The Learning Circuit - Basic Soldering Tools

hi I'm Karen and this is the learning circuit where we learn about basic electronics today we're going to learn about the basic tools of soldering in past episodes I've shown you tools and techniques needed to make projects that have temporary electrode connections in electronics if you want permanent connections use a process called soldering for today's episode I've invited on one of the most experienced solder errs I know Ben Heck and Doreen hey Ben it turns out I'm in the same shop so what are we talking about today Karen we're talking about soldering tools so let's first talk about the basic tools that you need the main soldering tools that you have as options are your soldering pencil that's just the standalone unit yeah and soldering stations yes like this Weller it's nice nice fancy ones so if you're gonna start soldering and you have a low budget or if you're not really sure if you want to dump a bunch of money into it you can start with a cheap handheld soldering iron right that's what most people usually are familiar with the lace chart but as far as cheap goes you don't want to go to cheap yeah so when you're looking at these they start at what like 15 watts and like this one goes up so this one's an 80 watt yeah 80 watts probably bigger than you'd want to use for electronics I would say 20 to 40 is probably the sweet spot yeah so what she means by wattage is basically how much current it draws which also tells you how much power it has in order to be able to melt solder and obviously the higher the wattage and the more solder it can melt or the faster it will melt it so one thing you want to look for is make sure that your plug for your soldering iron has a ground pin this one doesn't if you're in the u.s. you want to plug like this if you're in another country sorry I'm not familiar with your plugs but look for one with the ground pin yeah I mean this this Weller doesn't have one and it's not going to be the end of the world but it's usually a good thing to look for the rule of thumb I've heard is that if a device has exposed metal then it's good for it to have a grounded plug because that allows static to discharge into the earth instead of building up on your tool so why would you want to get one of these well they're cheaper they're smaller so they're easier to store they tend to come with these little Stan's which if you're going to be using one of these you all want to make sure you're always using don't set it out on the table use the stand but what are some of the drawbacks the drawbacks to these well they don't have a variable temperature control right I mean it's like basically you plug it in and it whatever heat it goes up to that's all you're gonna have that could change in other countries though because they have higher voltages but you can see this has a u.s. plug on it yeah because our our ACS 110 and then there's a lot of countries where it's 220 it's basically a double that's why I like if you take your laptop even if it's compatible with 220 your power brick will get hotter if you charge in other countries because there's more voltage coming in to it to start let's talk about our bread-and-butter stuttering stations it looks like we have three different models to look at we do so one of the nice things about soldering stations is that you always have a place to put your soldering iron mm-hmm and then a lot of them come with a place to put a sponge or rubber s pad yeah it looks like we have two sponges and this one has a brass pad and we can talk about those a little bit later mmm these are the different degrees of factories so this one they all have some sort of temperature control but how fine that is will depend on how nice the model is right so this one has a simple control where it's just a knob that goes from you know yellow up to red so you don't necessarily know exactly how hot it is you don't know the exact temperature the temperature is red so then next here's another one where it actually has a digital display and this model is kind of nice because it gives you three automatic set like oh yeah this one three preset temperatures but it also allows you to do fine-tuning of the temperature oh there's a transformer in it see that's good because the transformer allows you to have higher current faster basic allows it to heat up quickly as you can see and smell this one it's up pretty quickly like that's already up to temperature what's that line from Jurassic Park is that heavy then it's expensive put it away but and in soldering irons heavy means that it has a nice transformer in it which is going to get you up to temperature quickly so heavy yes it also means it costs more but it also means it's better so if you're looking at a soldering station things to consider are obviously price and then do you prefer a digital read out what kind of holder and extra little features you know do you want this kind of holder that holder yeah so yeah I like it when I know what the temperature is the one that I use over on my desk actually just has a knob but it's a digital knob so it's electronic but you use a knob to change the temperatures and actually have presets okay so I don't actually know why I don't use this one I think I think I like the tip options better with my other Weller than this one this one is one we just move around the shop it's kind of like our portable good weather station because normally al-sadr at around 500 Fahrenheit sometimes I'll bump it up like 700 if I've been doing like desoldering or soldering larger things that require more heat so my iron I'm like turning the knob but with these you just have like three presets on each one right because you're most of the time you're gonna be doing the same things or you know a few of the same things