Does Your Hot Solder Drool and Cover Your Copper Wires Like Hot Butter?
I do a decent amount of soldering at work. Here are some tips I can throw out.
The condition of your soldering iron tip is very important. Never clean it with anything that can scratch away the coating on the tip. I always use one of these brass type tip cleaners. If I'm in a pinch, I'll rub the iron quickly on a rag to clean it. It's not ideal but it's better than something that can remove the coating.
Always "tin" the tip by coating it in solder. This transfers heat much better and makes soldering a million times easier. Also never store your soldering iron away without tinning the tip first. If you don't, the tip will slightly corrode and the next time you fire it up to use it, you'll notice that the solder doesn't want to stick to it. It'll ball up and fall off. If it does this, you have to keep cleaning it and applying solder to it until it flows again. If you just tin the tip before storing it away, the next time you fire it up and clean it off, it'll work correctly right out of the box again.
If I am soldering a crimp style connector that doesn't have plastic on it, I normally just use a small butane torch. The cheapy $5 one at Harbor Freight works well enough for home projects.
Apply the torch to the connector as far away from the wire as possible. You'll know that you're ready to flow solder on it when the connector's color changes. You'll see it kind of glaze over from shiny to dull. As soon as you see that, apply your solder and it'll flow nicely.
I do a decent amount of soldering at work. Here are some tips I can throw out.
The condition of your soldering iron tip is very important. Never clean it with anything that can scratch away the coating on the tip. I always use one of these brass type tip cleaners. If I'm in a pinch, I'll rub the iron quickly on a rag to clean it. It's not ideal but it's better than something that can remove the coating.
Always "tin" the tip by coating it in solder. This transfers heat much better and makes soldering a million times easier. Also never store your soldering iron away without tinning the tip first. If you don't, the tip will slightly corrode and the next time you fire it up to use it, you'll notice that the solder doesn't want to stick to it. It'll ball up and fall off. If it does this, you have to keep cleaning it and applying solder to it until it flows again. If you just tin the tip before storing it away, the next time you fire it up and clean it off, it'll work correctly right out of the box again.
If I am soldering a crimp style connector that doesn't have plastic on it, I normally just use a small butane torch. The cheapy $5 one at Harbor Freight works well enough for home projects.
Apply the torch to the connector as far away from the wire as possible. You'll know that you're ready to flow solder on it when the connector's color changes. You'll see it kind of glaze over from shiny to dull. As soon as you see that, apply your solder and it'll flow nicely.
