EEVblog #180 - Soldering Tutorial Part 1 - Tools

hi welcome to the EEV blog and electronics engineering video blog of interest to anyone involved in electronics design I'm your host Dave Jones hi ever since day one by far the most requested thing I get asked is Dave can you do a blog a soldering alright here we go everything you need to know about basic soldering let's go now good solder and technique contrary to popular belief is not hard in fact it's incredibly easy it doesn't take years and years of practice to get good at soldering if you've got the right tools and you know the very simple basic techniques good quality soldering is a piece of cake anyone can do it straight up not a problem in fact it's actually incredibly difficult to solder badly so let's start out with the correct tools that you need and here's a basic soldering iron kit you need to give you top quality professional results and we're going to them all in more detail but basically you need a good quality temperature control controlled soldering iron need a pair of side cutters you need this a good specific type of solder which we'll go into you need some solder wick to clean some stuff up you need a pair of tweezers for SMD work you need a couple of different types of tips for your soldering iron you need some magnification to inspect your work afterwards and you probably need some additional flux as well I use a flux pen for that and there's a couple of more items as well if you want to a SMD hot air rework station is very handy as is a second soldering iron as you can see I've got two soldering irons permanently set up on my bench very handy you need goggles eye protection because Soren can be dangerous as with the fume extractor as well you don't need a full-on fume extractor but just a simple light 12 volt DC fan that that just blows across your desk to get rid of the fumes now when it comes to selecting a soldering station you do not need anything more than a basic this basic hey co FX triple 8 solar in station I highly recommend this one it's only like 80 bucks or something there's no need to spend more now it's a nice small footprint on your bench like this it's a quality brand name hey Co they are renowned in the industry do not buy a no-name brand solar in station you will regret it stick to the top brands hey Cho Weller pace versa you know there's quite a few good top-quality names around ask around on forums which is the best this hako is all you need now it must be variable temperature do not get those ones which rely on changing the tip on here to change the temperature like some of the old Weller ones do are a classic for that they're not nearly as versatile as this get adjustable temperature do not buy please do not buy those fixed plug in there they're just mains they're basically a soldering iron like this that plug directly into the mains they are just garbage you get yourself a good quality professional top brand variable temperature soldering station and I highly recommend ones with the separate stand just like this one you can move it anywhere on your bench it's very flexible and it's got several different types of solder in cleaning options it's got the classic wet sponge you just moisten the sponge which will go into and it also comes with this gold cleaning stuff in here which you just insert your tip like that and you can clean it it's actually are coated in flux and it wipes them and it doesn't thermally shock the solder and I like the wet sponge does and it's got this sort of like rubber coated thing here that you can just wipe off components if you've actually removed an SMD chip or something like that it's still stuck on your iron just give it a little wipe on there or on your sponge so it's really good really handy you can move it around your bench that's what you need and you're going to need a good pair of flush side cutters for cutting off our you component legs are for your sort of this is perfect exa lights made in the USA ones absolutely spot on there are under ten bucks you can buy them for and the most important criteria is to get one with a flat a flat face like that it's hard to get on the camera there but you want something with a flush that's why they called flush side cutters they're completely flat surface on the back it allows you to get down and cut right at the base of the joint and you need some soldering iron wick to wick away solder from your joints to clean them up a rework all sorts of stuff like that get a good quality brand do not get the cheap brands this is a top quality professional multi-core made in the USA brand you can get them in different widths like this it's got flux built into it this is what you want I highly recommend you get some finer stuff like this you can even get finer then this plus some wide stuff just start just have a and you go through this like there's no tomorrow so make sure you have more than a couple of reels of this on hand and in addition to you saw the wick I recommend you just get one of these vacuum pump solder suckers you push it down and bang it just sucks up the solder from the board they work out reasonably well you can actually get electronic cut pump versions of this but dump these are only a couple of dollars very cheap I recommend you get one now when you're working with that surface mount boards in particular you're going to want some vision equipment now I showed before one of these like jeweler's loops great for inspection but you can't really do what solder in under those it's just adequate for individually inspecting each joint and you can get away with that but if you're doing say Oh 402 components or something smaller than that or 0.5 millimeter pin picture components you might need well this is a top of the line I'm stereoscopic microscope you don't have to get one of this this has got a range of eight times to 40 times magnification but something cheap and simple like this illuminate and magnify you can actually switch it on here and and actually lights up the board under test this is only two and a half times magnification it's got a little insert there for five times but that is really good enough for viewing