Below are links to three solders I've found very easy to work with low melting points, great flow, etc.
Just pick a soldering station that fits your budget.
keep the solder tip clean/shiny (with a damp piece of sponge) and tinned.
Use miniature alligator clips on component leads and to block heat from toasting anything that would suffer from the same..
Make as secure a connection (metal to metal), as possible, before applying heat, while touching both pieces, at the junction to be be soldered.
Remove the soldering iron tip, as soon as the solder flows into the joint, to further avoid any component toasting.
- https://www.amazon.com/Cardas-Soldering-Eutectic-Silver-Solder/dp/B015X68HXW
- https://www.amazon.com/WBT-0800-Silver-Solder-Content/dp/B00125OCVU/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2TU8AYPHUQCUW&keywords=wbt+solder&qid=1640095423&s=hi&sprefix=wbt+solder%2Ctools%2C73&sr=1-4
- https://www.partsconnexion.com/TRT-72752.html
- https://www.amazon.com/s?k=sloder+station&crid=329NPWJX68JFT&sprefix=solder+station%2Caps%2C145&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
The copper clips are excellent, but: the shiny minis work well, to sink the heat, also:
- https://www.amazon.com/s?k=miniature+alligator+clips+heat+sinks&crid=3R9C7B0PPMZR5&sprefix=miniature+alligator+clips+heat+sinks%2Caps%2C83&ref=nb_sb_noss
Enjoy the learning experience!
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Then again: if you're anywhere around Indianapolis, IN and only planning on ever tackling the one soldering project; bring it over and I'll do it for you, gratis.
btw: Lead Free solders are typically used for plumbing, to avoid getting the crap in a water supply.
Though there are some made for audio: they are expensive and usually have higher melting points
Happy listing and holidays!
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DIYaudio is a great place for this type of advice. :)
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Thank you all!
Thanks Rodman, I live on the East Coast, though.
I was not sure where to post it, and then as I hit post, I realized, there is probably a thread on this already.
I do know the supply and brands change with time though.
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I have several soldering stations and use either Cardas solder or Wonder solder. If you live outside of the Boston area I'd be more than happy to help out. Just PM me.
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You got good advice on what to use. My question is, Why? Before you go applying a lot of heat it is good to know where and what and why? Because you can buy all the greatest gear, and then if you don't know what you're doing easily overheat a trace and trash a circuit board.
My advice is once you get your stuff take a few wires twist them together and practice soldering. Get a feel for how heat flows into metal and how solder flows to the heat. What you want is to get the part hot enough all you do is touch the solder and it flows right into the joint. But not so hot it starts melting plastic and insulation. Takes a little practice to get the hang of it which is why I suggest start with scrap wire not expensive preamp.
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+1 on Cardas Eutectic and WBT.
All silver solder I've see contain lead.
Practice makes perfect
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Where on east coast? I'm in Central NJ, lug it over to my shop!
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It’s always a great opportunity to learn, add an accomplishment, increase your self worth. It’ll sound much better if you do the job yourself!
If tight or tricky, not one to learn first: my local electronics parts store will make repairs. or, a computer repair shop. you may have a source close for this.
during deep covid, the repair dude worked from home, so I dropped a tricky job off, out, back in, pickup.
is it just a ground, not important signal path? there are conductive adhesives you could use for a semi-permanent fix, scrape it off and re-do later.
https://www.amazon.com/Conductive-Adhesives/b?ie=UTF8&node=401542011
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Cardas solder is very easy to work with. Actually, it sometimes helps to melt your existing solder points with a tiny bit of Cardas solder. A lot of cold solder joints are hard to heat up and melt.
I know you are not serious about doing soldering, but avoid those 25 or 30 watt hobby level soldering irons. You really need a good power supply and solder tip heating element to keep the heat constant and hot enough. You should consider anything that is at the 60 to 75 watt level.
If you have a digital soldering station, I would recommend temps between 350 and 399 degrees Celsius. Do not go above 399. If you are using a larger tip (such as a 2mm or larger), I would try something between 350 and 370 C. I have seen traces being lifted off the board with large tips at 399 degrees. I would be conservative on initial temps because not all soldering stations may show actual temperatures. Start around 350 and work up from there if you really need the heat.
WASH YOUR HANDS after you work with solder or soldering tools. Like others have said, lead is still a component in many solders.
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solder without lead will screw up soldering of electronics. for that reason i only buy vintage solder rolls that I can usually find in scrap stores or fleamarkets. Have many vintage Kester rolls that are easy to work with.
