JHZR2
Staff member
We have a nicer RC car that the kids like to play with at the park. Traxxas or something.
The nickel metal hydride battery charge connector positive lead fell off of the interface plug at some point. When I looked at how it came apart, the way they had made it was just laying a piece of wire on a brass terminal, and somehow getting a giant blob of solder that kind of stuck until it didn’t.
Years ago, I had tried to do some other soldering work, and I couldn’t get anything to solder correctly. I was told that my soldering iron was two weak and I needed more heat. So I got a real soldering gun, a Weller brand.
So today, I tried to reflow the solder and get it to stick again onto the terminal, and I could never get anything hot enough to work. So then I drilled a hole through the brass terminal, and cut and wrapped the wire around, hoping that a hot tinned iron end would allow me to get the wires hot enough to flow some additional solder and get the whole thing to be solidly in place.
I could never get hot enough, even though the wire itself was too hot through the insulation to hold comfortably.
In the end, I took the oversize wire ( probably 10 gauge) and I cut 3/4 of the strands from it, wrapped it around the terminal, and then try to get back to flow.
The result was this:
I’m running a Weller 140W gun. Fortunately resistance checked out and so I’m leaving it. Stuffing the terminal back in the connector gives strain relief and it’s solid enough I guess.
I think it’s me not the tools. But I couldn’t heat the work enough. Yet the wire got unbearably hot.
What gives? How can I be so bad at soldering?
I’d like to be able to reflow parts on circuit boards and replace capacitors and whatnot. But I can’t even get a wire to solder.
Batting 1000 this weekend.
The nickel metal hydride battery charge connector positive lead fell off of the interface plug at some point. When I looked at how it came apart, the way they had made it was just laying a piece of wire on a brass terminal, and somehow getting a giant blob of solder that kind of stuck until it didn’t.
Years ago, I had tried to do some other soldering work, and I couldn’t get anything to solder correctly. I was told that my soldering iron was two weak and I needed more heat. So I got a real soldering gun, a Weller brand.
So today, I tried to reflow the solder and get it to stick again onto the terminal, and I could never get anything hot enough to work. So then I drilled a hole through the brass terminal, and cut and wrapped the wire around, hoping that a hot tinned iron end would allow me to get the wires hot enough to flow some additional solder and get the whole thing to be solidly in place.
I could never get hot enough, even though the wire itself was too hot through the insulation to hold comfortably.
In the end, I took the oversize wire ( probably 10 gauge) and I cut 3/4 of the strands from it, wrapped it around the terminal, and then try to get back to flow.
The result was this:
I’m running a Weller 140W gun. Fortunately resistance checked out and so I’m leaving it. Stuffing the terminal back in the connector gives strain relief and it’s solid enough I guess.
I think it’s me not the tools. But I couldn’t heat the work enough. Yet the wire got unbearably hot.
What gives? How can I be so bad at soldering?
I’d like to be able to reflow parts on circuit boards and replace capacitors and whatnot. But I can’t even get a wire to solder.
Batting 1000 this weekend.
