Tutorial-Basics of Soldering

Welcome to a quick refresher on the essentials of soldering. Whether it's been a while since your last training session or you missed a few key details, rest assured, we've got you covered here.

Equipment

To start, let's take a look at the equipment required for a soldering project.

Figure 1. Equipment

In the above picture, the equipment consists of:

1.Control unit

2.Soldering iron, stand and brass wool

3.Helping hands

4.Soldering tin

Moreover, we also require the fume extractor as seen in the following picture.

Figure 2. Fume extractor

Materials used

Apart from the required equipment, some common materials that are used for a soldering project involve:

1. A PCB (Printed Circuit Board)

2.Electronic components

• • 1 transistor
  • 2 resistors (2.2kΩ and 47 kΩ)
  • 1 PCB with printed circuit board
  • Wires
  • 1 LED
  • 1 Photoresistor

These materials can be used to practice soldering; the proper steps for doing so will be outlined further on this page.

Warning

Some safety steps to consider when soldering:

• Always turn on the smoke extractor when soldering, as tin fumes can cause breathing problems after prolonged exposure.
• Do not touch the tip of the soldering iron as it is very hot.
• Do not exceed a temperature of 375 degrees Celsius for the soldering iron, as this will damage the iron in the long term.
• Keep the tip of the soldering iron clean.

We encourage you to visit this webpage if you would like more information about welding.

Practice: Soldering a circuit

The following steps are taken to solder a circuit onto a PCB, using the materials described above:

1.Solder the wires:

Strip both ends of each wire, then twist the two wires together and solder along the joint between the two wires.

Next, solder the other ends of the wires to the PCB. You can bend the tabs slightly outward so that the wire does not fall off the PCB.

Figure 3. Soldering wires

2.Solder the LED:

Consider the positive and negative terminals.

Insert the lamp completely so that it touches the PCB, then solder it in place. When you have finished, cut off the excess legs of the LED.

Figure 4. Soldering the LED

3.Solder the transistor:

The following picture demonstrates the correct position where to solder the transistor.

Figure 5. Soldering the transistor

4.Solder the resistors:

Figure 6. Soldering the resistors

5.Solder the photoresistor:

Soldering the photoresistor

Figure 7. Soldering the photoresistor

6.Solder the male connector:

Soldering the male connector

Figure 8. Soldering the male connector

7.Solder the chip resistor:

Soldering the chip resistor

Figure 9. Soldering the chip resistor

If you are having any difficulty while soldering, click here and you will have all the necessary information to assist you.

Another example

The following images show an example of the results of good soldering.

Example of good soldering-front

Figure 10. Example of good soldering-front

Example of good soldering-back

Figure 11. Example of good soldering-back