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While you will get all kinds of advice, the actual test is to begin practicing on different size wires, using perhaps different solders as well. Personally, I did NOT find my soldering skills to be any good until I found a good soldering station, good solder (in my case, I usually use Wonder solder), and a way to hold the object being soldered. Further, the proper heat of the iron and the tip used for the job are as important as anything. Don't bother with cheap tools expecting great results.
When you see that you're ready from practice, then it is the right time to move on to the project at hand.
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It would be good to practice soldering skills on trashed circuit boards, you'll find out how easy to lift solder pads!
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Amazon has some practice solder kits. I did some practice on that before I put in new drivers and reattached wires on the crossover of my speakers.
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Don’t do it! Remember Murphy’s Law. Also Smith’s Law.
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I learned to solder by building Dynakits. My first one was constructed with a Radio Shack 25w pencil iron, a Swiss Army knife and a pair of needle nose pliers. When done, it worked! Today you can build an Akitika GT-102 and have a nice medium powered Class AB SS amp to use when you finish.
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@crustycoot I was just thinking about a novice building a Dynaco or Heathkit kit back when, with many points to solder instead of one. The instructions must have included instruction on soldering, like the need to practice first? A nice skill to have, but the early attempts must have been intimidating. The only things I have ever soldered were plumbing connections and the occasional minor repair.
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Soldering pipe fittings is a very different technique from electronic circuitry.
the main difference being the heat tolerance of copper pipe vs. the lack of same for electronic parts. I have used 33W and 40W pencil irons with narrow tips, and small diameter silver content solder.
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@desferous-
Be careful, from whom you receive advice.
ie: 350 Celsius = 662 Fahrenheit
Cardas Quad Eutectic's melting point = 364-384 Degrees F (185 to 195º C)
WBT 0805 = 420.8 - 426.2 Degrees Fahrenheit(216-219 C)
A VERY worthwhile read, here (click the top right of page to expand):
:
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rodman99999 may be technically right on the actual melting point of solder. However, he failed to include the fact that all mass is essentially a "heat sink". This means that if your solder tip is at 216 C, it could very well be melting the WBT solder "at the tip of the soldering iron". BUT the rest of the solder mass is rapidly cooling because the board traces and the board itself is soaking up all that extra heat. This means that you will really never fully melt the solder point if you use such a low temperature. Oh, it may eventually melt if you sit there for about 30-60 seconds waiting for the rest of the solder point and trace to heat up enough to melt everything, but this is not the right way to solder components. You want to heat the solder fast enough to melt and join/dis-join without excessively heating the component part (capacitor / resistor / etc.).
This challenge is compounded by the fact that on many boards during the original manufacturing process, the solder has actually flowed through the hole to the other side of the board and may be still "holding on to the component" even though you have melted the main solder point on top of the board. This means that you actually have to crank up the heat enough so that it melts the solder all the way through the hole to the other side (without too much heat that can lift the traces off the board). It's somewhat of an art form.
All my advice has come from 15+ years experience of doing large amounts of electronic equipment rebuilds and soldering/de-soldering.
One of the reasons I recommend the 60-75 watt stations is that you need enough current to keep the solder tip hot, because as soon as you use the tip to melt the solder, the tip itself starts to cool down. I use a high end Hakko FX-951 station. This has a soldering iron where the heating element is actually part of the tip (that looks like a pencil by itself). Since the heating element is right at the tip, it is very effective at keeping the temperature constant -- the station can monitor tip temp and vary the current to keep the temp at a constant point. This station and tips are much more expensive than your $50-100 budget stations, but it works a lot better. The cheaper stations have a heating element at the base and the tip is just a solid piece of metal. The station doesn't actually know what the temp at the tip is. It just continually provides current to the heating element.
I recommended 350 C as a starting point because I have never been able to melt solder under this temp. I have never seen board traces lift at this temp either. You will find that on many manufactured boards, it can be difficult to heat the solder enough to pull out the component part.
Also, if you use a tiny tip (like a 1mm or 1.6mm chisel tip), you will need to crank up the heat even more because the tip does not have enough mass and it loses temperature faster. If you use a large tip, then it has a lot more heat mass and you need to be careful on the temp.
My main tips are a 1.6mm chisel and a 2.4mm chisel. I mostly use the 2.4mm, but I will grab the 1.6mm if I'm doing a small part with thin wire leads. Many times, the 1.6mm just does not have enough heat mass to effectively solder the component, even at a 399 C temp.
At 350 C you are pretty safe. I have seen board traces lift when using 399 C with larger tips (such as my 2.4mm chisel or larger). These are boards where the traces are all on one side and very thin (and the hole do not have through-hole barrels). Essentially, the only thing holding onto the component leads are the thin trace pads on one side.
