Comment by sandreas
1 day ago
While soldering is not that hard, different tasks require different tools. Most of them can be from very cheap to very expensive. As a beginner I'd recommend the following:
A small USB-C soldering iron supported by IronOS[1], e.g. Pinecil vor TS100
A solid stand with brass wool
A KU soldering tip (looks a bit like a knife) for good heat transfer, too small tips are not good
Thin (<=0.5mm) solder wire
No clean flux (not a pen)
Isopropyl alcohol
Solder fume extractor (DIY is OK, if you're building it right) is good for your health
Solder mat (blue silicone)
Multimeter (not too cheap, around 20 bucks)
Self closing tweezers
Normal tweezers
A wirecutter (blue 5 bucks from ali express)
Manual Desoldering pump (engineer ss03 or a clone for cheaper)
Most important is cleaning (alcohol, then flux) and heat transfer (tin your tip, your pads or your wire before putting things together to ensure good heat transfer). Cleanup nicely and tin your tip after soldering to prevent corrosion.
Optional but helpful for more professional tasks:
Hot air station
Auto Desoldering pump (ZD-8965)
Adjustable power supply (fnirsi usbc, 30 bucks)
Oscilloscope (mini beginner with display Cost around 30 bucks)
Capton tape
Solid Copper wire
C245 clones seem to be the new current standard tip format, they're pretty nice.
Not supported by any open third party firmware usually, but that's fine with me.
One thing to watch out for is tip grounding, some cheap irons leak a few volts at micro to milliamp level power, relative to ground, which could matter if you solder very sensitive things that are grounded, which you probably don't.
DIY fume extractors are hard to do, you need powerful fans unless you have an arm to put the extractor right above the iron. Also remember that when it's just sitting in the stand, it will still smoke for a few seconds, so the extractor must cover that too.
Those thin wispy activated carbon pads probably aren't doing much, you need actual particulate filtering like a HEPA or similar, but almost anything is better than having the smoke directly in your face with no fans.
Nice list.
Maybe a bit over the top for a lot of situations. I assume folks would acquire these things over a long period of time depending on their projects or what they are repairing. I have a 2-ch function generator coming because after 20 years of bodging stuff together and fixing minor things, I am tired of using the super cheapo one I got back in the day. It takes a while to amass all that crap, but it's fun.
A couple other thoughts: used hemostats are super helpful for a lot of things. for a lot of years I avoided getting any kind of "3rd hand" because I would use combinations of hemostats.
Or jigs- I have a very old piece of wood that has hole drilled for m and f XLR and 1/4 audio connectors with notes about which pin is which. Making tools like that is quite satisfying.
I really enjoy having a stack of stainless steel condiment cups to put screw in- I stack them up during a disassembly and then unstack them as I reassemble.
Also I will say that while I thought building one of those cheap-o oscilloscope kits was a pretty fun practice and I can recommend that, I don't fine them easy enough to use for beginners... the 2-ch Rigol scope I got was not super expensive and felt like the cheapest thing I'd be recommending to folks.
Finally, I have had a lot of mixed successes with desoldering pumps. It took me a long time to figure out that I can only get desoldering braid to work if I put liquid flux on it, but that made it a lot cleaner for me than the solder suckers.
I will say it's important that the soldering iron be temperature controlled. It's especially nice if it's one with the temperature sensing integrated into the tip in a cartridge (like the ones you suggested).
Also, 63/37 tin/lead "eutectic" solder is the easiest to use. Wash your hands after using it, or wear gloves. 60/40 solder is almost as easy, and cheaper. Lead-free is more difficult, especially for learning. Learn with lead solder, then switch to lead-free.
I think there's no real need to learn with leaded anymore now that we have temp controlled irons and better fluxes and such.
Wearing gloves and washing your hands five million times is more annoying than just using lead free.
And even with perfect precautions, the flux expands and makes it spit tiny little balls, which then contaminates your whole work area with a somewhat fine dust.
Oh I forgot... a big magnifier glass (8x to 15x) with an LED light is way cheaper than a microscope and very helpful for small parts soldering (SMD) :-)
A cheap clip-on macro lens for a phone camera is also good for inspecting things, without the cost+space of a proper microscope.
True but you can do actual work under a stereoscopic microscope. It has a vaunted place on my workbench.
Disclosure: Old person. ;-)
2 replies →
I have a $40 head-mounted thing with integrated light and it's awesome for modern boards.
> A wirecutter
Yes, but buy several. Maybe it's only because I buy cheap crap ones in the first place, but I treat them as consumables.
What are you using them for that consumes them?
Cutting wires, mostly.
This is just a great starter list. Thank you
>Capton tape
Kapton tape