Soldering Pads on Pi Zero

[Lphillimore]

Hi Guys

Post success with converting my screen to run off of 5v, i thought id practice soldering one of my Pi Zeros upto it. Waiting for my BW screen to arrive before kicking off my actual project.

Nearly 1.5 hours later its done and tested working. (Not sure how!).

The soldering is pretty bad though and I'm not sure id be happy with it for my actual project.

Have read the soldering guide kindly posted here by @abrugsch and watched a fair few videos online for advice so was quite confident going in.....

Have myself a temp controlled iron, 3rd hand etc and using 0.3mm 60/40 leaded rosin core. Temp set to 280c.

Tinned wires in advanced and tinned the iron each time.

Seem to have lots of trouble soldering to the pads. Practiced on some perf board with a gpio pins and it wasnt too shabby. Pads however....

Any tips?

Cheers

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[.jan]

For first time soldering it doesn't look too bad.
You can try to prepare the pads beforehand with some flux. A fluxpen is a usefull tool here (look for a "no clean" flux).
The connections look a littlebit like cold joints. If you feel confident enouth you can also turn up the temperarure to something between 300 and 330 °C. But be carefull and only heat it for around 1 second.

[Lphillimore]

Thanks, will look to give one of those a go.

I think my joints are definitely cold joints so not ideal.

I think I'm still not 100% on order.

My current process is...

Tin wire....tin iron....heat pad....bring wire to pad...touch with iron and hope it binds?

I saw @wermy had some blobs of solder on his pads in advance. I tried that first but they didnt seem to melt nicely.... Maybe I was scared of overheating the board. Board seemed to be warning up but solder certainly didnt liquify...

[jellybelly]

Turn your temp up a bit will help

[Lphillimore]

No it's leaded solder. As below

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[jellybelly]

Sorry just read that

Defo need more heat and flux
My soldering process

Switch on 325 allow to warm
Once warm dip in flux, tin end
Prep wire (or whatever your soldering)

Clean iron on water foam, dip flux, tin end
Solder whatever your doing

Repeat process each time

[Lphillimore]

Thanks!

Seems i need to go a bit hotter then and use additional flux then. Have some pads I can test on so will report back.

Solder im using is pretty thin too. Does it make much difference? I also have some 0.8mm 37/63 rosin core i could use instead.

[abrugsch]

have you read the guide in my sig?

63/37 seems to be preferred by many... but definitely practice. it's an art to know just when everything's hot enough to be optimal and you only get to know that through lots of trial and error.

I really should add pads to the guide though but in principle it's no different... prep the pad with a bit of solder, prep the wire with some too, warm the pad, place the wire, maybe with your 3rd hand (lol) poke a bit more solder in.

[Lphillimore]

Thanks @abrugsch mentioned you earlier but there was a typo in your username

Will keep practicing, especially on something that doesn't matter if it gets damaged. Will also re-read your guide and as above look to heat a tad more and use additional flux.

My AIO 2.2 from Helder is out for delivery today ....

[abrugsch]

Hah weird. I read the first post and totally missed that mention... I need to stop skimming posts