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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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In Reply to: How to Learn to Solder & What to Buy? posted by Uncle Hippie on May 16, 2012 at 12:27:52:
Al Sekela took me aside to get me over my fears. Fears that had been generated by all the purist admonitions about soldering only under a certain moon, with unobtainium flux, with a rock steady robotic hand, etc. What bullshit all that turned out to be!
Of course you can do a crappy job of soldering, but with a little practice you can do a great job easily. And a little sloppy does not equate automatically with ineffective for audio, I learned.
To start, all you need is a simple soldering iron in the 25 or 40 W variety available at any Radio Shack or hardware store, plus something to hold it while you're not using it so that you don't light your table on fire. Some solder with flux built in and or some liquid flux. A cheap jig to hold your pieces (you can buy those for under $10 at same places - looks like a small hobby "vise" with magnifying glass built in), a little 90% alcohol with a swab to clean the surfaces of oil, and I'd throw in foot square piece of any crappy tile you have to work on so you don't worry about fires or messing up your table.
Study the tutorials, be safe, and try it out on some scrap. You'll be shocked at how easy it generally is to do and you can improve from there.
One thing Al did teach me that turns out to be absolutely true is that you can't count on a solder joint to mechanically hold pieces together. You have to make them mechanically stable before you solder. For example, if you are soldering the wire leads to two components, you need to securely twist those wire leads together. Then the solder makes the contact better and more secure, but solder alone won't do that.
Soldering and welding only look similar, but welding holds securely and soldering doesn't.
No, it won't make you more attractive to hippie chicks. That's the disappointing side, and you can't use it as a pick up line.
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Follow Ups
- I was taught and laughed at how easy it is - bartc 06:01:20 05/17/12 (0)
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