Soldering tips....

[BWS]]

I recently purchased a 15 watt soldering iron from radio shack, I was practicing with it and I read you are supposed to tin the iron first, so I coated it with solder and wiped off the extra with a moist cloth. I was soldering some speaker wire to an old HD and I noticed I could not get those pins individualy, I have the perfect size solder, kynar wire for the chip but im not using that for practice, any tips on how to solder to individuals insted of 3-4 pins. Also the tip is brown around some parts despite my attempt at tinning, do I need new tips (smaller?).
Any guidence is much appreciated.
Thanks!

[Variant|C7]

well speaker wire is sorta big to solder on to the pins of a hard drive...regarding tinning..u don't have to coat the entire tip..just so long as 1/4th to 1/2 of the conical tip is coated ull be good to go...also make sure u dont get into the habit of "painting" the solder on to the wire..for this will cause problems when soldering to the fine points on a playstation

[evilorama]

To remove the brown parts (tinder) use sandpaper (not too granular, the softest sandpaper you can get) and tin it immediately afterwards.

[dungbeetle46]

to solder to bios chip legs, I never tin the leg, trying to add solder to the legs of chips is asking for trouble, I just add a little solder to wire, not too much, hold wire against leg and heat, you will find the kynar wire will be a lot easier than speaker wire aswell, try just rubbing the tip of your iron with no solder on it against the leg first and you should see the leg go shiny, this seems to help the solder from the wire flow to the leg, this is how I do it anyway and never have a problem, good luck

[CableGuy]

Also, those 15 watt radio shack irons are OK to practice with but for delicate work on motherboards like a PS2 motherboard i would prefer using a much better variable heat iron like Weller Soldering Stations.

[Toma]

A variable heat station is more of a luxury though; I've never had a problem with my Weller 25w iron.

[BWS]]

Well this is all I have to use, so I should have no problems then since the wire will be much smaller? Thanks for the advice.

[TarzanMan]

'tinning' the tip of the iron never works well for me. The solder always ends up staying on the tip too long and burning. I get my best results by tinning the kynar wire and then heating it.

As for radio shack irons vs variable wattage irons... the iron shouldn't be in contact with any part of the ps2 long enough to cause damage from heat anyway, so a radio shack 15W iron should suffice.

Tips for soldering to the chip legs:
You should barely, BARELY tin the stripped end of the kynar wire. There should be so little solder on it that it barely coats the end and is hardly noticeable. Then hold that end of the kynar wire on the chip leg (i use tweezers for leverage to hold the wire), use the iron to press the kynar wire onto the chip leg. If you do this properly then the iron only needs to contact the wire for less than a second. After you pull the iron away, give the wire a light tug to see if you got a good solder joint.

Done properly, this makes doing the bios chip legs a breeze, provided that you hold the wire steady and tin the wire with the correct amount of solder. Too much solder will give you a solder bridge (very bad and hard to fix without desoldering braid). Too little solder will give you a weak/crappy joint that will fall off (and maybe leave excess solder on the chip leg).

Personally, I have more problems with those tiny square capacitors... such a small slippery surface that doesn't like to take solder. Also, attaching that thick gauge of wire to the grounding plate with a measley 15W iron is a chore, too.

[dap1mp13]

Also, attaching that thick gauge of wire to the grounding plate with a measley 15W iron is a chore, too.

I couldn't agree with you more......
I find it easier to solder to fine pitch chip legs than to attach that damn grounding wire....

But I guess that's what happens when I use crappy Radioshack tools....