I hate soldering
user8.bearblog.dev91 points by James72689 4 days ago
91 points by James72689 4 days ago
I had to click, because it turns out that I love soldering. It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too.
For anyone reading, the key is to invest in a proper stereo microscope and a decent fume extractor.
I recommend this one: https://www.strangeparts.com/a-boy-and-his-microscope-a-love...
If you're up for a bit of a bonus round, I absolutely love my Pixel Pump. https://shop.robins-tools.com/products/pixel-pump
I picked up a used Ninja toaster oven and hacked a https://reflowmasterpro.com/ to it. I also modified the plans for Stencil Fix to make it substantially bigger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am3ztQIkss0
So, I do a fair bit of both reflow and hand SMD soldering at this point, depending on what the situation calls for. It's great fun.
Starting with soldering, I find these 200$+ recommendations (regardless of which tool) hard to justify.
# Soldering iron
I'd recommend the Pinecil V2 with IronOS. https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS
# Solder fume extraction
I've built a simple fume extraction with an old plastic case, a 120mm fan and a sheet of carbon filter attached to a 120mm dryer / air conditioning hose. Around 15$ and good enough for soldering from time to time.
# "Microscope"
I simply use a strong (10x) magnifier glass with a LED ring (around 15$ on Amazon). I can't tell you how often I also used this thing for other purposes.
# Desoldering Pump
Because I needed it (beginners won't) I bought a ZD-8965 for 100 bucks and I'm very happy with this thing.
I have whole list of cheap beginner to intermediate equipment, that'll do until you solder (semi) professionally.
With you overall, but given the toxicity of the fumes some quality / rated fume extraction might be the one area where cheap/self made item isn't worth it
I agree it seems like it could be fun. I think I am a bit paranoid about the hazardous chemicals and risk of a burns when using a traditional iron. From what I understand reading the comments, it's gotten much smoother with stencils, SMD, ovens, and so on.
If you don't have space for a microscope, you can also get yourself the long-range (~400mm) 2.5-3.5x magnifiers that you may have seen your dentist wear. They're easily available on Amazon, not too expensive, and comfortable for hours of wearing. These are 2-element lenses that work really well.
Higher magnification variants (8x etc) are not nearly as comfy. They get quite long, heavy and expensive. I tried them and did not like them nearly as much. Also beware of short viewing distance, ultra-cheap products that are just a single lens element per eye.
I have a Donegan DA-5 OptiVisor Headband Magnifier. They're nice, because the lenses are prism'd so that you can focus on something close without having to go cross-eyed.
This is a great tip, I use a loupe and it works amazingly well. Cost maybe $10?
Oh yeah, I'm sure that $300 microscope comes in handy but a cheap loupe gets you started. I've found all sorts of other uses for it too.
Me too I love soldering. And actually, it's one of the few things that I like more and more, as I realize I've developed a real craftmanship from it.
And thank you! I've been looking for a recommendation of a stereo microscope for a long time!
>It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too.
There is a similar vibe with TIG welding as well.
Agreed on stereo microscope, also suggest flux and a good iron with exchangeable tips and hot tweezers (I enjoy the Hakko).
The new breed of irons with temperature measurement built into the tip (invented by JBC, cloned by Geeboon and similar) is amazing. The tip heats to exactly the temp you want in 3 seconds, then cools down to avoid damage when you put it back in the stand. As you solder, the power is automatically controlled to keep the tip at the specified temp regardless of the load you put on it. I never thought I'd replace the Weller station I've used for 20 years, but I'm glad I did.
Edit: For a specific recommendation, look for the Geeboon TC22 on AliExpress or Amazon. Don’t forget the tips, you may need to get them separately.
It heats to exactly the temperature I want in 3 seconds? Is there evidence to support this claim?
(My bullshit detector is making some rather profound gurgling sounds.)
I can make no claims as to the brands mentioned in the parent post, but a 3 second heating time isn't all that fast for a real nice soldering iron. Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then.
Yup. They specify 3 seconds, but that's for 350C. In my experience, it's always at the right temperature by the time I finish picking it up.
It has a 240W power supply, so it's not just marketing.
I can't imagine not using flux!
I have a Hakko FX-888D. It's pretty good, although I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down to a safe handling temperature.
I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please!
Another link for folks: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B077BQWMTY
I go through these for solder flux removal like crazy, in combination with an aerosol can of MG Chemicals 4140-400G. Sadly, I think that stuff is unobtainium now.
>> I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please!
Hakko FM2023-05 Mini Hot Tweezers Kit or Hakko FX8804-02 Hot Tweezer for Hakko FX-888 for example.
