World Domination Part One - Learn to solder

May God have mercy on us all.

I've just bought my first ever soldering iron. I can now solder...

a) the earth wire to the end of the solder rod. So well I had to cut it off and strip the wire again.

b) the surrounding area of my intended solder joint, including parts nowhere near it but alas, not the wire itself to the base of the tonearm.

c) the palm of my hand. Ouch it's a tad hot.

I was informed later that I would need the power equivalent of a small furnace (while the street lights dimmed along the road) to sufficiently heat up the large brass washer I was attempting to solder a wire to.

I had thought that if world domination were your intention, you might be best to first learn to soldier?

I'd go with public speaking...

georgejack:

Cmoy........ If you need a hand give me a shout, I've made a few in the past.

 

Ditto the Death Star...................

Have you picked your sweet tin yet, or are you going for an upmarket wooden-box finish?

All will be revealed. First the kit.

The soldering iron is a 30w Maplins one, with holder it is £15. I got spare tips for another £5 and some phonos and heatshrink to practice with. The heat resistant mat is £5 from B&Q. The solder and wire was about £3 from a hardwear shop.

Next, information. Intelligence is vital when aiming for world domination and so, of course I used You Tube. I went through loads of soldering videos and these two were the best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cl5QI4pqKc&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_NU2ruzyc4&feature=related

A lot of the videos are from the USA, where they call soldering; sodering. That is distracting as the presenter asks you to join him and watch him soder.

the presenter asks you to join him and watch him soder.

i think id pass on that one 

idc:

A lot of the videos are from the USA, where they call soldering; sodering. That is distracting as the presenter asks you to join him and watch him soder.

Firstly, tinning. This is the simplest solder and it is used to help keep the strands of wire together and for making connections. Once stripped the wire looks like this......

I dont have a grip yet so I used pliers. The strands are twisted......

Then the solder is applied by heating the wire and the solder so it flows into the strands...

I would invite comments on my various practice attempts. The iron takes ages to heat the wire. Is that right?

idc:

I would invite comments on my various practice attempts. The iron takes ages to heat the wire. Is that right?

Well if you think about, the wire is very conductive, for heat as well as electricity, so the initial heat energy you put into the wire is going to be conducted away down the cable. If you snipped the exposed bit off and just tried heating that you'd find it would heat up a lot quicker. It just wouldn't be much use with your speakers though... 

Going by You Tube tutorials, you should heat the wire and then the solder will also heat till it melts. They all say dont heat the solder and then put it onto the wire. But I find heating the solder and then running it up the wire is easy and gets the best coverage.

idc:

Going by You Tube tutorials, you should heat the wire and then the solder will also heat till it melts. They all say dont heat the solder and then put it onto the wire. But I find heating the solder and then running it up the wire is easy and gets the best coverage.

From what I remember it a lot harder to control the flow of the solder if you do it that way, it's probably ok for cables like that but when you come to solder components to a circuit board heating the solder first makes it a nightmare. "It looks like you've dripped the solder from a plastic bag with holes in it!" as one of my old college tutors once complained...