Ready to take the plunge into soldering, how to practice before the real thing?

[DavefromCA]

As the title says, I want to start soldering, I have more than one hobby that could use the skill and a Limitless just begging for some ridiculous electronics.

What I'd like to do is buy, or procure some old, obsolete, broken things to practice on. Does anyone have any ideas or a box full of useless electronics they'd send me, so I can burn the poop out of them before I put my nice stuff on the line? I was thinking of at least finding some old beat-up computer to get started.

How did you get good at soldering?

 

[kaladeth]

Just by doing. You can just get cheap perfboard and through hole components for practice. More fun if you have a pcb made and make stuff that actually works. Check out the shared projects on oshpark.com.

Useless electronics and things from goodwill won’t help unless you are practicing desoldering too. Not fun.

Make sure to get a good soldering iron and use plenty of flux.

 

[NitroK]

Just by doing. You can just get cheap perfboard and through hole components for practice. More fun if you have a pcb made and make stuff that actually works. Check out the shared projects on oshpark.com.

Useless electronics and things from goodwill won’t help unless you are practicing desoldering too. Not fun.

Make sure to get a good soldering iron and use plenty of flux.

My soldering is like my welding skills. Call it the "Gorilla Weld"...ugly but strong

 

[hobo]

As the title says, I want to start soldering, I have more than one hobby that could use the skill and a Limitless just begging for some ridiculous electronics.

What I'd like to do is buy, or procure some old, obsolete, broken things to practice on. Does anyone have any ideas or a box full of useless electronics they'd send me, so I can burn the poop out of them before I put my nice stuff on the line? I was thinking of at least finding some old beat-up computer to get started.

How did you get good at soldering?

get a good iron most important like said above. I just watched people soldering on youtube and went from there hardest thing for me is holding everything so got one of those helping hands things

 

[NitroK]

Practice Practice Practice

don't start soldering your rc connectors if you have no experience, may end up with a cold solder joint. The "helping hands" mentioned by @hobo is a good investment (alternative is pliers with elastic around the handle to hold the item in place), flux and wet sponge to clean the soldering iron tip. Like all of us, it takes time to solder properly.

Get all items neatly organized before you start. Have a step by step plan from start to finish for each joint you want to solder (eg. cut wire, insert heat shrink/connector, flux, placement, before starting).

Don't try to improvise the plan halfway as the soldering iron gets very hot and its really easy to burn yourself or whatever is on your soldering table (like your rc) ....from personal experience

 

[Dan B.]

This soldering station works well for me. Can get up to 900° and has fairly quick recovery.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RVMZNYR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The most important thing after the proper equipment is the actual solder you’ll be using. You can make some really crappy cold joints with solder containing too much tin, or any silver at all. This stuff can make you look like a hero. All I use.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004X4KS7O/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
And of course flux. I use liquid and paste as well, depending on what I’m soldering. Yes, even if I use rosin cored solder. It helps the solder to flow deep into a joint.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MR49JY1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008ZIV85A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
That’s everything you’d need to start, and I haven’t had to buy any more of anything for 2 or 3 years now and I’ve built several rigs. That said, I could use a couple more tips at this point.
And like others have said, practice. Get some cheap bullets and 8 or 10ga wire.
You tube videos are helpful as well.
And soldering big bullets for those crazy electronics is a totally different animal than soldering PCB’s or chips. Pretty much on totally opposite sides of the soldering spectrum.

 

[Deceased]

As the title says, I want to start soldering, I have more than one hobby that could use the skill and a Limitless just begging for some ridiculous electronics.

What I'd like to do is buy, or procure some old, obsolete, broken things to practice on. Does anyone have any ideas or a box full of useless electronics they'd send me, so I can burn the poop out of them before I put my nice stuff on the line? I was thinking of at least finding some old beat-up computer to get started.

How did you get good at soldering?

