How to properly solder wires with a soldering iron

How to properly solder with a soldering iron with rosin and tin

To learn how to properly solder with a soldering iron with rosin and tin, you need to understand the essence of the process. And it consists of connecting two metal conductors so that the connection is strong and conducts electric current.

To do this, use a soldering iron and soldering flux. To begin with, both conductors need to be tinned, that is, covered with a thin layer of solder, and then heated together so that they are literally one whole. If you want to learn how to solder wires with a soldering iron, read the material to the end.

Soldering wires to LED step by step

Organize a workplace that is bright and always ventilated. Rosin smoke is harmful to health. Prepare a soldering can, for example, from a candy can, lay paper on the bottom so that the tin rolls into balls.

Soldered the LED to the wire

In the future, this solder is very convenient to use for soldering small components. Be sure to get tweezers, they will come in handy when working with small objects.

I recommend working with safety glasses, as a flying leg from any part can launch a drop of molten solder directly into your eye.

Step one, preparatory

Prepare your soldering iron for soldering. Turn it on and wait for it to heat up.
Remove the insulation from the wire; it can be easily removed with wire cutters in one movement. It is convenient to use an insulation stripper.
The insulation in a fabric braid, like a headphone wire, must first be burned, and then be sure to run sandpaper or a knife along the wire to clean the burnt ends. Otherwise, the solder will not stick to the wires.
If the wire or leg of the radio component looks dark, oxidized, or has traces of burnt enamel, then they need to be cleaned with sandpaper or a file. You can clean it with a knife, many use a scalpel, until a metallic shine appears, this is the key to successful soldering.

Step two: flux and tinning

Rosin comes in three types: solid, liquid and gel. We use solid rosin like this: melt it with a soldering iron, and immediately apply it to the wire, hold the soldering iron tip on the wire until the rosin burns out completely.

Solid rosin, alcohol-based and gel

We continue tinning with tin until the wire is tinned. If there is such an opportunity, then you can dip the wire into melted rosin together with a soldering iron, and then tin it.

Tinning LED contacts

Liquid rosin is a solution of solid rosin in alcohol. You can do it yourself, everything is much simpler and more convenient with it.

Popular: How to charge a maintenance-free car battery

We apply liquid rosin directly to the wire using a brush or any convenient object, and then begin tinning with a soldering iron with a drop of solder.

Gel-like rosin is sold in a syringe and is very convenient to use; you can work with it in the same way as with liquid.

Step three - soldering

We collect a little solder on the soldering iron, directly from the wire or by picking up a ball. Dip the tip into the rosin from time to time to improve the flow of solder.

We connect both conductors that need to be soldered. Carefully heat the contact points until the solder melts on both ends and immediately remove the soldering iron so as not to overheat the parts.

Solder the wire to the LED

We try not to move the wires with our fingers until the solder has completely hardened. This can be determined by appearance. At the moment of hardening, the surface of the solder becomes dull and the bright shine disappears.

This is what proper soldering looks like

If the surface of the seam is dark and has many irregularities, then this is incorrect soldering.

Incorrect soldering

Solder the seam and achieve the desired result.

How to achieve better results

Heat the soldering area not with the tip of the soldering iron, but slightly with the side surface of the tip, so that the contact area is maximum.
The wire and the LED leg can be twisted before soldering, this will give the connection increased strength.
Use a device called a third hand to help you hold the piece.
If your parts are new, straight out of the box, shiny and sparkling with tinned legs, then you can solder right away. We apply flux and immediately apply solder without prior tinning.
If you use thin solder with rosin inside, you can solder immediately, without degreasing.

THIS IS INTERESTING: How to properly apply a seam when welding

How to solder radio components into a printed circuit board

Let's look at soldering a resistor on a legless Arduino board.
Insert the components into the hole.
We drip or transfer flux on a soldering iron to the future place of soldering.
Apply flux to the soldering area
We bring drops of solder and warm up the soldering area until the solder completely spreads.
Warming up the soldering area

Attention! When soldering microcircuits and small radio components, be extremely careful and do not overheat the soldering area. Try to get the solder to flow completely within a maximum of 2 seconds.
To be on the safe side, you can try again on the back side of the board.
Bite off the excess end of the leg of the radio component.
If you end up with a huge ball, then you should remove it, remove the excess solder from the soldering iron, and then use the soldering iron to remove the excess from the soldering area.
Excess solder at the contact point

This is what the correct soldering point looks like

How to remove radio components from the board

In order to remove elements from the board, you need to heat the soldering area and pull out the component with tweezers or pliers. If a component has several legs, you can solder them separately.

Tool for removing excess melted solder

When soldering a complex part, you can use a cheap Chinese desoldering pump. It works like a syringe, only pumping is simplified by the presence of a spring and a release button.