boards up clos actually stole during under the board's because there's no outer ring on there to sort of to actually get in the way and and distract your view and it's a it is actually quite adequate for a lot of uses so something like that you can get these are more inspection magnifying type devices that's actually from a very expensive mantas scope and a lot of people will use these are headband magnifiers there are you stick them on your head and they're like a they're like a pair of magnifying glasses um I don't like that as myself but on as some people swear by them but vision equipment like this that you solder under you can get some one of those Maggi lamps or something like that but if it's all read something like two and a half times absolute minimum you want for a good detailed work at times for I would actually recommend or times six and for really fine stuff fine soldering probably times eight so that anywhere from two-and-a-half type to and after three times the times eight is the range of magnification that you gotta want to find SMD stuff now one thing you might want is a PCB holder to actually hold the board in place while you solder it and there's many different devices available cheap ones that have little alligator clips on them that just hold the board and bigger pan tilt heads that actually move the boarder allows you to move the board any angle and flip it over and a lot of people swear by the genuine pen of ice brand stuff like that me I personally prefer just the freedom of just having the board on the bench but it's that sometimes handy to have some way to hold the board some people will actually prefer to solder them up in the air actually raise the board up off the bench and that solder it that way so that they're closer to it I prefer to have the higher bench so that it comes up higher towards me anyway but yeah each through their own I'm a board holder certainly you won't waste your money on it now good pair of tweezers is absolutely essential for surface mount work now the two requirements are I highly prefer the ones that are just straight like that they're not curved you can get ones that bend up at the end like that you can even get like entire sets like this that have different different types of tweezers in there okay but really this will do you know 95 percent of work it should have a reasonably wide open in there so that you can actually grab chips and things like that and hold them in place so you can actually force them open it should be a stainless steel non-magnetic type this is actually a C and K brand one so it's a good quality brand and a nice fine sharp tip on it that's absolutely essential and you can do components down to Oh 402 or smaller sizes with a parrot SMD tweezers like that now it can be really handy to have some additional form of flush you can ever get it as a flux pin like this this is a top-quality electro lube brand one really awesome they're you know they're not that expensive I highly recommend you get one or you can get stuff which is a paint on in a bottle and it's actually a full-on liquid and you can brush it on onto your board but flux as we'll go into is quite important to have now without a doubt the most important thing for good quality soldering is good quality solder of the right type and the right thickness this is the biggest tip I can possibly give you for getting good quality soldering results use the finest solder you can the smallest diameter I use no point four six millimeter diameter I rec highly recommend sticking under point five millimeters or not 0.02 inch or 20,000 mahler also have some really thick one millimeter stuff on hand or something like that just for bigger joints but the biggest problem beginners make when their salary is to feed too much solder on to the joint if you've got really thick sold out like one millimeter solder it's very difficult to control the amount of solder that goes another joint the finer the soldering wire you have then the better quality results you get because you can control the amount of solder which goes onto your joint it's vital please do not get huge solder get this fine stuff even if it cost you 20 or 30 bucks buy a roll of this stuff now there's a couple of different types of solder available not talking about the width anymore I'm talking about the composition of the alloy now I will not recommend for this tutorial will not recommend at all lead-free solder that is more troublesome I highly recommend you just stick to regular lead solder actually perfect your technique on on lead-based solder because it's easier it's cleaner you can get experience on it and then if you want it later move to lead-free solder but stick to lead now let's look at this there's many many different types as more than types as you can poke a stick out but these are the three basic types so what I've got here is what's called 60/40 this one has been used for donkey's years it is your traditional soda you can't go wrong with 60/40 lead solder now what that means 60/40 is the ratio it contains 60% in this case SN which is 10 so 60% 10 and 40% PB which is led if you know your periodic table they're the simples for them now this is the one I use here only because I don't have I don't have any of the 6337 type at home that is the more modern type if you gotta buy some I probably recommend the 63% 10 37 percent less it's more modern now the differences between the two is a slight difference in the melting point of them but practically nothing really but the main difference is is that the traditional 6040 type actually does not melt at one specific temperature it actually melts I for a wider range of temperatures or what's called the plastic region and it goes by various other names and that means as it doesn't perform as well if you're if your solder joint cools down slowly where is the more modern type the 63% 37% type that stuff actually melts at one specific temperature only and it doesn't have any plastic region or any other nasties with it it just it just either goes from solid to liquid or back to solid at one specific point that's it's a highly recommend you get that one but 6040 is fine