>> I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down
I replace tips while hot: the sleeve is not hot.
Depends. The ancient Weller that I have has a sleeve you can unscrew but that sucker gets burning hot, and the thumbscrew locks up unless you cool the tip down, which you can do by holding the thing on your wet sponge.
I swap the tips on my Hakko without letting it cool down, I just use a Knipex pliers wrench so I don't burn myself. I keep my spare tips in an altoids tin, so I can drop the hot one in there without burning anything.
> It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too.
I don't know. I've got my station, not a bad one: bought it with the help of a buddy who's very good at soldering. He tried to show me. I've got no choice: I own an old vintage arcade cab from the mid 80s and it's located in the middle of nowhere, in a rural area. So I have to fix it myself.
And oh boy do I suck at it. I watched vids, countless Youtube vids. It's been 10 years and everytime I need to solder something, I still suck at it.
I've come to terms with the fact that there are some things I'm good at and that soldering is never ever going to be one of these. And it's okay.
And I'm amazed by people who can solder properly.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but if all of your soldering experience is from parts that came out of a 40 year-old arcade cabinet, don't beat yourself up: that is definitely what I would call soldering in hard mode. Depending on where it lived, everything in it is probably oxidized, corroded and covered in dust, cigarette tar, and possibly cooking oil. Even if you can't see/smell any of it, it's still there. Solder only works well on pristine, clean metals. Some metals are just simply marginal, and don't take solder well even if they were ostensibly designed for it. Flux helps, but can only do so much. The semi-good news is that you should stand a chance if you can clean the bejeezus out of whatever it is your soldering a LOT of alcohol and a stiff brush, and maybe some fine-grit sandpaper.
Will second this. When modding Xbox 360s, I used MrMario's guides and he would say repeatedly "clean, flux, tin", kinda stuck in my head. I did also tend to just clean the whole board while it was apart, but especially the point you're about to solder should be clean.
I have never used sandpaper on electronics, but I perhaps similarly use a fiberglass pen. Total game changer for getting old cartridge pins to read again for SNES and GBA games and such. Highly recommend picking one up.
A glass fiber pen is my go-to for cleaning groddy pads and pins and the like. Works a treat.
I also get to fix gear in the middle of nowhere, so I'm sympathetic to that plight.
I used to watch people with fancy-looking soldering irons working quickly on stuff in repair shops. Some of that was technique ("it is a poor craftsman who blames his tools"), but some of it was definitely the irons they were using.
And yet: My first soldering experiences were not very good.
The first soldering irons I had, starting 30 years ago or so, were resolutely terrible. I eventually gained a whole assortment of them -- big, medium, small, and ginormous. They were all awful in their own unique ways, and they all lacked a thermostatic temperature control.
I got better solder (I've become a big fan of Kester 44 in a eutectic 63/37 mix) fairly early on, which helped a ton.
Later, I got better soldering irons.
A dozen years ago I bought a Hakko clone temperature-controlled soldering station from an American distributor. It took genuine Hakko tips just fine, and it was better.
5 or 6 years ago, I got a Pinecil v1. I now own two of them: I bought one as a spare in case one broke somehow (it's hard to fix a soldering iron without a soldering iron), but they've both been reliable. It's miles ahead of what I've used before. The v2 should be a bit better yet, but I do not own one of those. They're rather inexpensive.
These Pinecil irons weren't available a decade ago. I wish they had been.
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Anyway: With the tools decently in-check, my technique got a lot better in a big hurry. I thought I'd learned to be pretty OK at soldering before with my lackluster tools, but the Pinecil iron (and its consistent temperature, sleep modes, and very quick heat-up) helps me get much better results -- faster.
And it's hackable, which (to me) scores some geek points.
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I've come to think that anybody can learn to solder electronics with reasonable proficiency. I've taught people to solder who were sure they couldn't do it, including people who started off by being surprised by how hot the hot-bits are and walking them back from the ledge.
As with many other skills, it mostly just takes practice. But that practice should be inconsequential -- it's a lot easier to learn when the result is completely unimportant and inconsequential than on a dear 40-year-old arcade board.
To that end: There's ridiculously-inexpensive kits these days that primarily exist just to teach soldering. I learned through-hole the old-fashioned way (by failing), but back then cheap kits didn't exist at the level they do today. :)
If you can tell me more about the specific problems you're having with soldering, I can provide links to specific, specific soldering kits that may help.
(I can provide hands-on help, too, if you're not too far away. No big deal.)
He's soldering like it's fifty years ago.
