As long as it’s less than 100 bucks, I don’t have to ask 
It might be worth using two solders with different melting points unless you reflow and put the wires on at the same time.
some people use too much solder and mess up
even you use flux cored solder, use extra flux. I use rosin flux (cheap & available in local)
after work, clean whole things with isopril alcohol / acetone or paint thinner. (I use paint thinner)
before solder wires apply some flux for better soldering.
If you can grab one of these 550W Corning lab style hotplates at a garage sale or off eBay they are very good for reflow, the ‘3’ setting seems about perfect:
I was lucky and was able to get one for free when a local lab was throwing them out.
This is a very good picture, because it shows a common problem that is very easy to solve.
You can clearly see how the wires have rarely accepted any solder. Probably because of an oxide layer (wires look dark-ish) and maybe molten/burned insulation.
-Only solder wires (and parts in general) that are properly tinned. If they don’t accept solder even with lots of flux, sand them down until they are shiny!
-Clamp your wire down to the surface you want to solder, so it doesn’t move while soldering. (happened at least with the white wire)
Its unnecessarily difficult to keep both parts at soldering temperature when they don’t touch.
-Make good thermal contact with your iron! Use a chisel tip for that. If you don’t make good enough contact, it will take forever to get the wires to soldering temperature and the insulation will melt or burn.
You can even grab your wire just before the insulation with tweezers to divert the heat away. A good Iron with a good tip will solder the wire anyway. (works better with litz wire though and may not work when thermal capacity of the iron is at it’s limit anyway.)
- You can see how the solder on the red wire is contamined with stuff, probably burned insolation. If your solder looks like this, remove it, clean all parts and start over again.
Soldering to large things with good thermal conductivity can still be annoying, but at least it will be less annoying then. 
@TSellers
A hotplate is a very handy tool to have. Looks great!
Well, sh!t happens when we push the limits (7 LED's, heavy gauge wire in 20mm?), but that is one fugly job there, scaru... In that tight space, setup is everything and has to be perfect.
+1 for dave_ there, and that white lead is wayyy up there in the air somewhere - things have to be tighter, compact, less solder, easier is the result.
Reflowing will generally look neater than soldering, and once you get reflow down pat, it is easier.
Well I know that I am professional in “how to mess things up”…
I messed plenty of drivers and not only with bad soldering skills I messed things up with fujik. I will not use it any more.
I consider myself noob at soldering. Mostly because I am not to happy with my iron station. Bet everything I solder works good even on shock gun recoil tests.
Emitter Reflowing hard? Are you kidding me… This the most easiest thing: :
1.I clamp noctigon on bench vise and make sure that it is even
2.Then I put very thin layer of solder paste on noctigon led contacts
3.Then I take led and I make sure which is + - side
4.Then hard press and center emitter on solder paste
5. I use the biggest screwdriver tip under the star and 700 temp
6. Magic happens solder paste is disappearing and emitter is soldered to noctigon
When I compare my job with already finished ones from intl-outdoors they are same…
Soldering? I have some problems here and I can solder using only certain types of tips but I should not be to budget orientated when ordering soldering station.
Next one will be pro station for sure.
There are no serious job without proper tools.
Gotta go with Reflowing. Neither are difficult but solder is visible where thermal pads on LED’s are not while reflowing.
So reflowing PROPERLY should be more difficult. I am sure almost all of us remove hundreds of hours of life by reflowing out of spec…Not that it matters much 
Never could solder worth a darn for years and years. Now that I have this station, well today I soldered a 200 ohm thin film resistor and a zener diode along with stacking 4 chips. I started to sweat the resistor, as it’s teeny tiny, but it went without a hitch and my new Solarforce K3 is pushing 4.05A through an MT-G2.
The right tools and some good guidance makes any job easier to do.
Remember, a professional is a trained amateur!
Both are as easy as changing oil
I’ve been doing that wrong all these years!!!
You got kind of shake it around as you pour - think she got it right 
.
That reminds me of how I oil my frying pan.
hilarious blonde 
What would she do with soldering iron in her hand?
That's not much worse than a girl I once knew. She did find the oil cap and put oil into the engine, but she filled it to the brim.
Dale - me too! I got the Hakko 888 - great tool. Single biggest factor to my ability to mod. Bout a month ago, accidentally cut thru the iron chord, and without hesitation, I just went ahead and ordered a whole nother brand new 888 - could hardly wait the 2 days. Couldn't stand using my old crappy Weller iron...
I had a dual trigger for hi and lo, big ol beast of a gun. Between that and my Weller 25 watt pencil, I totally sucked at soldering. Amazing what the right tool can do for ones output!
Now take that girl up above, a book of matches to light a cigarette, toss the match and she’s ready for an insurance claim! I swear it looks like she’s about to fire up a hood mounted Bar-B-Q pit and she’s lathering on the lighter fluid!
Somebody grab coat hangers and a pack of Oscar Mayers….or the new Angus Ball Park Franks, oh yeah Baby, game time!
Well you guys are pointing to my suspicious…
My Hakko 936 sucks!
Or at least that 907 handle sucks… It often unscrews on that plastic screw for changing tips…
Yes I know that I am not to good at soldering but even real pro would be bugged with my iron…
No matter what tip I use I must putt on highest temp settings to 900/480 in order to solder something.
Can you at least recommend me replacement handle for 936 with because this handle is junk:
U see this plastic black screw above tip? This often unscrews with no particular reason and you can not hard screw it because it over jumps the thread and loosen again… So you can only gently tight it….
For the 888, I priced out a replacement iron/chord and it was about $1 cheaper than an entire 888 workstation, so just bought a whole new 888 instead. If you gotta turn up the heat, than usually the tip should be replaced. If you did that already and still need high heat, maybe there is something wrong in the unit, or the looseness of that fitting, as you described. Also with all the soldering I've been doing (200-250 or more 7135's, etc.), I always use a small chisel shaped tip - the pointy ones don't get enough heat for this kind of work we do.
I guess the plastic threads are so weak that some PTFE tape won’t help? Would be a shame to throw it away because of that. oO
This!
In my personal opinion, something like a ~3.2mm chisel tip (Hakko T18-DL32 Shape-3.2DL ) is the best suited for this kind of work. I keep a 1.4mm and a 4mm chisel tip around for some special tasks, but they rarely get any use. Pencil shaped tips - no thanks. Have yet to find a task where they are better (or even remotely as useful as) than a chisel tip.