if you get that too now there's another type which I've got here which you can't really read that label anymore it's a bit worn but it contains two percent silver AG is the symbol for silver now the reason for this is because a lot of surface mount components like surface mount capacitors and things like that the end caps used oven on them will actually contain a little bit of silver in them not always but that they have been known to have that and having silver or what's called silver loaded solder like this can be useful or sometimes essential for quality you know when you start talking really professional quality production stuff at home it doesn't matter at all but you just have to be aware that there is some silver loaded solar available for SMD work and things like that but I don't really recommend that you get that stick with 60 40 63 37 and you'll be right and the other thing you have to get in any soda is a multi core flux there it is this type is a five core inside this tiny little knot point four six millimeter diameter solder is actually five cause of flux type three six to flux which might go into that it doesn't really matter what type there are basic soldering like this but you must have solder multi-core solder with flux in it do not use anything else you'll get absolutely crap results and as usual there's many different types available if you just read that it says low residue easy to in flux this just has like a smart flux in it that doesn't leave much us it doesn't leave much flex flux residue on the board so there's less cleanup afterwards many different types more types have flux then you can poke a stick out now when it actually comes to flux they're pretty much up to basic types one is your traditional lozen based flux so if you read on a datasheet or something that the soldier has a rosin core in it that's actually the flux it's um it's actually a sap which comes from a pine tree so this one's actually a five core so inside there is actually five cause of rosin flux and the low clean the low flux varieties in the other low clean one said they're actually a new water-soluble based flux because rosin is actually bad for the environment and all that sort of stuff if you burn it so yeah they're moving they try to move to these water-based fluxes but ievo rosin core works perfectly as do the new water-based one so either one as long as it's got flux in it now it seems like I've cracked on there forever about using the right type of solder but trust me absolutely essential then 60/40 or 6339 and multi-core flux and top-quality brand please nothing else don't come whinging to me when you're soldering scrap because you use the wrong type of solder and if you're going to be doing advanced SMD work you might want to get into solder paste you don't have to you can do most things with just regular solder regular soldiers easily easier actually I'm but solder paste can be very very useful for a lot of things if you want to get into it it's got a little nozzle the only disadvantage with this this is a 63% 10:1 the only disadvantage and it's got flux built in as well but the disadvantage is that you have to keep it in in the fridge otherwise it goes off you've got to let it warm up a bit to room temperature before you use it and it does have a shelf life so lots of disadvantages to solder paste but can be essential now when you buy a soldering like this hakko come with what's called a conical tip now I'm rotating that soldering iron there and as you can see it's got a round it's got a pointed tip on it like that these are really no good at all as we'll go into just really throw these out now you can get I I still recommend keeping one maybe a finer point one like that but really you think when you're doing surface mount work that one of these really fine point ones is the only option well it's not the reason being that they don't work is because they do not have the surface area to transfer the heat to your particular components now granted or recommend as I said I'd recommend having one of these fine point tips just for the occasion when you absolutely cannot get in cannot physically fit in the other type of tip I recommend which is the chisel tip now this is what you want for a general purpose soldering through-hole and surface mount is what's called a chisel tip like this as you can see it looks like a chiseled wedge and they come in different diameters but this is a just a very basic one which you know that's a two millimeter diameter or some two and a half millimeter diameter that's fine maybe you can get them down to one or point eight millimeters or something like that this one here is slightly wider but that's really all you need to get top quality results for both surface mount and through-hole soldering and there are other weird types like this up bent one which can be occasionally handy for getting into a very difficult locations and there's a bent she's all type in fact it's really not a chisel because it doesn't have a flat point on the end it's really designed for like getting onto a surface or something like that and there's a really there's another wedge chain statement shaped chisel type one like this there they've got various skewer applications you don't need those for general purpose just stick with your generic chisel point like that which is reasonably fine the end and recently narrow two different types of those plus one of those fine point chronicles the other type of tip you're gonna need if you do a lot of surface mount soldering is what's called one of these well or Wiccan solder tips as you can see it's a sort of like a flat end and it's got like a well in there and how it works is that you feel that with solder just just above the surface or so it just bulges out the top and then you can drag that along the pins of your surface mount component and it works almost like magic it will it will only apply the amount of solder on to the pad that the pad needs and then it will wick the solder back into there it trust me they do actually work like magic highly recommend you pick up one of those this good quality and quick surface mount soldering but if you