Everything is lead-free surface mount now. Solder paste, stencils, reflow ovens. Hand soldering is precision temperature controlled irons, hot air rework stations, magnifiers, cameras, and exhaust fans. The tools are more complicated, more expensive, and better.
One of the lessons of surface mount work is that you really can move your fingers a thousandth of an inch. But you need magnification to see what you're doing.
I'm encouraged to see more hobbyists going surface mount. In my TechShop days, I was the only one doing surface mount. Everybody else was using 1980s 0.1 inch spacing DIP components. That's a US thing. If you learn to solder in Shenzhen, you start with surface mount.
> Everything is lead-free
Leaded solder is easier to work with for personal projects. Careful hand washing and handling is required, but it's easy.
I also recommend people go to surface mount, but I don't recommend beginners immediately go for expensive microscopes and reflow ovens. Stick to 0806 components or larger to start and you can populate a board without any binocular microscope or magnification as long as your eyesight isn't too bad. I can populate 0402 components without magnification all day long.
For small boards, reflow on one of those cheap hot plates. They're small enough to back in the drawer when you're done.
Surface mount doesn't have to be hard or expensive, unless you're doing designs with ICs that come in very fine pitch packages.
Give a shot to the SAC305 mix. It’s a low temperature lead-free alloy, and it’s the one that made me ditch leaded solder definitively. Use more flux and a bit more iron temperature and you’ll never touch leaded solder again. Oh, and it’s available both as a hand-soldering wire reel and solder paste.
> Leaded solder is easier to work with for personal projects
it really isn't if you use a nice modern lead-free solder. you'll need your iron to be about 20c hotter, but it's not like the early days of lead-free where it'd flow all weird.
The only place I've noticed a difference is for very large components with a lot of thermal mass.
I tried soldering. With a TS100 (might have been a TS80P). I tried to solder a a Valetudo Dreame adapter [1]. Took me two hours, then I gave up. I attributed it partly to my unstable hand. Next day I tried to make a USB to (I think) TTL cable. Also failed, the cable wasn't reliable. The fumes were horrible, probably inhaled a lot. I ended up borrowing an adapter, and easily succeeded rooting the damn thing. Never again (the soldering, not the rooting). Same with cable crimping. These physical things are just not my cup of tea. I got two left hands. I hate soldering.
Try rosin flux, it smells actually pleasant!
A lot of initial soldering mistakes are from using incorrect temperature, not cleaning the surfaces with flux, or from using wrong tips.
You do get better rather quickly, especially if you ask for help!
I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I have given up. Maybe it will inspire another reader. I didn't write it to discourage others, but to underline that sometimes, defeat is OK to admit, rather than keep trying.
I mean, a smell is temporary unpleasant but what happened to my health here? I am a former smoker, so I guess damage was previously done there.
This specific iron is a portable one (I had it hooked up on a powerbank), with temperature control and FOSS firmware. It was lead-free soldering tin with flux included. I held the item with my hands, so maybe it did get greased by skin oil, who knows. I had a lot of help from other more experienced people. They guided me through it, with a lot of patience. Without them, I'd been stuck way before. But even they were like... maybe this isn't for you.
My motor skills are just not that good (possibly related to my ASD or father having MS), and I notice that with everything where I gotta use my hands. From elementary school handwriting (learning to write) or even before with tasks like eating, putting clothes on, etc. That is as far back as I can remember. Ever onwards, things like sports. I am simply physically clumsy, and it requires a lot of effort and practice to get on a decent level. Can I do it? Can I hand write? Yes, I can. But it requires a lot of practice to get to a decent level. I can satisfy my wife with my hands though, probably my most important skill I am grateful for. No joke, btw. Although the fact I can, say, give myself food (eat) is probably more important, survival wise.
The one skill I would love to be able to achieve throughout my life, would be programming, not soldering. I mean, something like soldering is awesome, I am a sucker for right to repair, second hand, reusable hardware, etc something like programming comes close to, say, Lego. Though programming wise I am not sure nowadays, given AI. And there too, I tried VB, TCL, C, Java, Python. Multiple Python courses, too, from MOOC, books, to a professional teacher in a classroom. I've been (and am) able to make small adjustments to code, and do some shell scripting (and mIRC scripting, but that was roughly 30 years ago). That's it. That is without AI, I haven't bothered with that. I like to run LLMs locally.
It's also shockingly easy to just get boards made and populated these days. I of course have a station but I use it less and less.
I paid like 40€ last week for 5 smaller PCBAs, 0402s all nice and correct, jumpers, all my ICs. Don't have to worry about diode orientation or solder bridges. Just complete boards shipped to me. Easily beats my own labour rates.