Don't use the tiny pencil tips. I have never been able to successfully solder with them. They are just too tiny. A 1.6mm chisel is the smallest I have used consistently.
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@desferous:
Personally: I have never had a soldering iron turned up past what the solder manufacturer recommended.
Nor: have a ever had the first problem with solder flowing nicely and quickly, whether on circuit board traces, point to point/multi-wire on a post, or: anything else, on a piece of electronic gear.
That's in over six decades of soldering (I was 12 when I learned), doing builds, repairs and upgrades, both professionally and as a hobby.
When the eutectics hit the scene...what a Godsend!
I have of course: of necessity, changed to larger tips, to sustain temperature on bigger joints. The tiny tips are fine, when apropos. ie: For upgrading those crappy, itty-bitty surface mount, electrolytic capacitors, with higher grade, radial lead caps (sans a mile of lead, each). Soldering tweezers, to get the little boogers off the board,
When desoldering: I find an out of the way joint and find the lowest melting point, of the OEM solder and proceed at that temp. A soldapullt is a worthwhile investment, btw.
https://www.amazon.com/EDSYN-The-Original-Deluxe-SOLDAPULLT/dp/B006GOKVKI
There are opinions and then: there's what the manufacturers know about their own products and electronic applications.
I'll trust the guys that make the stuff (always worked for me and why I posted the above article)!
Your choice, of course (it's still a free country)!
Happy holidays!
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Soldering has become second nature to me, especially with the right tools. De-soldering on the other hand can vary by the way of what technique may be best, i.e., exactly what kind of solder was used to begin with, how sturdy (heat wise) are the traces, and how much solder do you need to remove.
Hakko has made very fine soldering tools and de-soldering tools as well. I am sure that my end product is partly due to this.
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The comments auxinput makes about parts like the board being a heat sink are why it takes practice to solder well. Proper technique involves heating the parts to be soldered to where the solder will melt when touched to the wire. This ensures solder drawn well into the joint. Merely melting solder onto the joint can result in a cold solder joint, one that looks okay, but isn't, because the solder is merely covering and not really joining.
It takes practice and experience. I started with a Dynamo as a kid and have done it a lot over the years, but even so it can take a bit of practice to get it down again if you haven't done it in a while.
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Hello, Thank you all. I am understanding some of the nuances better from your points.
My project does not involve a board. I bought a handmade tube preamp. It is an incredible upgrade for sonically on many levels. We have been using it without the gain disable switch on.
When I flip the gain disable switch, music only comes from one channel.
It is basically one wire to wire connection that needs to be soldered.
I might know a guy down in Greenfield, Mass who repaired my son's guitar amp a while back. I could give him a call and see.
It is just the is question of the time and cost for someone else to do it compared to buying some equipment and trying to learn something new myself.
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Point to point wiring, love it, only way I go with pre and amps these days.
I agree, temp of gun varies with amount of heat sink working with, binding posts can take much heat. Just need to protect other in circuit components with their own heat sink.
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Many thanks for posting the article about the 5 family types of solder. It explains so much more than I knew previously. Wonder Solder was a longtime choice for me, but after reading this, I must seek out some of the other products available. In the past, I have tried various solders products and many times was disappointed with the performance as a whole. I have had an interest in silver bearing solder, but again the results were dull looking joints.
Maybe you can point me in the right direction about a silver bearing solder and temperature that might best for a given choice.
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@4krowme -
You're welcome.
I've encountered solders, whose flux chemistry made the finished product look, "dull". Flux removal brought out the shine.
There are other, more compelling reasons for flux removal, than aesthetics, of course*.
*Good stuff, here: https://www.chemtronics.com/do-you-need-to-clean-flux
Then again: I have seen cold solder joints that appeared dull, without the other signs/visuals, that would indicate a faulty joint. That makes the case for an iron and large enough tip, to maintain a recommended temp, as well as sufficient/proper application of the heat (time, tinning and tip position.
Regarding a good, silver-bearing solder: as mentioned: https://www.amazon.com/Cardas-Soldering-Eutectic-Silver-Solder/dp/B015X68HXW
Adhere to their temp recommendations, follow good soldering guidelines and you can't go wrong!
Happy holidays and hobbying!
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Cardas has been recommended in the past, so I will give it another go. Last time, joints didn't look good, but I have found that ALL the previous solder must be removed before you can trust the results of resoldering a joint.
Some of the newer products have solder that is simply hard to work with (high melting point). That is a recent change in the last few years, but it doesn't happen too often. Figured that it was just hi temp no lead solder, but after reading the paper, I see that I was wrong. Glad it was put forth.
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rodman99999 is knowledgeable. My vote is for rod, I would definitely take his advice and I've been soldering for 50+ years.
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