donke ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

Soldering Adventures

I got a new Soldron SI15-30A soldering iron recently because I just got a noice deal on a Cheapino v2 kit by an absolute chad.

In preparation for working on the cheapino I decided maybe I should make a scrappy macropad, in preparation for which I decided maybe I should try fixing my Redragon wired controller which now has a case of joystick drift.

Three yaks later and here I am with a shitty soldering iron (maybe idk) in me hand, oblivious to all the nuances of desoldering armed with the knowledge of 3 minute youtube video on the topic

Things went about as smoothly as they could’ve gone of course after this.

How hard could it be? I thunk to meselves

Its just stupid solid tin/lead alloy that I need to melt and then remove.

I bought a suction pump, it sucks nicely.

I also have copper wick and the video shows that I can just put the copper wick on top of solder and heat the thang and it removes everything, like magic

It looks so easy, it won’t be very hard

These famous last words are probably familiar to you, if you are here and have read this far.

Oh well, regardless the attempt went poorly and I also later found out that using the cheapest wick is not ideal for desoldering work.

Also I did not use the pump properly, the distance between the melted solder and the pump needs to be minimal, it should be practically on top of the thang.

Oh well here is an attempt trying to desolder the very first point which looked properly slathered with solder alright

There was an attempt

Oh well the board looks particularly well slathered in flux, I am noob, I will use as much flux as I want, I will use it all me life, the soldering elites can sod off.

Of course, those beautiful pieces of failed desoldering attempts were discouraging and the soldering fumes were a further annoyance.

I slathered those points in a LOT of flux and put the iron on them for a good three minutes or so, all I got was lots of flux fumes, those things REFUSED TO MELT

pepe inhaling lots of soldering fumes

Welp, an hour or two went by and I kept fiddling, I tried looking at more videos and searching things on reddit, I did find out that even experienced people find desoldering a pain so that was assuaging for my shattered confidence.

Oh well, then I asked my frenn (who is an absolute chad) who sent me the cheapino kit for advice and he gave me some step by step instructions.

Instead of trying to heat the joints to remove the solder, he told me to add more solder and keep it in liquid form and use suction pump very close to the the border which WORKED…also I finally realized that I sucked.

It worked somewhat, even did a clean desolder for a joint

final result of three hours of mucking about

Welp also I think fucked up in choosing a soldering iron, welp I am a retard, I asked for a “cheap soldron variable temp soldering iron” and I got this shit

I am thinking buying this soldering iron was a mistake but oh well, I like to live with my mistake

Welp that knob does not look very helpful unless the temp control is relative but looks like guess work, welp, I it probably does work, I will get a quality iron later but for now it is what it is, here are the specs

specs for the sodlering iron

If you are particularly experienced or know your way around soldering you probably noticed that the knob is turned all the way…which is not good.

I found from a comment on reddit (couldn’t find the link) too much heat oxidises the tip and hinders in heat transfer, at least if the knob works as intended, I have my doubts about the knob but lemme know if you have used this iron and drop any other helpful tips you have for a noob.

In the meanwhile I will do a bit more mucking about, make mistakes, cry about it and then learn from them (the crying step is very important).