I just ordered a tube from that supplier. I have not been really happy with my flux, I like the Kester liquid but my paste did not work as well as I wanted. What solder paste do you use? I need to order some as mine is getting old and thick.
Pad soldering
Hardware
- 295°C Weller WSD81
- Felder 0.5mm Sn62Pb36Ag2 with 3.5% flux (one with relative much rosin core flux, general use not SMD which has less flux %)
Preparations
- clean PCB with Alcohol and cotton swab
- twisting the wires end (helps to prevent splicing while soldering)
- cleaning tip in sponge
1.
- pre tinning pad and wire
- heating up pad and stick the wire end into it
- same as 1. just adding extra flux (for example if you use a SMD solder wire with only 1% flux)
- directly solder wire to the pad (not recommended but works fine with a solder wire with 2.5% or more flux)
in the video I look without any magnification to the soldering, just the camera records
I use Chip Quik solder paste SMD291AX50T3 purchased from Digikey.
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/chip-quik-inc/SMD291AX50T3/SMD291AX50T3-ND
I generally do not use ESD on the builds I do, the flashlight stuff is pretty ESD safe
I have a silicone mat covering my desk
old and thick can be a few times refreshed with a tiny amount of IPA
if you have to use it every time you open the can it’s time to get new stuff
IPA? You mean 99% isopropyl alcohol? I keep a jug of that around all the time.
yes
At my previous workplace, they had an interesting method for soldering(correcting) smd pcb parts. They main orders were machine assembled, but there were some pieces here and there that must be done by hand, or corrected manually.
The whole pcb was kept on a heated metal plate, which was hot to the touch, but certainly not in the solder melting range. When they installed/replaced a part, a lot less heat input was requied, than heating up everything from room temperature. It worked good as far as I know.
Btw, I also use a KSGER v2.12S soldering station with the black coated tips, and they work awesome. The controller may produce unstable temp readings over 420Celsius depending on the exact tip used, but I almost never had to use that much heat, and the tip still stayed at the set temp, apart from the jumping numbers on the controller.
Subscribed!
Thanks for the videos Lexel. You have very steady hands especially when things are magnified. I love how you guys make it look so easy. 
Can I buy this version. Thanks so much my friend
I spelled it wrong, its SDG Electronics. I think it was his flux review where he did a bunch of board soldering that brought up a bunch of good soldering video thumbnails. There’s tons of good videos out there, but seeing how the experienced guys choose equipment, prep things and go about the actual soldering is a big help. Lexel’s videos are pretty good, although I’d have to stop drinking coffee for a week to do things his way.
I have both of those soldering irons you mentioned. I want to like the TS100 and I’ve spent enough money on replacement tips for it but for some reason the tips keep getting awful dirty and it only seems to work well at higher temperatures. Also the combination of tiny handle and long distance from the handle to the tip bothers me, most days my hands aren’t steady enough to use it for fine work… If you are willing to spend that kind of money its probably time to look at a KSGER or an iron/hot air station. I used the PX-988 often until I started playing with the small 0402 components. Its pretty good if you can find genuine Hakko tips, better yet with the good Mechanic tips. Banggood has started selling them but the listing is messed up at the moment. I’ve never had much luck with those pointed conical tips. I like as big a chisel tip that will fit the application and like the knife tips even better. Lots of thermal mass and conductivity and you can sneak the point onto some really small components. Hakko has a really good page on their website about tip selection.
My solder station is a Yihua 8786D, it works pretty good and the hot air handle uses a band clamp for attaching the nozzles. The twist and turn style has a much more limited selection of nozzles but will work just fine. If you plan on reflowing led’s or assembling drivers a hot air gun is quite helpful. Even when I’m just soldering wires I’ll preheat the board with hot air while I’m waiting for the iron to heat up. Hot air isn’t a necessity, but it sure makes things easier.
Ear swabs work great for cleaning flux. Don’t soak it so it leaves a puddle when you touch board, just get it damp so it picks up the flux residues.
Too much solder?
Use thinner diameter solder?
Not at right temp?
Time for new tip?
Just add a little flux and hit the joint with a clean tip and it should flow better. The access solder will go on your clean tip. Repeat until tail is gone.
too low temp on the solder connection when you remove the iron
- the heat may get soaked away very fast like on MCPCB
or
- not enough or already burned flux
Nice collection of tips and tricks here. Thanks for the thread, and thanks to everyone for sharing!
11/11 sales —- any recommendations on a KSGER T12 setup from Ali or Bangood?
I found the ‘official KSGER’ store on AliExpress, but there are a lot of options that look very, very similar to each other.
Banggood had a lot of search hits too, but they all seemed to say v2.0 or v2.01 where the Ali options were v2.1s. I recall reading that the newer version was worth having, but I don’t recall why.
That’s very useful information, thanks. I’ve not caught up with this thread for a while, as I need to set aside plenty of time to take in all the infos that are presented here.
This is the station that I got, before knowing anything about soldering irons. It is supposed to come with three tips, but only one (pointed) tip was included, and I have never been able to figure out which tips are compatible. Since it was pretty cheap for such a big box I assume that it’s not regulated, and that there are probably soldering irons that will make it easier for me to find a way into this hobby, even though this one does have a hot air gun. The only thing that I’ve tried so far was to tin the ends of some speaker cables, but I soon found out that the tip I have is not exactly suitable for the job - a flat tip is probably far more useful.
Great info, thanks LEXEL. I have a fixed power soldering iron & realized it’s rather awful for any fine soldering work. That STM32 by Quicko looks great. Might get one, unless there’s a better deal somewhere else.
Looks the same as a 936 tip. Searh for 936 tip on ebay and you will find several.