasa guidelines, bell splices etc. it’s easier to see and judge how things are going with big stuff because you can see it better.
Use different tips to see what they do.
Remember that soldering is just brazing. You’re joining two metals by introducing a third.
Don’t start with a project you want to finish, just join a bunch of junk together, pull parts you don’t care about from old circuit boards and put different parts in their place.
Make little sculptures out of your trash.
Cheat with different kinds of flux till you don’t need to anymore.
Do the same things with smd parts.
It takes a long time to get good at soldering and no matter what anyone says you can’t just jump past the iron to hot air.
I mean, it’s possible. You’ll just never be able to fix mistakes or bridges you make with the hot air.