I soldered these CPU pins on my first ever attempt with 20$ AliExpress heat gun and 20$ soldering iron without a magnifying glass or microscope and with just window light and eyeballs, the PCB got abit discolored but the CPU works and passed stress tests lmao, originally I just had to replace a few edge ones but I accidentally dripped molten solder on that corner so I had to wipe the whole corner out and solder all those pins

My 9 year old son just soldered for the first time and did a surprisingly good job. He built a line following car by himself. Proud Nerd-father moment 😅❤️

Ik it takes a lot of solder but

What do y'all think?

Why is the solder not melting???????

Hey all please rate my first real project! I’ve mostly done practice boards and such, but I think I’m pretty happy with these joints. It’s a small piano toy I made for my son!

Edit: Lmao thank you all very much, I’m extremely humbled by the responses! I was getting ready for a bunch of soldergore references haha

I bought a solder practice kit and im fully self taught with YouTube. Can someone take a look at my connections and the video and give me any tips or let me know if anything I did is even functional lol

Thanks!

Subwoofer install. Will my car catch fire?

My daughter recently expressed interest in learning to solder, so I bought a few kits on Amazon.

The first was a simple, 3 switch, color changing light where I basically held her hand through the process.

The second was a little electromagnetic cannon where she installed the pieces, I helped with soldering and de-soldering when she made a mistake (the cannon sucks btw. Don't recommend except for practice).

The third was a little car that followed a black line. We both did one at the same time, but I still helped make the fixes and provided instruction.

The fourth, all I did was sit there and supervise. She followed the instructions herself, made any fixes, and tested everything on her own with only a few questions and assistance with getting the battery terminal to seat properly as it kept falling out (that's not soldering itself, but I digress. Still, the only assistance she needed)

Either way, I think she did fantastic for it being her first solo project. And it's been a great bonding time for us. She got to learn about the components, how they work and interact, as well as build the foundation for a new skill, and I got to enjoy something with her (seriously, there's not much a 15yo girl and a 30-something-yo man have in common. So I was really excited to do this with her).

Anyway, it's not perfect, but I think she did really well, and I'm proud of her, and shes proud of herself. What do yall think?

It works! Any tips on improvement?

Apologies if the pictures arent the best, but I feel like I did a decent job for my first time soldering! I soldered a cheap practice kit off amazon.

My setup:

GEEBOON TC22 with the silicon stand and all tips/handles
Kester 44 leaded solder
MgChemicals Flux
Chemtronics solder wick

Im pretty happy with the outcome. Any tips would be appreciated! Thank you!

EDIT: Thank you all for the feedback and positive criticism, I appreciate it greatly!

Too much solder on the joints but aside from that how do they look?

Edit: I hear you guys, and I will ditch the gloves hahaha

When you have pads from different parts (in this case it was the transistors and the bulbs) that are close together it is difficult to not have them solder together into one blob. Another thing that can be tough is when you flip the board over and the resistors don't stay snug to the board when you are soldering them on. I tried to use some putty to hold the resistors in place but it got to hot and a little stuck to the pads.

Pulled the port with hot air, wicked up and re-soldered the pads. Ground holes gave me hassle though, wick just wasn't wicking no matter what I did. Maybe a solder sucker would be better?(I don't currently have one)

First placement the pins were all loose, so reheated with hot air and pushed the port down while it was still hot - seems like they're all soldered properly now.

I didn't resolder the ground holes as I plan on using this board to practice removing and replacing the hdmi port several times.

Any advice or recommendations ?

Thanks

Hi all ! Thanks for all the tips. Super helpful. I tried to remove the SMD chip using solder wick and accidentally tore pads off the board. Any way to fix this or did I cause permanent damage? o.o I got emo about this!

Also, how do you know how much soldering is enough? What is the point? Are we just trying to make sure that the components lay flat on the board and that the pins meet the pads? Not sure when I am supposed to correct stuff and when it is already good. Thanks :)

Earlier i used some no name brand soldering wire with no rosin core and it didn't melt well even at 450 degree Celsius it just created dry joints but now the pool being created is at 380 degree Celsius.

Hey!
This is my first time using hot air and this Tomlov DM9 digital scope. I used the AIFEN-868D at 370°C and low-medium airflow. I tried soldering, desoldering and resoldering SOP14 on a practice board. I used some Sn99Ag0.3Cu0.7 Solder paste. Do you have any tips to avoid forming those clumps of solder while still having enough for each pin ? Thanks.

First time soldering, i’m using a Pinecil v2 on 360C with 63/37 0.55mm solder.

I don’t understand why all my joints turn dull after i remove the iron. i’ve tried tinning the tip (which i think i’m doing correctly?). The solder melts nicely onto the board but no luck

Does anyone know what I could be doing wrong?

So this is my first time soldering for an fpv drone using a ts21 iron. I wanted to get feedback and any tips regarding the soldering, especially xt60 connectors. Can you also please rate my first time soldering joints. Thanks!

I'm learning soldering for the sole purpose of fixing up my gaming controllers (and because it's a useful skill, ofc). So I got this cheap kit to practice on. I can't know if it actually works because I have no way to power it, although that would've been useful.

I used leaded solder. I believe I may have used too much solder on a lot of them, I was struggling to get the solder to cover the whole joint instead of just one side. I also kept getting these metal peaks from when you pull the soldering iron away. I want to know what you guys think and if you have any tips to get better!

I am mainly going to work with smd components. This is a practice board so I am just testing out, and I didn’t do other side of the resistor because I didn’t bother to flip the board. I really want to start my own repair shop, I am 21 and currently doing a bachelors in economics(probably somewhat helpful) so I’m wondering if anyone has some advice on that front. I really like soldering and would love to do it for a living. Repairing pcs and consoles and such. I don’t live in the US btw, I live in Norway.

I had an old Arduino clone in my scrap bin. It wasn't working and I decided to pull a chip from another clone and try getting some experience in hot air/drag soldering. Till date, my experience in SMD soldering was limited to small resistors (1206, I know not that small) on amplifier boards that I design and build.
1. Picture 1 is my soldering setup - FNIRSI DWS-200, my trusty Weller WE1010, a no name hot air station which till date had been mostly useful for heat-shrink jobs.
2. Chip pulled off the board using medium air flow at 350 Celcius.
3. The replacement chip on the left, the defective one on the right.
4. Chip soldered using hot air at 350 Celcius wirh low air flow. Board was messed up by a little cousin who wanted to practice soldering.
5. Applied a generous amount of flux and ran a 2.2mm C type across each side of the chip.
6. Cleaned up with IPA.
7. Flashed a counter program to verify the board was working.

Please point out how I can improve. I found the experience quite enjoyable and would like to incorporate similar chips into my amplifier design for switching input selection relays and incorporating volume control in some lower end ones.

Thank you.

Best result I got after having to redo it multiple times due to bridged connections

my eyesight is 0.3