once you have selected your soldering tool you'll want to make sure you get some spare tips it's really important to have a good clean tip when soldering and as a beginner it's also easy to accidentally corrode and ruin your tips and it's not just about replacing tips that have gone bad you might want to have different tips for different applications like a finer point tip for detailed work or a larger tip to transfer more heat quickly yeah been so like Felix recently has been using this tip which is tapered and it's kind of like a blade it's really nice because there's more surface area you can kind of get in there and it heats pads really well so once you've chosen your soldering iron you want to make sure that you get a tip that matches it for example this one has a piece that just drops in with a screw the piece that goes over it so bends is just a really short tip that has just a lip that gets Calcott buy a capture nut yep like this one's a little bit shorter there are also ones that are threaded that screw in and for example on this one it's got a set screw that holds it in place so when ordering your extra tip so you want to make sure you get one that matches the tool that you have yeah and the tips can even vary wildly by manufacturer like these Weller tips are completely incompatible with my well or iron that I have in my desk right we mentioned that keeping your soldering tip clean is important in soldering so how do you do that well there are two main products that you can use you can get a sponge which you can get damp or you can get a brass pad now what are the benefits and drawbacks of each of these well you know I kind of like using a sponge myself yeah because I feel that I know what's going on like if I've got again like I've got a chisel I can go group and I know I've got everything with the brass pad I don't know I don't always feel like I'm getting everything scraped off I can't see it come off they see a cheaper first bungees so this is Ben's sponge from his soldering iron until it's very well used super gross sometimes you need a little bit more than a sponge or a brass pad to clean your tip so let's talk about what you can use there's actual tipped inner and cleaner out there which gets your tip nice and shiny you tend to use this when your tip gets a little clean yeah it's kind of not the best way to do it but this is just a 10 of flux mm-hmm well because when you put flux on the tip it'll also help it you know adhere to the solder so you just scrub it around in there yeah it's also satisfying to stick the tip into the flux I had a nice yet melt and yeah so solder didn't used to have flux in it you used to have to use your solder and then add flux on the side but now you can get solder that contains flux it's called flux core yeah in the olden days you might see someone like soldering pipes and they'll brush on the flux with one of those brushes kind of like rubber cement and then they bring in the solder but now the flux is inside of the solder but the flux can also help clean your tip which is why you use that so what you can do is use flux core solder just add a little bit of that solder to your tip and then clean it on your sponge or breast pad and sometimes just that little bit of extra flux can help clean your tip there are two main types of solder leaded solder and lead-free solder now letteth solder is kind of the old-fashioned way to do it and it's sometimes a little bit easier because lead has a lower melting point than the lead-free solder but there is a slight health risk because lead is not really good for you so if you're going to be using leaded solder you want to make sure that you're not touching your face or like eating or drinking while you're using it and you want to make sure you always wash your hands when you're done yes I make sure I wash my hands after using leaded solder and that's saying something well then also letted solder can't be used in there's many countries that basically abandoned America doesn't but you can't export it to Europe because Europe definitely cares about solder so basically all consumer products have switched to lead-free solder so they can be used all over the world but in America at least we we can still buy LEDs here's some very thin solder that Felix uses now this is ideal for doing very small jobs where you don't need a lot of solder because you can get it in those little fine spots but if you're gonna be doing like through-hole or something that requires a lot more solder this can get frustrating because it'll go fast and so you have to feed it really quickly so you might want use something with a slightly bigger diameter well thanks for coming on and talking about soldering tools and materials with me Ben no problem Karen and then I hear you have a soldering example episode coming up yes very excited about that all right well maybe I'll come back and help with that one as well because it turns out I have been soldering for many years and I can help you out thanks for that no problem do you have any tips about soldering your soldering tools that we missed or do you have a story to share about learning the solder tell us about them on the element14 community on element14.com forward slash the learning circuit we'll see you next time

Channel: element14 presents

Views: 25,618

Rating: 4.9195981 out of 5

Keywords: electronics, hardware, gaming, hacking, mods, weekly, element14, tbhs, benheck, madison, wisconsin, maker, engineering, weller, tenma, soldering station, soldering pencil, leaded solder, lead-free solder, tip tinner and cleaner, soldering paste flux, variable temperature control, soldering iron, karen corbeill, ben heck, electrode connections

Id: IEkB12iwcTA

Length: 10min 42sec (642 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 28 2018