At some point in your life you will stumble upon a time where you will need to or could benefit from knowing how to solder or de-solder something. This is intended to help guide you and build your confidence as to the proper way of going about it.
For the following project I suggest you find some spare wire you don’t mind messing up since it may take a couple try’s to get it down just right.
Step 1: Get your tools ready
First things first, you will need the proper tools.
Soldering Iron
You will need a soldering iron with a good tip. Some like flat tips, some like round. The truth to the matter is that each has their own job. For this I am using a round pointed tip. If you have a flat tip on yours and feel comfortable with it go ahead and use it. If it is going to get in the way and possibly touch other things then you will want to change it out. Remember, you will most likely be lying where your passenger seat is supposed to be, running on little to no light and attempting to be comfortable. Having the right tip will help get you out of there quicker.
I use a Radio Shack digital soldering station. Overkill for most, a basic $7 iron will work just as well for wiring jobs.
Flux
Pick up a good flux. Flux is a catalyst that promotes the even flow of solder. Many solders have a resin core which means there is some flux in it, however, proper use of additional flux will make life so much easier. One tub of flux should last a very long time. They come in both paste and liquid. Liquid is a bit messier and harder to get used to but once you do it is more accurate and less wasteful. I got mine at the local hardware store. Make sure it’s for soldering and not plumbing.
Solder
You want to pick a solder that is the right diameter. If it is too big you will glob your work and make a mess, too small and you will have to apply too much heat to get the even coating which can cause a cold solder joint. A cold solder joint is where the joint is flawed, brittle and does not make a good connection. It may look like you did a good job, yet still be a cold solder joint. Trial and error is the only way to figure that one out.
Wick
You will probably have to go to an electronics store to find wick. Radio Shack, Fry’s etc. Wick is used for de-soldering or removal of excess solder. It gives the solder you are trying to remove a favored place to go. Using wick can help you save your project, prevent you from having to cut the wire and extend that one inch and just plain aid you in doing the job the right way the first time.
Extra arms / Alligator clips
These are just quite handy to have. They help hold your project so you can concentrate on doing the job right and not rushing through it. You can pick up the extra arms thing at many electronics stores for under $20 in a variety of styles. For those tight jobs under the dash though the alligator clips by themselves will be a lifesaver and cost only pennies each.
Heat-shrink tubing
Using electrical tape for everything will come back to bit you, HARD. Over time electrical tape gets old, gooey and looses its stick. This leads to exposed connections that can short out and fry your car, the ECU or your wiring harness. Using the proper sized heat-shrink tubing will help save you that headache and keeps the job neat and clean from day one. The tubing will only shrink so much so get a multi pack. The one pictured was less then $10 at Fry’s electronics. When done, you want the heat shrink to be secure and not move over your joint.
Wire strippers / Pliers
There are a variety of wire strippers on the market. They are each good in their own right. Pick the ones you like best and go with it.
Different tipped pliers can help you bend and shape the soldered ends of wires in ways needed for each job. Use what you think you need per job.
Now that you have the proper tools we can move on.
Step 2: Prepping the wire
Place the wire in the proper gauge hole.
Squeeze the pliers and give a bit of a twist to make sure its cut all the way around.
Remove the shielding by pulling straight off.
Right now is probably your best time to add your Heat-shrink tubing. Putting the heat-shrink tubing on prior to adding flux will just make things a bit easier and cleaner. Push the Heat-shrink away from the joint. You don’t want to prematurely shrink it causing you to redo the entire project so make sure it has got as much distance as possible.
Once you have the wire stripped and your heat-shrink tubing in place, you will want to add some flux to the exposed portion. You just need enough to cover it fully. Too much and it will become messy when you apply heat, too little and you wont get the desired effect.
At this point you will have to make a decision on what to do next. If you are only working with one wire, you will probably want to tin it.
Tinning a wire is putting a coat of solder over the exposed area before you use it. Once you do this you can use a pair of pliers and form the wire to how it needs to be once soldered. Once you have it formed, simple put the wire in place and apply heat. The solder will melt and is often enough to complete the job, however extra solder may be needed.
Once you have the wires fluxed go ahead and put them in place. For this we are using the extra set of arms we have.
Once you have them in the extra arms go ahead and join them together. DO NOT twist them. You will get the best coverage; solder flow and electrical connection with a straight meshing of the wires.
Let’s continue on to the next step.
Step 3: Preparing and using your Soldering Iron
Go ahead and plug in your soldering iron. Solder doesn’t melt until 610 degrees at the lowest so it takes some time to get heated up properly. The higher wattage the iron is it will heat up faster, but if you don’t have temperature control it can easily get too hot and ruin your project. Moderation is a key factor.
Always use a CLEAN soldering iron. After each use you should quickly rub the tip of the iron on a wet sponge to get any impurities off of it before placing it back in the holder. This will not only preserve the life of your iron but it also makes heat transfer better, resulting in a cleaner, more effective solder joint.
