sudomod

What wattage iron are most people using to solder to the PI?

I have one that does 40 and 20, but 20 doesn't even come close to melting the solder, but that seems like a good choice when soldering to the PI. Is there solder for a lower tempurature?

Thanks

I'm not really sure what the wattage of mine is.. im using a hakko fx-888d at 650f. its well worth the modest investment if you do a fair amount of soldering.

Mine has got 48W. You should consider settling around this, so your soldering tip does not get colder if you solder something.
With only 20W, for instance, your tip may drop in temperature if you touch something else and will not be able to melt the solder anymore.

Of course there are exceptions, but this is a good rule of thumb.

Fleder wrote:Mine has got 48W. You should consider settling around this, so your soldering tip does not get colder if you solder something.
With only 20W, for instance, your tip may drop in temperature if you touch something else and will not be able to melt the solder anymore.

Of course there are exceptions, but this is a good rule of thumb.

I've been doing 40, my concern was heating up the other parts could damage them, it's hard sometimes to get into those really tight spaces...

Thanks
-Paul-

Sprockett wrote:I've been doing 40, my concern was heating up the other parts could damage them, it's hard sometimes to get into those really tight spaces...

Thanks
-Paul-

I had the same concerns. But for now, i haven't damaged anything yet.

I use 40w. The trick is to work fast so you don't have to leave the iron pressed against anything too long. It seems a little counterintuitive, but a slightly thicker tip on your soldering iron can help with this because there is more surface area to quickly transfer heat to the solder and melt it. I used to be all about super thin/pointy tips, but a while back I tried a little thicker one, and I haven't looked back.

I actually use a 15w iron with an extremely fine tip but that's because I was very new to this when I bought it years ago.

If you are new with soldering I would probably go a little lower until you get used to the process.

Moving to Tools section.

I'm using a 30w iron that I had lying around, it does a fine job melting the new solder but can't melt the solder already on the pcbs, I had to use plyers to remove the IC from the LCD controller board

Robvp wrote:I'm using a 30w iron that I had lying around, it does a fine job melting the new solder but can't melt the solder already on the pcbs, I had to use plyers to remove the IC from the LCD controller board

You should be able to. I melt applied solder with a 25w iron just fine, did you try adding new solder to it?