exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Honestly, I started out with loads of enthusiasm today, and now i'm feeling meh. Honestly, I'm sure there's something wrong with either the solder or the iron i'm using. Supposedly, the solder is 63/37 leaded - but its from china so...no idea if it actually is.

The iron i initially tried was a 48w soldering station with temperature control, but the tip doesn't want to stay tinned. So i switched to another iron, which seemed to work better, but again, the tip is just black all the time, no matter how much flux or sponge gets used.

Tried cleaning tips with steel wool, but neither will re-tin. I present the album of hopeless soldering in hopes of some advice or tips from others!


Is this an iron issue, a solder issue or an 'i'm being a 'tard' issue? :)

I've irreparably damaged one PCB, so i have just this one left...I may need more, Mr Leary! :D

If tip doesn't want to stay tinned - choosed temperature is too high. This is also why pcb was destroyed. 330-340°C should be really enough.

Will invest in a new soldering station and pick a lower temp, I had it in my head that 350*c was the 'sweet spot' - thanks for the (tinned?) tip! :)

This is why i use a K tip.

It the Nickel plating of the tip is gone the solder will not stick also, the tip should be silver in color when you cleaned it.

Most people use to high a heat setting and destroy the coating, or use something to clean the tip that destroys the Nickel.

Alyays tin the tip before and after soldering.

Okay - so i went and bought a better soldering station, and a set of tips (including a K-Tip as per recommendation. Despite there being some getting used to - i dialled in 320 to 330*c on the iron and managed to make what i can only guess to be a clean set of connections!


I might have missed one or two pins, but that's something i can go back over. Have both CPLD's mounted, the SRAM, the bus transceiver and two of the resistor networks (damn fiddly, those)

The solder does look dull though - almost like a dry joint, rather than nice and shiny as i'd expect, have definitely been using 63/37 leaded though - tried two spools of it now and both give the same result.

...how does it look so far? :)

I would invest in some decent solder. Chinese stuff is hit and miss, buy some Multicore, you wont regret the expense.
Oh and you can never use too much flux, I like Amtech myself.

Another thing to think of is using a hot air station and solder paste, it's quite easy and pretty fast once you get used to it.

Use flux. It helps a lot.

Been using some flux but will have to invest in some more, might have to get another spool of leaded solder from farnell. I should be able to go over the top of the existing joints with fresh stuff, right?

It could just be the photo, but it looks like the right side of the chip is missing solder on a lot of the pins.

I'll add another vote for flux. If you aren't using it, you should be. Also, a fan with a carbon filter will help tremendously with the flux fumes.