Solder Recommendations

[monkey141]

Good Evening All,

I am fairly new to soldering (I haven't soldered anything since high school electronics) and I was putting together another controller I had ordered (the first kit), so I went out and bought the $22 radio shack solder station and the tip is shot. I did not even get the whole board put together. I went back to radio shack to get a new tip and they don't see tips for that solder station in stores and I can't find them online. I am thinking I don't have a very good iron. A couple of questions...

1) Do you think I did something wrong, should the tip be bad already? It is rounded off and heavily oxidized. I was soldering the spade plugs when it stopped working.

2) What solder station/iron do you guys recommend and any ideas of where to purchase it?

Thanks,

Mike

[vipzach]

Those radio shack stations are junk. I had one and it lasted through two small solder jobs.

My next station will be one of these. http://www.web-tronics.com/solstat.html

If you can't get one pretty quick, I would go to sears and buy two of the cheaper solder pencils. I used them last year and didn't have any trouble.

[gizmomkr]

Just because its discolored doesnt mean its time to junk it.

I dont own the radio shack unit, never seen it - so really cant say, but I have put kits together with anything from a wall-mart iron to the weller unit at homedepot.

I dont THINK the iron is shot - The more likely reason is your not using a hot enough iron or setting. I dont know if the radioshack unit has a tempature setting, but you should turn it up. a tip (even a cheap one) should last longer. I dont consider a tip "shot" untill the metal starts to bend, hevailly corode, or break down -

Spade plugs (due to material and size) suck up a lot of heat - attaching them requires a bit more heat than the rest of the board. I think the assembly guide actually has some guidlines for a wattage rating of the iron.

I think I used about a 35 watt iron for the spade plugs. Youd probably be ok up to about 45, much more, and i'd worry about melting pads.

One other idea I'll throw out for the netural lines - consider using a bus bar. your local home depot or hardware store should carry bus bars for use in breaker pannels. (thin strip of metal with screws designed to hold and connect wires. go from the outlet / power feed to the bus bar, then 1 wire from each dangle cord /female outlet goes into the bar, and one or two extra wires come out and feed the electronics on the controller. Bascially it just moves the joining of the neutrals off the controller and onto the metal bar - it saves you from soldering all those neutral spades to the board, and from crimping all those connectors to the wires. Depending on your cords, you can fit 2-6 wires into each hole on the bus bar.

Ill try and add a photo tomorrow

[Anthony in Houston]

Be sure and keep the solder iron tip clean. You can file the oxidation off with a file and also keep a wet sponge nearby to clean the tip as you solder.

I clean the tip usually after every board but when the time required to heat the item is longer i will file the tip clean and keep going.

Maybe all you need to do is clean your tip as you go.



Anthony

[JonB256]

I had a Radio Shack iron (two temp switch) and it worked very well with kits. I assembled many.

But - the tip would occasionally unscrew slightly. It was a threaded, replaceable design, but when loose, the tip didn't get hot. Pliers fixed it.

Also, the wet sponge (damp, actually) is very necessary. Wipe off old solder frequently. Old solder on a hot tip will eventually separate into Tin and Lead and then foul your next solder joint.

When you finish a set of joints and take a break for some reason, put fresh solder on the tip before putting it in the holder. Be sure to wipe that solder (and burned flux) off on the sponge before using again.

[monkey141]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I guess I should have mentioned that the tip is no longer a pencil tip as it was when I started. The tip is now deformed. I did try and brush off some of the oxidation with a wire brush and that's when I discovered the deformity. The station is a dual heat (20W and 40W). I used the 20W for most of it and when I got to the spade plugs, I switched to 40. It was working very nicely until then. I will try cleaning it again and give it one more shot. If not, maybe I will head over to Sears. My only real problem with the Radio Shack iron was the lack of availability of tips though.

Thanks again for the advice and help. I will let you know how i make out.

Mike

[gizmomkr]

Even a slightly deformed tip should be ok on larger items like spades - (although it will be a paine when you try to tiny dense things like IC pins) I would also sugest this:

if the solder hardens, and the iron sort of "sticks" when you touch the spade, its not getting enough heat.

get a small amount of solder on the tip of the iron, with the spade inplace on the board, touch the iron to the tip of the spade, and hold it for a couple seconds without mooving. you should see a point where the solder "flows" onto the spade (gets really shiney) as soon as oyu see that, move the iron down to the pad / pcb, and touch the solder to the part of the spade closest to the pcb - or between the spade and pcb where the two meet - solder should flow both to the pad and pcb. Now get your fingers out of there cuz that spade stays HOT.

Oh and DONT DARE BUY that piece of junk batery powered soldering thing they sell on tv