Working with solder suction

It is very simple to work with it, lower the piston down, melt the solder, apply the suction, press the button and the molten solder is sucked into the syringe body.

Now you can safely loosen and pull out the electronic component you need. This desoldering pump can also be used to clean holes in the board for inserting new parts.

The result is clean solder holes.

This is done very quickly, the main thing is not to forget to remove pieces of solder from the body of the desoldering pump, otherwise they will get stuck there and it will stop working.

How to solder wires with a soldering iron

To connect two wires by soldering, they are cleared of insulation. An ordinary pocket knife or a sharp medical scalpel is best suited for these purposes.

Next, we take ordinary pine rosin, which is sold in any radio store for 10 rubles. per jar.

Having lowered the end of the wire and the soldering iron into the jar, degrease the surface, then take a drop of solder on the tip of the soldering iron and carry out tinning.

We connect both wires, it will be more convenient to use a clothespin or a “third hand” device and apply a drop of solder to the connection with the tip of a soldering iron.

Third hand device

The soldering area must not be left open. To do this, take a piece of heat-shrinkable tubing, put it on the joint and heat it with a hairdryer at a temperature of 250 - 300 degrees. Under the influence of temperature, the tube shrinks, tightly closing the connection from moisture.

How to master the art of soldering? Step-by-step video instructions for beginners

Source: https://obinstrumente.ru/dlya-doma/poleznye-sovety/payat-kanifolyu-olovom.html

How to use a soldering iron: materials, instructions, tips

There are many methods that are successfully used to splice wires, but the most effective of them is the well-known soldering. Only it guarantees complete inseparability of connections experiencing constant increased load. It may seem to novice home electricians and radio amateurs that this process is indecently elementary.

Those craftsmen who often have to work with the device (both at work and at home) think differently. Such people believe that the ability to solder well is akin to art. Therefore, before starting any practical exercises, it is better to ask how to use a soldering iron most effectively, and how to solder wires correctly.

Even minimal knowledge will help you quickly master new skills.

Soldering iron and its tasks

Soldering is the joining of metal contacts using a melt (lead and tin), which has electrolytic (conducting) properties. The difference between this operation and welding is that not a single element being connected melts during the process: the solder used has a lower melting point than that of metal conductors. After the melt hardens, a permanent contact connection is formed.

THIS IS INTERESTING: How to weld a rotten pipe

Devices used at home are electric soldering irons. The choice of device depends on what work the master plans to perform in the future:

for soldering electronic elements, a low power of 40-60 W will be enough;
if the thickness of the soldered parts is no more than 1 mm, then 80-100 W will be enough;
elements with walls up to 2 mm require heavy artillery - a tool with a power above 100 W.

To be able to carry out almost any similar work at home, it is better for a home craftsman to purchase two different devices at once - the first and the second; there is no need for a more powerful one: it is better if an experienced “soldering iron” person handles the soldering of thick-walled parts.

Compositions and additional tools

You need to purchase a few more auxiliary materials. This list includes:

Solder, which was already mentioned in passing. For connecting copper wires, tin-lead solders POS-40, POS-50 or POS-60 are optimal, where the numbers are the percentage of tin content, since lead is added only to reduce the cost. For soldering aluminum contacts - zinc-based alloys: TsA-15 (zinc + aluminum), grade A (zinc, copper, tin), TsO-12, P250A (zinc + tin).
Flux. It is used to clean wires from various contaminants, as well as from oxide (oxide) film. The purpose of the flux is to ensure good adhesion (adhesion) of the solder to the surface. More often, rosin or mixtures with it (glycerin, alcohol, zinc) are used in this role: for example, LTI-120. For silver and stainless steel, acidic (active) fluxes are used, but their residues must be washed off with alcohol.

There are also solder pastes, which contain two main components - solder and flux. The mixture is applied to the part, then it is heated with a soldering iron tip. The purpose of use is soldering in hard-to-reach places for surface mounting of SMD components.

To work normally with a soldering iron you will need:

a stand that has two metal supports - for the body and the handle;
file for sharpening or cleaning the tip;
miniature pliers or tweezers with heat-shrinkable tubing - for holding quickly and very hot wires;
alcohol to remove flux residues, a rag to remove solder;
sandpaper (needle file) for cleaning conductors;
heat shrink tubes of different diameters and/or electrical tape for conductors.

Preparing for work

Before using a soldering iron, it is better to study all the hidden points that will make the work convenient and safe. The first concern is the organization of the workplace. The main requirement is its proximity to the outlet, so that if necessary, you can turn off the device from the power supply almost instantly.

