an unspoken solder factor: SIZE

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wiremanflash
 
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Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:36 pm

an unspoken solder factor: SIZE

Post by wiremanflash »

It had been a while since I'd done much circuit board work, and I'd even lost my small tip for my 25W iron. I grabbed a new iron (just to get a fine enough tip), but didn't check my solder roll.

.064 was what I had. good stuff, but a bit heavy for what I needed to do.

My friends, if you're going to do DIPs, etc. on kit boards, do yourself a favor and get .031" (.75mm) Diameter solder. Ada and other little soldering how-to's on the web for some reason don't make ANY mention of it.

I struggled my way through what I've needed to do now and again, but .031 is what you need for this stuff, even with a nice fine tip iron.

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neslekkim
 
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Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 4:20 am

Re: an unspoken solder factor: SIZE

Post by neslekkim »

was also discussed here:
http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=28801

I'm myself using 0.5mm solder mostly, occasionally 0.3mm, the bigger ones like 0.8mm and 1mm is more or less unusable, one thing is the size, another thing is how the flux is contained in the solder, it seems like the thinner solders have an more even distribution of flux, at least the result are lot better.

But tipsize is also important, depending on what you solder, I kinda not prefering the too small ones, since they have little mass to keep heat in the tip, so I often end up with 2.4mm-3.2mm chisel type for soldering DIP/TH, and 1.6mm chisel for smaller things., and 2mm bevel for dragsoldering smt ic packages, the tinytiny tips that I have is way to difficult to use for me, feels better to heat an larger area and just use enough flux and not too much solder, and it works very fine, lot of teaching videos on youtube also confirms this.

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm

Re: an unspoken solder factor: SIZE

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

You do want to match the solder diameter to the work you're doing. 1mm stuff gives you way too much metal for most through-hole components, but trying to fill the 1/8" holes around the lugs of a DC barrel jack with 0.5mm solder is a chore.

It's more a matter of feel and personal preference than any hard rule, but I tend to look at the little ball that forms on the end of the wire as you pull the solder away from the iron, and compare that to the size of the joint I want to make.

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