flux. yay or nay?

shadows said:

conical tip

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I lol when I see YouTube "tech" videos and there is a conical tip in the iron.

Wedge 4 life.

broken said:

I lol when I see YouTube "tech" videos and there is a conical tip in the iron.

Wedge 4 life.

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I've even switched to the wedge, better surface area for my big fat paws to slop around.

I still use my conical tip...Tis all I have...will invest quickly in a chisel/wedge tip lest to be ousted by my modding brethren.

As mentioned before, I dont use flux for through hole. Even when desoldering. I do however use rosin core solder.

The only time i do use flux, is when Im drag soldering SMD, or cleaning up crap Chinese SMD solder jobs.

shadows said:

Also if you have a conical tip, get rid of it and get a small screwdriver style one like 1/16". Which is perfect for must things, and a bigger one 3/16" for parts with a big thermal mass. It makes a huge difference.

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I have one, I've been doing a lot of xbox one pads lately, they require a very fine point to get to the components without HAM-HANDING everything around them. but this is good info! thanks for the.... tip? (LOL!)

Hi dudes,

I agree with shadows and XX, for through holes, no. For SMD depends if it is for small components with legs very near in between, yes. If it is for bigs SMD capacitors, no.

Un saludo

I usually get my Kester solder from Kimco since they seem to be the cheapest most times.

http://gokimco.com/solder-flux-mask/solder-wire.html

Thanks for the helpful advice! I've added a few notes to the video around the 2 minute mark, as well as linked that EXCELLENT vid from shadows in the description.

Lemony Vengeance said:

as well as linked that EXCELLENT vid from shadows in the description.

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I swear I watched that same video when I was in my electronics class in college for beginner's soldering.

goombakid said:

I swear I watched that same video when I was in my electronics class in college for beginner's soldering.

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This has been pounded into my head forever since my Freshman year of High School Electronics.

Great information here guys! Considering my soldering skills are piss poor and still learning, Ive really only used flux for desoldering like everybody here I use rosin core solder for everything I do. Just seems to flow and I can work with it better, my personal preference.

I agree with the majority here - for fresh through hole soldering it's completely unnecessary, most solders have flux in them which is perfectly adequate.

For SMD work, adding some flux can be very very useful. I just have a flux pen.

I also try to repair some old arcade boards etc and then it can be quite handy to use a bit of flux to reflow some of the old tarnished connections.

no you don't NEED flux if you have rosin core solder.
but you WANT to use flux unless you want to spent 5 minutes don't a 30 second job.

what follow is not an attempt to pick your video apart. just sharing what I learned over the years.

At 2:00 you melt solder on the tip. this completely vaporizes the flux, which is why when you put the tip on the pin , solder doesn't flow until you add more solder/flux, resulting in too much solder. If you want to save time and end up with a cleaner ( uniform ) result, grab that flux syringe, make a line of flux paste along each row of pins, then drag solder along each row of pins. MUCH MUCH FASTER. bonus: it looks like machine did it.

if you're going to do 1 or 2 through-hole, you don't need it, just don't melt the solder on the tip first. apply the tip against the solder pad & pin, touch the soldering tip with solder to release some flux, then push the solder strand on the other side of the pin.

Also, I personally use a tip with beveled edges ( st6 for example ) when doing board soldering like you did in the video. more surface = more heat transfer. give it a try

Keep up the good work !

ReplicaX said:

This has been pounded into my head forever since my Freshman year of High School Electronics.

Spoiler:

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Ouch. The worse I've ever done was blindly grab and grip my soldering iron from the metal part.

I ALWAYS use flux, but I have a 17-mile-long spool of solder that isn't rosin core.

goombakid said:

Is there a good place to get rosin core solder from or brand? I'm just using Rat Shack stuff, ATM.

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As has been mentioned Kester 44 is nice. Although once i got a spool of WBT 0800 silver solder I've yet to touch my Kester 44 again.

goombakid said:

Ouch. The worse I've ever done was blindly grab and grip my soldering iron from the metal part.

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It's a picture that was constantly shown to us Freshmen year and why you don't wear jewelry when troubleshooting live circuits.

ReplicaX said:

It's a picture that was constantly shown to us Freshmen year and why you don't wear jewelry when troubleshooting live circuits.

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I was wondering wtf that was all about

ReplicaX said:

It's a picture that was constantly shown to us Freshmen year and why you don't wear jewelry when troubleshooting live circuits.

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I've been shown that, only during weight lifting classes, or shop classes in general.

Lemony Vengeance said:

I've been shown that, only during weight lifting classes, or shop classes in general.

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Thanks again for the advice guys. I still have a lot to learn, but it's good to know that if all people have to pick at is not using flux or going into depth about heat settings then I must be doing ok.

Lemony Vengeance said:

I've been shown that, only during weight lifting classes, or shop classes in general.

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I've seen way too many videos on YT with ppl making tech vids and wearing jewelry while going over monitors, HV Displays, and other HV circuits while live. Just drives me crazy. I've seen this happen at my old work from an employee working on 240v Thermocouple controls.

Isn't removal of all jewelry, watches, and dangly stuff one of the main rules of working with electronics? That's the first damn thing that was drilled to us in class.

...come to think of it, the tech at the arcade I used to work at always had his watch, bracelet (not a medical one), and a filigree necklace on whenever he serviced all the machines, including the pinball machines while they were on.

bustedstr8 said:

You are using flux...it's in the wire core.

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ReplicaX said:

Rosin Core (has flux)

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One thing that I don't think has been explained is the different types of fluxes. Rosin is technically a flux, but some people make a distinction between rosin-core and flux-core. The important difference between the two is that rosin leaves a hard crusty "shell" around your work (can be left as is or cleaned up w/ alcohol), whereas flux-core will leave a light residue which can be cleaned with alcohol or water.

Then there's liquid flux and flux paste, which can be applied separately from the solder (I don't use flux paste, so I don't recall if that is water soluble or not). You can get solder to flow nicely with rosin-core if you are constantly applying more solder to your work, but if you don't mind the cleanup, it's nice to be able to dose your work area w/ liquid flux, solder everything nearly effortlessly and then clean up afterwards (with water soluble liquid flux, you can literally just wash your board off in the sink).

Here's some general thinking when I choose whether to use rosin-core or flux-core on a job.

Use Rosin-core:
- Just adding a few medium/larger guage wires.
- Working on something I don't want to wash/clean or would be difficult to wash/clean.
- Don't care how it looks so long as it works.

Use Flux-core (or liquid/paste):
- Want to look perfect
- Soldering small pitch surface mount ICs and don't want to fuss with the solder oxidizing while I'm still working (esp. when trying to solder a tiny wire to a tiny pin) or too much solder wicking to the pins.

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldering#Flux

-ud

This is some good stuff! Thanks undammed!