Where did you buy your populated boards from? I want to make a small in and not deal with SMT at all.
I use jlcpcb, they're common in the prototype and hobby domains. But there's quite a few board houses in taiwan and china that do this, definitely shop around.
The annoying part is getting the bom and component placement files correct. I use kicad since it's free, and there's solid instructions from most houses on what they need.
JLBPCB does small runs cheap as a loss leader, so they get the production runs, if any, later. Also, they get to see what people are doing, in case something interesting goes by.
There's also a suspicion that JLBPCB may be encouraged to do this by the Party, to discourage other countries from maintaining an independent prototyping capability.
lead solder is so much better tho.
But yeah, everything's smd now and stencils and PCBs are cheap enough there is little reson to not go that way
I got into soldering as a child, but never learned how to do it properly. Years later I found this comic-book-style guide somewhere online, which made it quite easy to do without messing it up: https://mightyohm.com/files/soldercomic/FullSolderComic_EN.p...
Important to note that these days you really should use lead-free solder. You'll find all sorts of people going around claiming that leaded is better, but it's really not, and it's not worth the health risk. Your iron needs to be about 20c hotter than for leaded and your solder joints will look dull instead of shiny. If you find lead-free solder to not flow properly to be grainy your iron isn't hot enough.
Still wash your hands after using lead-free solder by the way. You don't want to be eating rosin or copper either.
I love soldering, even though my skill ceiling is SMD components. There is something almost spiritual and humbling about soldering because you cannot force your will onto the solder, you have to listen to what the solder wants to do and work with it, not against it.
When I first tried my hand at soldering I was using the "butter knife" method: apply solder to the iron, then try to smear it onto the wire like spreading butter with a butter knife. Of course the solder would never stick to where I wanted it to go. I had to learn that solder goes to where the heat is, so I instead had to heat the components or wires instead and then feed the solder onto the hot components. I also had to learn that a soldering iron is not a pencil, sometimes even when doing small parts you want to use the large tip. Don't try to tell the solder where to go, instead apply a big blog and watch it snap into place on its own.
Last year I installed an HDMI mod[1] into my Wii, this has been so far the hardest project. It took me many attempts to get it right, mainly because I was working against the solder instead of with it. But now that I have succeeded I could easily do it over and over again (not keen on the disassembly and reassembly of the console though).
EDIT: while I'm at it I might as well mention the iron I was using: the Pinecil[2]. It's a really neat and fast soldering iron at a very cheap price. Great for people like me who don't want hardware store cheap garbage, but also cannot justify buying an entire soldering station.
[1] https://electron-shepherd.com/collections/kits-mods/products... [2] https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...
Several tips helped me move from "painting with solder" to "hmm, that's acceptable": "heat the component, not the solder", "taping things to the table saves a hand", "use an analog, not digital, soldering iron", "clean your tip clean". Those, combined with practice, mean that I can do basic electronics work. I still accidentally melt insulation, and damage things from time to time.
Switching from a Weller to a Pinecil was also pretty nice although I'm sure everything I do, I could do with my analog weller.
Flux, liberally applied, is the sudo of soldering. It lets you force your will and make the solder do what you want. No one ever uses enough. I always have either a pen with a felt tip, or a syringe of chip quik.
It (a good proper flux) is what most people are missing when they struggle with SMD, the flux makes the solder almost magnetic and it jumps perfectly to the pad and the component. Mess up, make a bridge or bad connection? Add more and wave the tip through like a magic wand. Poof. Fixed.
Thanks for coming to my Church of Flux presentation.
Thanks for all the advice! For context, this poem was only partially about soldering. It's also about questions regarding ever-progressing technology on Earth, which I think some caught on to. I did use solder paste and a heat gun with a fume extractor after writing this poem. :)
I feel like this poem isn't really about soldering, but if anyone is actually bothered by it, there are some options.
Unleaded solder and a decent fume extractor make the process cleaner. A decent soldering iron and solder wire with good-quality flux (e.g. Kester) makes it faster.
If you'd rather not deal with the iron, you can manually apply solder paste and use a hot air rework tool or even a heat gun (careful!) to melt it. (A proper reflow oven is better, of course, but that's pricey.) This makes working with surface-mount components much easier.
If you'd rather not deal with it at all, have a PCB assembled somewhere else. JLC is pretty cheap, especially on simpler boards.
Yes, you are quite correct in the first point. I've also met people who recommend crimping where possible as a safer and cleaner solution.
