ok. so i took a look around my garage and was pleased to find 2 different soldering irons and a whole bunch of solder wire. i have tons of electronic mods plannd for my car, so i think that soldering will be a handy skill for me to posess to make things look nice and clean.

does anybody wanna give me a quick soldering lesson?

pictures and step by step would be very much appreciated.

thanks

 

Not much to it but a steady hand really. Soldering wires and stuff like that is a sinch,you can teach yourself.

Soldering on like xbox motherboards and such is a whole 'nuther ball game. Just heat the wire up and place the solder on it, it will flow off the iron onto the contacts.

 

Twist your wires together, heat them up FIRST with the iron, then push some solderonto the tip. It will slowley pull into the wires you have twisted, getting them even warmer, add as much solder as you need, done.

 

Just remember...you can't solder cold wires.

 

Just remember that solder will seek out the heat. The tip of solder on the iron is a good tip. Like said above, twist and heat the wires first but don't melt the insulation. Then apply the solder. Trick I use is to have the iron on one "side" of the wire, and the solder on the other. Solder will race thru the wires to the heat, making a more solid connection. Don't forget to put your heatshrink onto one of the wires, and slide it up and out of the way. So then you can slide it down and melt it in place. Can't tell you how many times I make the "perfect" connection, to realize that my heat shrink is sitting right next to me. DOH!

 

It cant be explaned much easer then THIS

 

thanks guys. i knew it wasnt too hard. but even something thats easy can be messed up real bad if yo dont know how to do it. haha

 

this is the RIGHT way to do it, not touching the solder to the iron.

 

Just because it hasn't been said, i will say it :-)

There is also a neat reverse solder method, it's called Flux, if I remember correctly.

Flux is like braded copper wire, and it acts like a sponge to soldered items. SO, if you were to say, solder an incorrect resistor to an LED, or etc.. You can reverse yourself and avoid cutting and destroying tiny electronic items. Flux is usualy used on things like motherboards, where chips are soldered to the reverse side of boards, flux will soak up the solder so chips, resistors, and capacitors can be removed and replaced. This is a great skill to learn for fixing amps and things of that nature, TV's, Stereos, you name it.

However, for things like wires, its just easier to re-twist your wires and cut the old solder off, i wouldn't try to remove it from a splice, it's just pointless.

And it goes without saying, when playing with a soldering iron, remember, that thing is hot, and once the solder touches the iron and melts, its liquid metal, if you put pressure on something, and it slips, you might be wearing some of that metal, and it will burn you, so use caution, and try to solder with nothing below you but empty floor or something to catch drips. It will drip sometimes, if too much is applied.

 

i believe the flux is what ya brush on the solding wires or boards.... not sure what exactly its called.... the little soldering gun i bought at autozone came iwth it... stuff lasts along time
looks like peanute buter.LMFAO

brush alittle of that stuff on the wires or board and the solder sticks alot quicker!

also i stoped using those little cheap soldering irons cause they suck... takes forever to heat up!
buy the larger soldering gun or preaty much just pull the trigger for a fast heat up

tho i usualy do just twist the wires together and touch alittle solder to the guns tip and then touch and hold it to the wires and add more solder once its melted in good...