Remove a foot or two of solder from your spool. That solder has been there sitting around for quite some time so we should clean off any junk on it. Put some Rubbing / denatured alcohol on a rag and wipe it clean. If you don’t have any rubbing or denatured alcohol just water will be better then nothing.
Now a foot or two is a lot of excess however it’s cheap and better to have too much then too little in this case. You will want a good 6-8 inch lead from your finger tip to use.
Tin your iron! After you have dabbed your iron on the wet sponge and your wires are set, go ahead and tin your iron. To do this, take your solder and tap the tip of your HOT iron.
Ok! It’s finally time to solder.
You have your wires joined, fluxed, the heat shrink is on and pulled away, the solder is clean and your iron is tinned. Let’s get soldering!
Get your iron in one hand and your solder in the other. Place the iron under the project but do not touch it yet. Place the solder behind the wire. You will need to make what is called the heat triangle.
Solder to iron
Iron to wire
Solder to wire
Bring the three elements together and create your heat triangle. Rapidly, yet smoothly move the iron and solder across the joint and lift away near the end. You should have now covered the area with solder and have a proper soldering joint!
Once you are at this point, you will need to clean it up. Do you see the copper color on the wiring? That is residue from flux. That was just the right amount. Too much and it would have been much messier. Get your rubbing or denatured alcohol and rag from earlier and give it a wipe to clean that up. Leaving the flux residue on there over time can degrade the joint causing a cold solder joint to appear.
Step 4: Heat-shrink tubing
Slide your heat-shrink tubing back over the now cooled solder joint. When you have both ends covered you can use a lighter, heat gun, blow drier or even the fat part of your soldering iron to shrink it up. In this case, because the heat-shrink tubing was so close in diameter to the project, I will just be using the soldering iron. If you need to shrink it more I suggest a heat gun.
CONGRATULATIONS! Hopefully now you have successfully soldered the proper way and are making good progress on your project. If you are having difficulty with it just keep trying on spare wire that you don’t mind throwing away.
De-soldering
De-soldering is much like soldering in the fact that you need a heat triangle, flux helps tremendously and so do those wonderful extra arms. This will be a very quick run down on how to properly de-solder your project.
Step 1: Removal of coating
You will need to take off the heat shrink that you put on last time. Craft knives or razor blades work great for this.
Step 2: Preparing your wire for de-soldering
Once your coating is removed you will want to get your wick out. Pull a couple inches of wick from the spool but do not cut it off. For wick you will only want to cut off exactly what’s used. Just as the wires before, you will want to add some flux. Here you can add lots of flux, go ahead, make it a bit goopy.
Remember above how you made the heat triangle with the solder and iron and wires? Now replace the solder with the wick and do almost the same thing. The difference here is that you place the iron on top of the wick and the wick atop the project. As you see the wick get filled with solder you want to move it to an unused portion of the wick so that it keeps sucking it up and away from your project.
Once you have a good majority of the solder from your project onto your wick go ahead and use your iron to push the wires apart if they haven’t come apart on their own. From here you can decide if you need to wick the individual sides more or just clean them up and reuse them as is.
Congratulations! Now you have taken apart your project and are ready to do it over again!
I find that solder in a dispenser tube like this is easier to work with rather then the big spools of solder.
When buying a soldering iron, one like this is much easier to work with
then a soldering iron lik this
The first one has a stand and sponge to help clean between use. The stand helps to prevent the iron burning a carpet when working in the pass compartment or vacuum lines and other wiring when working under the hood.
Liquid tape helps when taping into a circuit and can not be easily sealed up with tape. In other words connecting or butting two wires together is a no brainier with heat shrink tubing but there no place to slide the heat shrink tubing onto when tapping into. IF the splice is being done in a bundle of wires, there's typically no room to wrap the tape.......liquid tape like this helps
For tape only use 3M branded electrical tape. I have never really found another brand that works better. The tape needs to stick and stay that way....so you need to clean stuff before hand if its dirty or oily (under the hood). Also you can buy a couple of different types of electrical tape.
This is the most common
You can also use friction tape. You will find this near joints in wiring harness bundles. This stuff works fantastic when splicing and have room, as its pretty sticky and strong when wrapping/pulling on the tape.
oops i forgot to mention that i didn't write this. i found the how-to after searching through google since i too suck at soldering
The second Youtube video really shows how easy it is to actually do = seconds once prepped. More or less like anything its the prep and the tiny details that make or break the work being done.
The right tools also helps a lot.........and with soldering none of the things needed really cost much, what the cost really comes down to is the time it takes to learn to do it right, and this is really not much in effort, once you have done a couple of them its a no-brainer from then on out
oops i forgot to mention that i didn't write this. i found the how-to after searching through google since i too suck at soldering
LOL damn, I was about to say it was almost taken directly from the IPC standards book. Great info though, everyone who mods cars should know how to solder.
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How-To: Solder Properly
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