>A proper reflow oven is better, of course, but that's pricey.
You can do a lot worse than a $55 temperature controlled hot plate. Plus you can watch the magic happen. Of course that only works for single sided boards. I've been very impressed with the results.
https://www.amazon.com/Soiiw-Microcomputer-Soldering-Preheat...
Of all the threads to not have a single bad comment!
(as of 11:10pm PST 2026-05-11, I hasten to add)
I enjoy soldering. I enjoy using solder paste, being a human pick and place machine, and then putting boards in the oven. I enjoy building physical devices.
But then I had a hardware startup and learnt something about myself.
I enjoy building one or two of something. I absolutely hate building anything more than that.
To each their own. I find soldering (with a nice iron!) very therapeutic, much like knitting. I'll put on a good album or catch up with some friends on the phone.
If you're impatient, plenty of fab houses (like JLCPCB) will do all the soldering for you, for about 0.1 cents per SMD joint or 2 cents per THT joint...
Nice iron,a good clamping set-up, and a high-quality correctly specked (to the task) solder make all the difference
I enjoy soldering, and like your comparisons. Yet I certainly don't blame the author for highlighting how unhealthy it is.
The lead is leaded solder is entirely manageable. You should keep track of it all and dispose of it properly. (I.e. not in a landfill.) Wash your hands afterwards. It doesn't vaporize, or at least not in any quantities that you should care about.
As long as you are not directly inhaling in the flux smoke while hovering over the project, it's not that unhealthy. If you are a hobbyist doing an hour of soldering a week, you probably get more smoke particle inhalation making toast. Or pizza. Or frying literally anything.
(If I was soldering for a living, yes I'd want a really good fume extractor on the bench, though.)
When i was in college I was soldering something really small (don't remember what it was) and flicked molten solder right in to the tear duct on the inside corner of one of my eyes. Not fun but didn't hurt anything permanently.
Any tips on how to improve soldering? I just started learning electronics, it’s so fun with Claude doing the code for the device.
Soldering was my favorite part of ee course in the university… i even kinda liked the fume..
Soldering is fun, especially if you designed the circuit and the pcb yourself. It's like putting together your own frankenstein, with a huge amount of anticipation toward when you finally get to give it power. Just be sure to get the polarity right on those electrolytic caps ;-)
Whatever happened to wire wrapping? That used to be a viable alternative.
I have used wire wrapping, and it's a good alternative to through-hole, but SMD is just miles better
So get yourself a solder fume extractor? There's plenty cheap ones to pick from.
Nice poem.
As long as it isn't soldering connectors, I like it.
Connectors tho... PITA
Watching skillful SMT soldering on YouTube fascinates me in a way that helps me understand the ASMR videos that the kids watch these days.
Recommendations?
No particular channels or videos come to mind, but here are a couple good ones (with timestamps to skip the intro fluff):
https://youtu.be/0LSG5uIdqJc?t=190s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUyetZ5RtPs&t=40s
I would not call 2nd video "skillful", that SOIC was molested, not soldered :(
I've used pretty good soldering stations at work and at home. But I needed to set up a new station at my workplace, and asked our best technician to recommend a new unit. He recommended Hakko FX-971, and I got one despite the price (to my employer), with 3 sizes of tips.
It was a true splurge, but I love it. Warm-up in 15 seconds, and the tips are integrated with the heaters so there's no thermal contact to worry about. Tiny and big tips both work great. You can change tips while they're hot.
At home I have a typical Weller station, and it's OK for the electronics side business that I run, but nothing like that Hakko.
... and I love soldering.
I hate to say I love the fumes - that rosin smell is unique. Did many soldering projects in an enclosed area back when I was a kid. Everyone worked that way years ago. I wonder if the fumes kill more people than being neurotic about the fumes.
I had a friend that taught with leaded solder and say 'you can wash your hands, but you can't wash your lungs', and considered the fumes from lead-free solder as more exotic and cancerous than burning rosin. Lead free is regulated to prevent the metal from getting into the environment on a large scale, there's not health regulations around what gets burned off when hitting lead-free solder with a soldering gun at the wrong temperature. It's meant to be cooked in an oven with ventilation away from humans.
It probably varies; some people are allegic to rosin, some develop an allergy from long-term exposure, and others seem to effectively be immune to it.
Yeah I grew up with it too. Also the smell of cigarettes and coffee typical of so many communist government offices brings back pleasant memories.
I disagree, it’s a joy actually, shame that jobs that involve soldering don’t pay well, yes, even embedded engineers aren’t paid that well plus soldering is less than 10% of the work.
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