A convenient stand that allows you to quickly pick up and put the device back has already been written about. You can make it yourself using wood or textolite as a base. M-shaped posts are usually made of steel wire; an alternative is a rod whose diameter is 4-5 mm.

It’s hard to imagine the convenient work of a “soldering iron” without small containers for rosin and solder. The best option is fairly wide but low jars made of metal. It is recommended to mount them on a stand for a soldering iron.

Conductors

They are stripped of insulation (30-50 mm or more if the wire diameter is large), then the oxide film is mechanically removed. Clean the surfaces using sandpaper until shiny. If the metal wires are heavily contaminated, a solvent is used. Soldering acid is used to process steel parts.

Sting

The non-ideal condition of the tool requires preliminary preparation, since it is impossible to use a soldering iron if the tip of the tip has lost its shape. The work area is first inspected. If defects are detected - sagging or gouges - the original shape (45° bevel) is restored with a file.

Next, the soldering iron tip is tinned and covered with solder. The operation is done like this:

First, the device is heated to operating temperature;
one side of the tip is first placed in rosin, then in solder;
excess solder is wiped off with a rag without turning off the tool; an alternative is to wipe the surface on a wooden surface;
Prepare the second side of the soldering iron in the same way.

THIS IS INTERESTING: What is welding camping

If the work area has one bevel, only that bevel is tinned.

Soldering

Now about how to use a soldering iron for its intended purpose: how to solder wires correctly. The process itself is simple, but for better results you need to become familiar with several conditions. After turning on a household tool, you usually wait about 5 minutes, during which time it heats up to the optimal temperature, allowing the rosin to boil and the melt to become homogeneous.

A temperature of 240-280° is considered normal. With insufficient heating, the flux will only soften slightly, and the tin will melt slightly. Solder cannot be used in this condition. Overheating will also lead to a “disaster”: the flux will hiss and spit, and the melt will lose its plasticity. In such a situation, the soldering iron is disconnected from the network and given time to cool down.

Tinning

When the melting point of the rosin is reached, the stripped, prepared part of the conductor is placed on a piece, then heated with a soldering iron until the entire wire is completely immersed in rosin. After this, take a drop of solder onto the tip and quickly distribute it along the wire, which is turned slightly. The “ready” copper conductor gets rid of the “treacherous” redness and becomes silvery. Proceed in the same way with all parts intended for soldering.

Main job

The prepared conductors are tightly connected. In some cases, it is more advisable to twist. Taking solder onto the tip, press it with little force onto the wires, which are held together by hand.

When the spread solder covers the entire joint, the operation is considered successfully completed, but the soldering iron is not removed until the solder has cooled. To speed up this process, which takes only 3-4 seconds, it is recommended to blow on it.

If the thickness of the solder is not satisfactory, then transfer another drop with a sting.

The last step is to isolate the junction. After the conductors have cooled, tape is wrapped around them. Those who want greater reliability put on a heat-shrinkable tube, which they then heat up. If the work involved electrical wiring, then use combined protection - both options at once: after winding the tape, heat shrink is put on it.

Twist

To ensure greater reliability of the connection, it is recommended to pre-twist the ends of the conductors. The melt is applied in such a way that it gets into the gaps between them. Butt soldering of parts is not encouraged for obvious reasons: such a connection cannot boast of strength. If you need to solder a wire to the middle of another, then the end of the first is wrapped around the second; an extreme case if the length is insufficient is to form a loop.

Soldering Features

They exist if you use other compounds and more complex wires.

Flux operation. In the case of an active mixture, the wires are not first cleaned of the oxide film; the acid will “eat” it. They are lubricated with flux, then heated with a soldering iron, onto which a small amount of solder is taken. In subsequent actions, there are almost no differences from the “timeless classic”, except for wiping the soldering areas with a cotton swab and alcohol. A simple operation will destroy the remnants of the aggressive composition.
Stranded conductors. Here, before tinning, all elements are untwisted so that they can be immersed in rosin. When applying solder, watch all the wiring very carefully, since each one must have a thin layer of it. Before soldering, they are twisted together again, and then acted in the manner described above.
Union of copper and aluminum. They cannot be harnessed into one cart: in this case, soldering is impossible. The reason is “incompatibility of characters”: different degrees of thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity. This union will inevitably lead to separation - a breakdown in contact. There is an exit. It is the most reliable and simple, shown in the photo.

Any person may need such an operation. The answers to questions about how to use a soldering iron and how to solder wires correctly are not difficult to understand. All you need for success is a good tool, quality materials and what will come soon - experience that needs to be “gained.”

You can see how the whole “live” process happens in this video:

Source: https://dom-i-remont.info/posts/obshhie-voprosy/kak-polzovatsya-payalnikom-ballada-o-tom-kak-pravilno-payat-provoda/