Is this soldering station good?

[TimO]

Soldering to gold surfaces is not generally avoided*

Sorry, badly phrased, I meant for spacecraft.  The appropriate ECSS^[1] standard says pretty much "No No No, under no circumstances, you shall not do this, ever, at all", paraphrased slightly.

Foonote [1]: ECSS: European Cooperation on Space Standardization.

[L CC]

Or Shall I try and bribe kim with cake.

IME Kim is bribe-able with cake, However, she is fussy

[Gattopardo]

You can do it as long as the tip is a chisel type and fine enough.  It's just that it takes more time and care when the iron isn't great.  It's still possible to do a good job if you're careful.  I'm getting a better iron just to make it easier, really.

I blamed my iron for buggering up the DVD part of my PVR, but really I could have managed if I'd been more careful.  I melted one of those awful thin plastic-film type cables, and I couldn't repair it or find a replacement.

Watch this vid for good technique:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYz5nIHH0iY

Thank you for the tip and link.  I have only ever resoldered wires together, created small curcuit boards for record players nothing as complex or delicate as I have to do now and slightly worried that this is a first time doing something like this.

Or Shall I try and bribe kim with cake.

IME Kim is bribe-able with cake, However, she is fussy

Hence try

[Biggsy]

CPC is all very well, but I'd really rather not open yet another one-item-only customer account.

Registering with CPC was quick and easy, and my goods arrived today after ordering yesterday. 

[Biggsy]

Aoyue 937 arrived today.  Not tried it yet, but it looks good.  I don't need anything better than this!  ..except maybe a better stand and sponge.

The tips are cheap, so I got seven extras of various shapes and sizes.  What Dave Jones calls a "chisel" tip is what Aoyue calls a "bevel" tip.

The fine pointed tip the iron comes with will be rubbish at heat transfer.

[Ashaman42]

Tried soldering a while ago with a cheapy Maplins iron and some leadfree solder and it didn't go very well. However I had no flux (couldn't find any at Maplins) nor was the solder flux cored. I assume the lack of flux didn't help?

Would I be better served getting separate flux or some cored solder?

[Biggsy]

You definitely want flux-cored solder - which common bog standard solder is anyway.  It can help to have extra flux separately as well, but you'll only need it for difficult cases.

Remember not to apply solder directly to the iron (unless applying some to the job as well), otherwise too much flux goes up in smoke.  Heat the joint well with the iron.  See the videos above for more tips.


I still haven't cleared space to try my new iron.  I got a fume extractor and lit magnifier as well, so I need it all set up properly on a table, rather than crouching on the floor, like I have been doing for thirty-three years.

[thewinch]

Lead-free solder without lots of flux just doesn't work, you need to add flux to get decent joints. Cheap irons with no temperature regulation will also get far too hot and burn away the flux if you are not careful. If you notice the flux instantly disappear in a puff of smoke unplug the iron for a while to let it cool down.

[Gattopardo]

A 12v iron gets round that problem

Found some lead/tin solder and desoldered the remains of the socket with some braid.  It was a pain as some of the bits were it but now to test it working and reassemble the Laptop.

Also repaired the aerial conection on a garmin quest too.  Now to see if that works.