The Basic Soldering Guide
by Alan Winstanley
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 photos illustrate the basic steps in making a perfect solder joint on a p.c.b. 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.
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(1) Printed circuit board copper tracks must be clean to begin with, especially if they’re not previously “tinned” with solder. Clean any raw p.c.b. copper tracks gently with e.g. an abrasive rubber block available from electronics suppliers. |
(2) Clean the iron “bit” (soldering iron tip) using a damp sponge. The soldering iron featured is an Ungar Concept 2100 Soldering Station. |
(3) A useful product is Multicore’s Tip Tinner Cleaner (TTC) – a 15 gramme tin of special paste which cleans and “tins” the soldering iron iron, in one go. New tips must be tinned immediately when used for the first time. |
(4) Insert components and splay the leads so that the part is held in place. |
(5) It’s usually best to snip the electronic component wires to length prior to soldering. This helps prevent transmitting mechanical shocks to the copper foil. |
(6) Apply a clean soldering iron tip to the copper solder pad and the component lead, in order to heat both items at the same time. |
(7) Continue heating and apply a few millimetres of solder. Remove the iron and allow the solder joint to cool naturally. |
(8) It only takes a second or two, to make the perfect joint, which should be nice and shiny. Check the Guide for troubleshooting help. |
(9) An example of a “dry” or “gray” soller joint – the solder failed to flow, and instead beaded to form globules around the wire. |
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