can only get one tip make it one of these wedge type ones they're useful in probably 95% of solar and applications now just another mention of soldering safety you really should be wearing a pair of safety goggles specifically for our rework mostly when your solder can actually splash and it can actually splash long distances and it can end up in your eye and you don't want to lose your eyesight's okay if it ends up in your lap and it burns your leg well everyone does that alright you learn the lesson the hard way the other thing is a fume extractor okay this one's got a um it's not a proper charcoal impregnated filter in it but these you have to actually solder very close to the work otherwise the fumes just go straight up and they don't actually get sucked into the exhaust fan so with even with this a lot of the time I just turn it around backwards like that and the fan actually just up blows out the back and that's good if you're in a ventilated room it's better just to put a small fan just a little mini disc fan on the side of your desk and it just blows the solder smoke away the solder fumes now contrary to popular belief you don't get lead poisoning from the fumes it's the flux in the solder that we looked at that flux that's what you're actually breathing in and that is quite dangerous it causes asthma and all sorts of other nasty stuff you don't even want to know about so it really should not be inhaling those fumes and as for lead and lead poisoning it well make sure after you sold it you wash your hands because it's you don't want to just go eat something after that the only way you're going to get lip poisoning is not through your skin just handling and unless you've got a direct cut or something like that on your hand it's if you then rub your eyes or your nose or something like that or you go and eat and you actually ingest the stuff that's when you get the lead poisoning but apart from that it's pretty safe a lot of people including myself if I know I'm gonna do a lot of soldering or use a pair of disposable gloves you know if you go look up the properties of that standard 60/40 or 6337 tin-lead solder you'll notice that it melts and about 180 190 degrees now you'll notice that this soldering iron doesn't even go down that low it stops at 200 degrees Celsius or at just under 400 degrees Fahrenheit now why do we need to start from there and go all the way around to 480 or 900 degrees Celsius or 900 degrees Fahrenheit when the solder melts and around about this point under 200 that's where it actually transitions well the main reason for it is the thermal capacity of your solder 9 yes this tip here will actually regulate at that temperature so if you've got it set to 350 and you just set it there in free air yeah this tip will regulate pretty close to that 350 degrees now it's much higher than the melting point of that standard solder so why do you need at that high well it's a thermal capacity of the iron when you touch this on to a piece of metal then it transfers or sucks heat out of the iron and it can't you know unless you've got you know a huge amount of energy being pumped into there it's hard to get that energy into a small area like that and it cools down so really you need a higher temperature on your soldering iron than the melting point of solder because when it you put it on the joint especially if you've got large components that component will cool down your soldering iron to the point that's actually that the solder will actually melt and it will work and this is why components are actually designed to survive reasonably high temperatures like out 400 degrees Celsius or 380 degrees Celsius for 10 or 20 seconds or something like that they can easily survive those sort of temperatures when they go through reflow ovens which we'll have to mention that's different to hand solder in things but now what temperature do you need to use well I'm glad you asked and around 350 degrees Celsius is a pretty good baseline for general-purpose art through hole and SMD solder in if you've got some really big beefy components like to-220 packages and you're trying to solder the tabs on those you're trying to sort of heat sinks to boards or whatever you might want to ramp it up to 400 degrees Celsius or you know or if you're talking about Fahrenheit so if you get one of those fixed temperature irons you would get a 700 degree fahrenheit iron so that's a reasonably you know anywhere between 350 and 400 generally speaking you don't really want to go over 400 unless you're talking that lead-free solder and their various rework scenarios and things like that but somewhere within that range is pretty much what you want the general-purpose soldering really under that you're you know if you've really got some very temperature sensitive are components that you know and you don't want to firmly shove them you know they're very sensitive to temperature you might turn it down and you know to 280 or something like that under 300 and it'll take it longer to solder perhaps depends on the thermal capacity of your soldering iron but that's a safer area to work with also you can get clip-on little heat sinks for our through-hole components you can actually put those heat sinks onto the legs of the component and they will actually cool them down so there you go that's basic soldering tools in a nutshell to spend 30 minutes talking about it because it's important if you don't have the right tools you're not gonna be out of solder properly doesn't matter you can get the world's best solderer if you give him crap solder and crap tools they're gonna do a crap job you need the right tools to do the right job so in part 2 and part 3 of the tutorial we're going to actually do some real soldering put these tools to use see you next time [Music]

Channel: EEVblog

Views: 913,949

Rating: 4.8911424 out of 5

Keywords: soldering, tutorial, how, to, pcb, solder, tin, lead, free, paste, iron, station, components, surface, mount, through, hole, smd, wick

Id: J5Sb21qbpEQ

Length: 27min 14sec (1634 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 17 2011

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