Soooo trying to finish putting this together and I’ve run into an unforeseen issue.
I can NOT get solder to stick to the aluminum housing of my flashlight… as a matter of fact, I burned up a board today when the ground came lose.
Anybody have any ideas, solutions? I’m new to this and thought maybe someone might have an idea.
There are lots of ways. One is to drill a tiny hole in the aluminum, stuff a steel or bronze screw into it, and attach the ground wire to that. Another is to get the liquid solder onto the aluminum and reach through the liquid with a sharp needle and scrape the aluminum oxide coating off the aluminum (since it’s under liquid solder, it can’t re-oxidize instantly as aluminum does when exposed to air).
Interesting, I scuffed the aluminum before trying to solder, is that not good enough? Will that needle trick be better than that??