My first squeezy-bulb desoldering thing!

Tech Talk
#1

Today I made a great purchase, my first desoldering iron.

I’d like to encourage anyone who is afraid of soldering to give it a shot. It’s not really THAT hard…even for a person like me who has trouble trying new things. It’s fun, nerve racking AND you get to buy new toys!

I haven’t done the deed yet, but just playing with the squeezy-bulb I feel sort of like the Ghostbusters when they have that lame homebrew PKE Meter at the beginning of the first movie…and they are squeezing the bulb and…wow.

God I love being a nerd.

If anyone has any helpful “before you fry a PCB you should probably know this” tips, I’d appreciate them.

#2

Solder sucker, or desoldering pump

You will also want rosin flux desoldering braid, which is basically woven copper ribbon.

Watch the first two movies on this page:

http://tangentsoft.net/elec/movies/

It’s not geared toward PCB hacking, but it definitely teaches you about what you should have, and what you should be doing for through-hole soldering.

#3

Thanks, I haven’t had much luck with the braid itself (and my little 15 watt soldering stick) but braid + solder sucker = good times and solderless through holes. Then, out come the buttons, off comes the faceplate and finally my delusions of grandeur have taken another step to be delusionier.

Thanks for the vids and the tips!

#4

hehe pump

yeah i got a red one from radio shack

shake it and you can hear the solder :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#5

Flux. Get flux, and learn when to use it.

Flux helps solder flow. You’ll see that melting the same solder over and over again, or trying to melt old solder, gets difficult. It just doesnt get liquidy enough. Dab a little flux on it, and it’ll melt nice and smooth and flow to the metal it needs to.

It also helps a TON with desoldering braid. Put a little dab on the joint you want to desolder, place the braid over it, and the iron on the braid. The braid will heat up the solder, which melts easily because of the flux, and the braid will soak the solder up easy.

And always tin your wires with solder first, especially when soldering to exposed copper pads flat on, or stranded wires into D-Sub solder cups.

Glad to see you took my advice and tried your hand at it.

#6

I saw that advice in the videos that were posted for me by Green (VERY informative BTW, thank you again). I just need to figure out the best place to get it, see how expensive it is and learn to love it!

I’m glad too. It’s pretty intimidating for some people (some people = me), but soldering the first time wasn’t so bad, and I’m getting better each time I practice and/or try to do some real soldering. Everyone on the board, in their own unique ways, have been extremely helpful. I guess fighting game fans know their stick building stuff.

Thanks again everyone, before long I’m going to have either A) a pretty great first stick mod or B) a pretty great fried PCB that afforded me LOTS of knowledge. Either way I think we’re going to come out ahead on this deal.

#7

I take back every good thing I said about the squeezy-bulb thingie. It burnt me. Of course, upside is this is my first solder related injury. So I guess, in a way, the SBT took me one step close to Stick Building Manhood.

On a side note, I figured out why the braid didn’t work so well for me…and I feel pretty silly. I realized by tinning my solder tip of the 15 watt solder stick it conducts heat a TON better. I mean, I read that (and saw it on several videos) but it took actual practice until I realized “hey, wait…they were SERIOUS about the tinning thing?” And I thought it was all for show.

#8

i feel that hot glue gun burns suck worse then soldering iron burns
sure s.irons fucking hurt…bad

but if you get hot glue on you theres no way of getting it off with out burning yourself more.
shit sucks :frowning: