hi I'm Becky Stern and today we're going
to learn about soldering or soldering
depending on where you're from
soldering is the process of bonding
separate metal objects together with a
low melting point alloy when done
properly this creates a secure
electrical connection it's not as hard
as it may seem and I'm going to show you
everything you need to know you'll also
see soldering in crafts like stained
glass and jewelry making as well as
construction for example sweating copper
plumbing pipe today we're just talking
about small-scale electronic soldering
these are the tools you'll need a
soldering iron and solder
wire strippers Flush Cutters
pliers or tweezers
eye protection some kind of work holding
tool often called a third hand a
multimeter some heat shrink tubing and a
heat gun or a lighter in a pinch for
fixing mistakes either a solder pump or
a solder Wick can come in handy
the main idea is to heat up both things
being soldered like this wire and the
leads of this LED and allow the solder
to flow between them when heated
properly the solder will Wick to the
surfaces and the solder will look shiny
and form concave shapes between
components
if your components might undergo some
stress you can create a mechanically
stronger bond by wrapping the wires
together first before soldering
I should point out that there is an
official NASA guide to soldering that
goes way deeper than we will today so if
you get inspired there's always more to
learn for our purposes a rosin core
solder either with lead or lead free is
ideal see the flux inside boils off as
you solder creating the ideal shielded
environment for the metal bond to take
place without oxidation
they do make solid solder with separate
flux though which usually has to be
washed off with alcohol afterwards
that's because at the very least it's
ugly and sticky and at the worst it can
absorb ambient moisture and corrode the
components and the PCB
rosin core solder and solder that's
labeled no clean are just more
convenient
often you'll find it useful to Tin Your
Parts before you solder them especially
with things like stranded wire applying
a little solder first can help you keep
the strands together when you hook it up
to a circuit board or the other wire
you're working with
the tin solder reflows when the joint is
heated
if you're new to soldering practice
making a few simple circuits with LEDs
and battery packs then you can level up
to building a soldered version of your
latest breadboard project on a piece of
protoboard
the most important rule of soldering is
to heat up both parts the ways it can go
wrong are mostly related to incomplete
heating of one part or the other see if
the hot solder runs up against a cold
part it will cool down so quickly that
some oxidation has a chance to form and
the surface of the solder between it and
the component here's what a cold solder
joint looks like in a few different
scenarios
but you can't always spot a cold solder
with your eyes
you can check for proper connectivity by
using the continuity function on your
multimeter
no beep no electrical flow you can
reheat the solder joint to correct a
cold solder you can also reheat your
joint to undo the connection which can
be easier sometimes if the excess solder
is first removed through wicking or
suctioning it away
to protect your solder joints from
shorting out against each other or
nearby conductors it is wise to use heat
shrink tubing over any applicable solder
joints
for splicing multi-wire cables you can
offset the joints and use multiple
nesting sizes of heat shrink to tidy up
and protect the entire thing
once you've practiced soldering wires to
each other you might move on to try
soldering wires to a circuit board
digikey's got a whole video about this
topic so check it out to learn more
about soldering through hole components
before we wrap up I wanted to mention
more advanced soldering methods so you
can understand how this fits with other
electronics you may encounter the
smaller the components the harder they
are to solder by hand so for surface
mount components there's a robotic
process that starts with a stencil to
apply the paste solder followed by a
pick and place machine that puts down
the parts then a solder Reflow oven that
bakes the whole circuit to just the
right temperature to allow the solder
paste to liquefy and make all of the
connections larger through-hole
components can be attached by dipping
the board in a solder bath and are still
sometimes soldered by hand
to remove surface mount components a hot
air rework station can heat up the small
pads that are inaccessible to a
soldering iron
I've put some links to resources in the
description including other digikey
articles and videos about soldering if
you've got some more insight and ideas
please leave them in the comments and we
can all learn together thanks for
watching and I hope you'll subscribe to
catch the next videos in this
introductory prototyping series
foreign
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