JUST DO IT! I’m a noob at this hobby got bored of my brush motor on my granite decided to get a copperhead 10 ESC Combo and I had to solder the plugs. It took me 5 tries till I got it right. It got so short that I had to take apart the ESC bc the cables were to short so I had to solder new Gauge wires into the esc. It was suppose to be a 13 gauge one but soldered some 10 gauge one LMAO. Just do it and look at YouTube vids to make your soldering session easier.

 

[WoodiE]

How did you get good at soldering?

By doing it.

Get yourself some wire, solder and an soldering iron and do it.

Here is an excellent resource on soldering as well - https://www.rctalk.com/forum/threads/how-to-solder-correctly.81514/

 

[LipoShirly]

How did you get good at soldering?

I'll agree with everyone who's already mentioned it, just go do it... learning from your mistakes is valuable.

Here are some quick tips and things to watch out for.

1) WEAR SAFTEY GLASSES. Soldering seems so boring, but when a flexible strand of wire launches a pin head ball of solder into your eye, things get exciting.....

2) Make sure your tip is clean. If you don't get a nice shiny tip with a pass through the tip cleaner its time to replace it. You cannot get good heat transfer through an oxidized tip. A good test is to just try and melt some solder on the iron tip, if there are places that it just doesn't melt, generally the very point of the tip, then its probably time to replace the tip.

3) Add solder only to the part your soldering, not the tip. I usually add a small bead of solder to the tip at first to help with heat transfer, but the rest of the solder should only be added when the part your soldering is hot enough to melt the solder. Heat one side of the wire but add solder to the other side.... This way you know you have good penetration into the joint. If its taking a while to heat up a big wire, I'll sometimes add a little more solder to the the area where my tip is placed just to increase surface area and heat transfer...

4) Try not to move the solder joint until the joint has cooled. If the joint is moved during the solder transition from liquid back to solid phase, then you will have a "cold" joint. This will always have a dull finish to it. Cold joints will be brittle and prone to crack, they also tend to be slightly more resistive and can cause problems on high current circuits ( LiPo ). If in doubt, just add a little fresh solder or flux and reheat the joint. Next time you solder something, intentionally move it around as its cooling, learn what a cold joint looks like.

5) Use some alcohol to clean that flux off. First of all they just look bad but more importantly some of the cheaper fluxes can be corrosive and or become conductive over time... They do sell solder with water soluble flux, it stinks (smells awful) and doesn't flow as well, I do not recommend it.

 

[Dan B.]

I'll agree with everyone who's already mentioned it, just go do it... learning from your mistakes is valuable.

Here are some quick tips and things to watch out for.

1) WEAR SAFTEY GLASSES. Soldering seems so boring, but when a flexible strand of wire launches a pin head ball of solder into your eye, things get exciting.....

2) Make sure your tip is clean. If you don't get a nice shiny tip with a pass through the tip cleaner its time to replace it. You cannot get good heat transfer through an oxidized tip. A good test is to just try and melt some solder on the iron tip, if there are places that it just doesn't melt, generally the very point of the tip, then its probably time to replace the tip.

3) Add solder only to the part your soldering, not the tip. I usually add a small bead of solder to the tip at first to help with heat transfer, but the rest of the solder should only be added when the part your soldering is hot enough to melt the solder. Heat one side of the wire but add solder to the other side.... This way you know you have good penetration into the joint. If its taking a while to heat up a big wire, I'll sometimes add a little more solder to the the area where my tip is placed just to increase surface area and heat transfer...

4) Try not to move the solder joint until the joint has cooled. If the joint is moved during the solder transition from liquid back to solid phase, then you will have a "cold" joint. This will always have a dull finish to it. Cold joints will be brittle and prone to crack, they also tend to be slightly more resistive and can cause problems on high current circuits ( LiPo ). If in doubt, just add a little fresh solder or flux and reheat the joint. Next time you solder something, intentionally move it around as its cooling, learn what a cold joint looks like.

5) Use some alcohol to clean that flux off. First of all they just look bad but more importantly some of the cheaper fluxes can be corrosive and or become conductive over time... They do sell solder with water soluble flux, it stinks (smells awful) and doesn't flow as well, I do not recommend it.

All very good tips.