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Soldering Guide
This soldering guide is brought to you by 8BitCADE. This is a section from the 8BitCADE
console MAKE guides, if you like the content in this tutorial, be sure to check out 8bitcade.
com for more tutorials and the 8BitCADE consoles that go with them.

Written by the 8BitCADE Team

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Version 1
© 2020 8BitCADE Limited

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Soldering 101
This tutorial aims to teach you the basics of soldering, how to solder and how to
Identify and fix bad solder joints. Lets get started

What is Soldering?
Soldering is used to bond two pieces of metal together using a filler metal. Welding might
come to mind however welding is where you melt the work pieces together, here we use
something called solder (the filler material) to bond the work pieces together. Firstly, we
melt the solder, allowing it to flow between the workpieces and cool to create a bond. In our
project, the work pieces are the PCB and components. We are going to be doing “through
hole soldering”. Before you start, check out this video here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKbJxytERvg

So What Tools Will We Be Using?

Soldering Iron
A soldering iron will be the heat source; it is used to heat up
the solder. You don’t need any fancy kit, a soldering iron that
can reach temperatures between 300 to 400 degree Celsius.
The one that we use and recommend can be found on the
8BitCADE store and is a great 80W, temperature adjustable
soldering iron. We recommend an iron that can be adjusted
as it allows for greater versatility and safety when soldering
components such as IC chips that are heat sensitive – this
one has a brilliant LCD screen built in that allows you to see
and adjust the temperature.
https://8bitcade.com/shopfront
Solder
We advise solder that has a ratio of 60/40. This means that it is made
up of 60% tin and 40% lead. Low quality solder can cause bad sol-
der joints and endless amounts of frustration – get good solder! The
one that we recommend can be purchased at the 8BitCADE Store.
Its 60/40 and 0.5mm in diameter, forcing you to be conservative with
your soldering!
https://8bitcade.com/shopfront
Solder Cleaner
This is used to clean the tip of your solder from
both excess solder, flux and any oxidation that
might have occurred on the tip. The one we use and
recommend can be purchase at the 8BitCADE store.
https://8bitcade.com/shopfront

Solder Safety
• Do not touch the end of the soldering iron while it is on/cooling down – they are very
hot!
• After soldering a joint, DO NOT touch the joint as it will still be hot.
• Soldering does produce fumes, and for most can be nauseating if directly inhaled over
long solder periods. We advise you to take 5 minute breaks every 25 minutes of solder-
ing and to solder in a well ventilated area. DO NOT breathe in the fumes directly – a fan
or ventilator can help remove fumes or simply moving your head to the side, not directly
above.
• NEVER place your solder on the workstation, ALWAYS place it in the soldering stand/
station.

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Soldering Station

Solder Sucker
Solder Cutters

Blue Tac
Elastic Band

PCB

Soldering Iron
Solder Cleaner

Understanding Your Work Station

While we have broken down each core tool we will be using, for those that want to get into
soldering, we recommend the setup like above. A polymer mat helps stop burning solder
from marking your table and also organizes your work station. We can also see we have
some basic tools to help secure our work piece, such as elastic bands and Blue Tac - see
more below.

Holding the Work Piece

For those starting out with soldering, and don’t have a “helping-hand” station, then we
advise you grab some of your mums pegs and peg your work piece! It raises the PCB up
enough for the work piece to be secure, flat and for the components underneath to not be
touched. On the contrary, for those who are looking to solder more often, we advise invest-
ing in a “helping-hand” station that securely holds your work piece using crocodile clips.

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 Before We Begin Tinning The Tip
Read this section before you start making!
What does “tinning the tip” mean? To put it sim-
ply, its covering the solder tip with solder. We can
use this before we start soldering and when we are
finished. Before packing away your soldering iron,
you should tin the tip to increase the life of the tip.
The tip of your soldering iron oxidizes quickly, as it
is typically made out of copper plated with iron. By
melting solder around the tip, we are stopping the
tip from oxidizing (as an oxidized tip is inefficient at
transferring heat). However anther use for tinning
the tip is before you solder a fresh joint. By having a
bit of solder on the tip, you can spot-solder the joint
as the solder from the tip cools and fixed the joint
in place while you heat up the joint. It also aids to
the efficiency of transferring heat from the tip to the
joint.

Soldering Components to a PCB

Known as “through hole component soldering” it will be the main soldering we use in this build guide. This
is a tedious job because we are dealing with heat sensitive components. Its crucial to not over heat the
parts/pads. But do not worry! We will take you, step by step, through the process and you’ll be a soldering
genius in no time – remember, you can always desolder! And you’ll learn that too!

