Soldering iron tips, how to solder SMD without ruining the PCB

[Lexel]

@Scallywag

@mrheosuper

flux is game changer when soldering, you can never have too much flux

You say that, but now everything is sticky. There’s flux everywhere, I’m crying, you’re crying, and I can pick up all my tools with one finger because they’re sticky!

I jest; flux is good, but don’t drown your parts. I did some production work microsoldering for a bit, and I used flux pretty liberally, but everything gradually got sticky… Fortunately, they had a solvent bath for the parts anyway, and I could just toss the tweezers in there once a week. My hands, though, could not go in that solvent bath, and trying to clean them with other methods (alcohol, liberal amounts of Dawn, Gojo, etc) gave me some severe dry skin issues.

That job was basically 100% microsoldering; while I don’t miss soldering that much, I definitely improved my skill… and I do miss the binocular microscope and JBC CD-S soldering station…

After a good flux mess you always should use alcohol and clean the PCBs
I also wrote in first post that a proper dispensing solution helps put the flux in a very precise amount where you need it
also that stuff is not really healthy so a proper soldering steam sucking machine and probably gloves help