Soldering: This Is What Professionals Do

Are you an Engineer?

Are you an Electrician or just a hobbyist who loves to repair their electronics or build one?

You would come across a technique called as “soldering” in your life, and here is a video that will help you SOLDERING the professional way.

1.Solder Iron / Solder station.

an electrical tool used for melting solder and applying it to metals that are to be joined.

( the most important tool)

2.Solder (filler Metal)

solder wire is an alloy for joining two metal surfaces by melting the alloy so that it forms a thin layer between the surfaces. Soft solders are alloys of lead and tin; brazing solders are alloys of copper and zinc something that joins things together firmly

solder comes in many types, but here, we will use flux core solder wire.

3.flux

a flux is a chemical cleaning agent, flowing agent, or purifying agent. Fluxes may have more than one function at a time. They are used in both extractive metallurgy and metal joining.

here, in soldering, we use flux to ensure oxidized free solder joint.

4.Sponge(wet)

sponge is a soft substance that is full of small holes and can absorb a lot of liquid, and is used

for washing and cleaning.

we will use this to clean the solder bit

5.Solder Stand

it is used to hold the hot solder iron.

6.Tweezers.

tweezers is a small instrument like a pair of pincers used to pick up small objects.

7.De-Solder braid

De-soldering braid, also known as de-soldering wick or solder wick, is finely braided 18 to 42 AWGcopper wire coated with rosin flux, usually supplied on a roll, used to remove excessive solder or remove components from a pcb

8.Helping Hand (optional)

tool used to hold components or connections in place over a workbench.

9. Fumes Extractor (optional)

used to radiate the unwanted harmful solder fumes away from the operator.

When soldering a wire,

First of all,

Heat the Solder Iron or set your Solder Station to around 350°C.

For simply soldering two wires, I would use a K type Solder Bit.

1. Strip around 10 mm of insulation on both ends.

2. Twist the wires in either this way or that ways, shown in pictures.

3. Apply a little flux.

4. Touch the iron tip to the wire and not the solder wire, and now cover the entire wire using filler metal, i.e. solder wire, by gently pushing the wire, to completely cover the joint.

5. Also clean the joint using rubbing alcohol, to remove any residue flux.

To soldering components on a General purpose board, or a PCB, first Heat your solder iron or station. Again,using type k solder bit.

1. Push your components into appropriate allocation as required by schematic.

2. Now, place the tip of the bit on the lead of the component near the solder pad and push the solder wire gently till the entire terminal is covered with metal forming a conical or circular shape.

3. Use flux if required, you can avoid this step, if you use flux core solder wire.

4. Now, let’s clean the terminal using rubbing alcohol, to remove any residue flux.

Now, SMD Soldering is a completely Different Technique, as the size of components is remarkably small, and components have to be mounted on the surface of PCB directly, this job can be done by machines pretty accurately.

There are different ways to solder SMD components, but we will do this job using our solder iron.

A. Two Terminal Components ( like Resistors, Capacitors, Etc)

1. Heat your solder iron / set Your Solder Station to 350°C to 390°C depending on component. Here I am using a type C solder bit, which is fine conical tip.

2. First, apply a little flux and solder to the solder pad on PCB.

3. Now, bring the component using the tweezers on the solder pad, heat on terminal of solder pad, and let it cool naturally, over one of the terminal on component

4. Then, heat the other solder pad, and you will observe that the component gets attached in place.

5. If there is a slight disorientation, heat both the solder pads simultaneously, the component will sit right in place.

6. Clean the terminal using rubbing alcohol, to remove any residue flux.

2. Multi Terminal Components ( like IC)

1. First, apply a little flux and solder to the solder pad on PCB.

2. Now, bring the component using the tweezers on the solder pad

3. Bridge all the sides of IC on the solder pad.( basically Short Circuit)

5. Now, use the de-solder Copper Wick and remove the excessive solder from the terminals, using a little flux.

6. Reheat each terminal to make sure the connection is properly done on each pad.

7. To remove any short circuit, use the de-solder wick.

8. Clean the terminal using rubbing alcohol, to remove any residue flux.