1 Mount Component
Check with the guide photos while doing this as you
don’t want to be soldering and Desoldering a part
because you put it in the wrong way around! For
components like resistors, you can slightly bend the
legs out, allowing you to flip the PCB around and
solder the joint. For other components, masking
tape can be used to hold the component in place.
For more advanced uses, a “helping hand” can be
used. These units utilize crocodile clips, on arms,
to hold the PCB and component in place – it’s up to
you how you want to approach this but blue tac and
masking tape can go a long way!
Top Tip: Before soldering, ensure your work pieces
are secure and wont shift mid solder - that can ex-
tremely frustrating. Major takeaway? Utilize masking
tape and blue tac!

2 Heat The Joint

Apply heat on the component leg and conductor
pad. The aim is for the pad and component to melt
the solder, not the soldering iron tip. This ensures
you do not get a “cold” joint (see reference picture
below).
Check. Check. Check! Its crucial to check your
joints. When soldering, you can run into a field of
issues that can be easily fixed. Below is some of
the most common mistakes and how to fix them!
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 Bridging
When soldering joints that are very close to eachother, the solder can
sometimes flow and melt together. This can cause a short circuit and
damage your board. Its important to check for any “solder bridges”.
Simply drag the tin down the middle, like a knife, to melt the solder and
remove it. Sometimes this isn’t enough and using a “solder sucker” can
be a easy way to remove the excess solder. That’s why this problem
occurred in the first place, because of too much solder.
Source: Pimoroni, Youtube-Androkavo

Cold Joints
Is where the solder cooled too quickly and didn’t get enough time to
seep into the joint crevices. These generally look lumpy and rough with
their strength being unreliable. If you get a cold joint, simply reheat the
joint allowing the solder to flow better. Another reason for getting a
cold joint is using too much solder, the excess solder can be drawn out
by your tip or sucked out using a “solder sucker” that we will discuss
later on.
Source: Androkavo Youtube
Top Tip for Cold Joints: When reheating the joint, put some solder onto your tip. As the solder has
cooled down, it has oxidized on the joint and can be harder to heat up. Adding solder onto your tip can
help reduce this problem.

Overheated Joints
Not enough heat? Well don’t over heat it! This can cause issues as
well. Not only will the heat get conducted up into the component and
potentially damage the component, it can also damage the pad on the
PCB – usually seen through black burnt marks and/or an orange tint on
the solder. To prevent this, use a clean tinned tip with the correct heat
settings (350 degrees Celsius).

Source: Pimoroni, Youtube-Androkavo

Insufficient Wetting
A term commonly used in reference to soldering. It is to do with how
well the solder melts/bonds to something, e.g. the pads on the PCB. For
us we are concerned with the solder properly wetting (being bonded to)
the pads and legs of components. A joint that has insufficient wetting
would be seen as the solder won’t ‘stick’ to it. To solve this, resolder the
joint with more solder, ensuring to heat the part that the solder didn’t
bond to.
Source: SeedStudio - Soldering Problems
Wetting could be seen as using too little solder – but you can also use too much! The perfect solder join
is one that arcs up into the pin from the PCB, as shown in the photo. The aim is to make it look almost like
a volcano – with the pin erupting from the middle.

Top Tips: You should be heating each joint for about 2 to 3 seconds and then applying the solder. A
Temperature of 350 degrees on your soldering iron is recommend as too much heat applied can cause
the component to be damaged.

Source: gaudi.ch
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3 Apply Solder To Joint
Dip the solder between the component leg and
pad, allowing the joint to melt the solder and fill
the crack. If it does not then the temperature is not
right, there are three general reasons for this: You
soldered too early; The soldering iron temperature is
too low and should be turned up or the soldering tip
is not transferring heat effectively, meaning the tip
could be corroded and/or too small for the joint.

4 Snip Protruding Material

When trimming the legs of components like resis-
tors, as a health safety rule, you should either hold
the part being cut off, or cover it with your hand.
This is as when you cut it, the pin will fly off and
could land in your eye. To trim the legs, simply put
the flat side of your cutters on the top of the solder
and squeeze (covering it with your hand!).

Summary Tips:
• Do not heat the component for too long – as this could damage the component/pad
• Tin the Soldering iron tip beforehand to remove oxidization and make it easier to solder.
• The perfect solder joint is one that is shiny and looks like a volcano (a cone shape a concaved
surface)

Desoldering
To desolder a part, we can use a solder suck to quite
literally suck melted solder from the joint, or we can
use Desoldering braid/wick. Desoldering braid/wick
is braided copper wire that will remove the solder
from your joint by ‘absorbing’ the solder.

Source: printeraction Instructable

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MAKING