Guide to Soldering

Soldering is not very hard. First, you need to get a pencil type soldering iron. They come in wattage from 20 to 60 watts and are generally inexpensive. Higher watts generate more heat. I suggest 30-40 for general-purpose wiring and electronic repairs. You also need resin core solder; do not use any other kind of solder for wiring or electronics. You can find this kind of solder from radio shack. 60% tin and 40% lead. Solder also comes in many different diameters. .062 is a pretty good choice for wiring general-purpose electronics use. Rather than use the entire spool, you should unwind a section of the spool to make it easier to handle.

The real secret of soldering is to keep the tip of your soldering iron tinned. This is just melting tin directly on your soldering iron. Make sure to keep the tip of the iron is tin and keeps the tip from oxidizing. Always make sure the tip is tinned. It also makes sure the heat is efficiently transferred from the tip of the iron to the joint being soldered. To tin the tip, just melt hot solder onto the tip but this is the only time you apply solder to the tip. You want fresh solder on the tip just before you being. Always clean the excess solder off before you start. It is easy to use a newspaper to clean the solder. Just flick it onto the newspaper. We first prepare the joint to be soldered. When you're soldering wire connections, make sure you have a good physical connection before you apply the solder. Then you need to secure the wires before you solder so they don't move around. Put the tinned tip firmly against the wire, the idea is to use the iron to heat the wire and melt the solder on the heated wire.

Never touch the solder to the tip of the iron while you're actually soldering. The solder only touches the joint you're soldering. Once the joint is heated up, the solder will flow onto the joint. Never try to push or paste the solder on the joint. Just touch the solder to the joint and wait until it melts or flows onto the joint. A good solder will have solder completely melted and be shiny silver.