It really depends on whether it’s soldering of SMD or THT components: it’s a lot nicer to just feed the solder when doing through hole pins, but if you’re manually soldering SMD components with their tiny 0.5 mm legs or smaller, a tiny bit of solder on the tip of the iron is enough for 3 or 4 legs and the soldering wire (even the .3mm stuff) just gets in the way.
Comment on Intrusive thoughts
DosDude@retrolemmy.com 6 months agoI prefer adding solder while soldering. The solder itself also holds flux, and often when you do it that way you don’t need to add flux yourself. Also if you solder through hole and you add solder to the tip before soldering all the flux dissappears, and you don’t have enough solder for the weld.
And small amounts of solder doesn’t mean short strips, which is what you get when you do what OP posted.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Fosheze@lemmy.world 6 months ago
To be fair, neither are typically hand soldered in profesional environments anymore (outside of rework). Surface mount stuff gets paste and sent through a reflow oven. Through hole stuff gets wave soldered or sent through a selective solder machine. The only thing I can think of that needs to be hand soldered anymore are batteries because sending a lithium ion battery through a reflow oven or over a pot of molten metal is a bad idea.
Also, fun side fact, lithium ion batteries also explode if you stick then in antistatic bags. I’ll let you imagine how our inventory people discovered that.
DosDude@retrolemmy.com 6 months ago
Yeah, for smt I just use a heat gun or rework station for repairs. Only part I use an iron for that is when a lead didn’t take. Even then, the solder is already there so just flux is enough.
june@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I can’t picture what you’re talking about at all with regards to how you burn yourself. I’ve been soldering small wires and components (RC car hobbyist) for years and never burned myself.
DosDude@retrolemmy.com 6 months ago
Imagine the last part of the solder wire. Not much is left, but you want to use as much as you can, so you feed it anyway even though that last little part makes your finger come dangerously close to the iron.
Usually you just scrap the last part, but OP made a lot of small wires all along the roll, so either you scrap a lot, or burn your fingers trying to use up as much as you can.
june@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Gotcha.
I’d use tweezers to feed it in that case lol.
DosDude@retrolemmy.com 6 months ago
Good thinking. In my field we don’t do that. It takes more effort than you’d get out of it by that point. I just get a new roll. But if you’re in a pinch and on your last roll, this is a great idea!
Maalus@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’ve been soldering CNC machines and such, all I do is I wear a left hand welding glove. I can literally solder on my finger, or hold the wire right next to it. Probably a stupid thing to do, but well - I’m self learned :d
yuriy@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This is clever and I’m stealing it. Reckon those gloves could handle an oxy acetylene torch?
Maalus@lemmy.world 6 months ago
For sometime, yeah. Probably measured in miliseconds :D
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
I just hold the whole roll with a bit rolled out straight in one hand, and the iron in the other. I think I might be doing it wrong lol.
What do y’all expect?! I taught myself how to solder because my pokemon yellow cart died!
pipe01@programming.dev 6 months ago
I do that too lol