Common Soldering Mistakes | Soldering

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I have here two different pieces of copper that are from a standard [inaudible 00:09] power supply. One common soldering job might be to put a connector on something like this.

This piece of wire has been stripped and sitting out in the air for a long time and I wanted you to see how it looks when compared with something that's just recently stripped. And holding them side by side, you can see that the one in my right hand is much, much cleaner and shinier. It has a pinkish appearance of nice, clean copper whereas, the one on the left not as copper colored.

The copper that has been exposed to air for a long times forms an oxide layer on its surface and that oxide layer tends to disrupt the alloying process of soldering. So it's important to be able to get rid of that oxide layer before you begin soldering.

There are two ways to do that. The first is to mechanically remove it. You can do that by using sand paper to abrade away the oxide. And the other way is to chemically remove it and for that, we would use our rosin core.

So let me show you how it looks when we tin solder to the clean copper wire. Begin by adding some rosin, placing it in our vice, and heating it with our iron. See the smoke forming as the flux burns off and we have a nicely tinned piece of copper.

Now, if we try to do the same process with the oxidized copper, we're going to run into trouble. Add our flux. Okay, here we go. Now, as we heat the joint see that our solder is still tries to find its way in there. It doesn't make quite the same contact that we had with the other. Just for comparison, I'll hold them side by side. You see little bits of brown left over? That's copper that hasn't been properly soldered and the reason for that is the oxides that have formed on its surface tend to disrupt that alloying process. So in order to make a better solder joint, what we need to do is we need to remove that oxide layer.

What we'll do is we'll cut a new piece of wire. Strip and use our sand paper. Twisting the wire. Adding our flux. Applying heat and our solder wicks its way between the wires for a nice, clean tinned copper wire. And there you have it.

[draynged]

After I watched this video, I went back and took apart all the wiring I ever did and fixed it the proper way....Thanks a ton!!!

[csrader]

The biggest mistake here is the lack of a understanding macro shots with the camera.

[AFYRanger]

"Common Mistakes". Only saw 1 mistake. I guess the other is the camera work. Anywhoo thankies for the video, I'll keep it in mind.

[jesuisravi]

I can't see how people find fault with this video. It is fine. The man did a good job of explaining and demonstrating the process. I know more than I did before. Thanks.

[tiberiu_nicolae]

I'm an EE with a PhD in flux rheology and another in soldering alloys. I have over 40 years of professional experience soldering everything from hand-built custom spy satellite motherboards to sonar modules in nuclear subs. The tool I use the most is a soldering hydrogen torch with an iridium-plated tungsten tip. I usually clear oxydation by sweeping the wires and components with a YAG laser under a nitrogen atmosphere. If I'm soldering underwater, I prefer to use a focused induction or an ultrasonic tip depending on the salinity and oxygen concentration of the water. If I'm soldering for space, I usually solder with an alloy of 74% gold, 24% lead and 2% tin to prevent ionisation damage. I think this video was ok for beginners even if it ignores a few more advanced techniques.

[peterpalmer]

As the aim of this video seems to be to find and point out the common soldering mistakes committed in it, I found another one (I believe) not mentioned by others below: he talks about 'the alloying'. There is no 'alloying' when you solder. If there was the process would be called 'brazing'.

[mcampbell]

Never understand why people take the time to post negative comments. I found the information to be useful. My only problem is that the wires want to join are very thin and difficult to get free access to.

[Kini_the_Fox]

"Next week, on howcast, we'll learn how to use manual focus on a camera" lololol no, but seriously these videos are actually very helpful thank you for your help :)

[MERCKXWOOD]

Mistakes? There was only one, you watch this video expecting more than that.

[nor]

I have been soldering over 50 years but I have probably made that mistake, it's a good refresher video thanks

[sneed]

Is that Candy Crush music in the background??? Sweet!!

[dwaynes]

I never solder with wire up. Good chance solder will flow under jacket. Always downwards or sideways. Great video. Always learning.

I was having a hard time soldering 0.1mm jumper copper wire, I didn't know even coated copper could oxide. Just rubed some sandpaper and solded like magic!
Yes, I am learning, but tips like this makes huge difference, I don't know why there is so much shade in the comments, that tip was superb to me. I assume people on the microsoldering field don't want competition and is always throwing hate on people that teaches these stuff, that is nasty.

[saldav]

I watch this video when I need to fall asleep thanks!

[mandykal]

Dude, just cut off the end that has been exposed for a while. :)

[johnhopkins]

The reason I found this was a google search regarding non-corrosive flux for soldering stranded copper wire; The problem if have found is that flux "no clean" tends, through capillary action, tends to wick up the strands, inside of the insulation, leaving blue-green corrosion of the strands, inside the insulation (discovered when disassembling/stripping insulation). To date, have been using Topnik RF-800... applied very sparingly with syringe... station temp set to about 290C, using Sn60Pb40 (SW26/3/2, 5%) fluxless solder.... use IPA to clean fingertips, prior to twisting strands together... acetone seems to make the situation worse.

[heezdeadjim]

This would have been 300% more informative if you had used a cameraman (or camerawoman) who knew how to pull focus. I'm going to guess they didn't know which direction the lens focuses because they went the complete opposite direction before focus hunting. Now, different brands turn different directions (Nikon goes opposite of Canon) so I could understand being used to one brand. Also, they need to be using a bigger monitor screen than the built in 3" on the camera. Even focus peaking on Sony Nex's don't get super thin depth of field when using 50mm 1.4 lenses. Drop it down to f/2.8 so the solder doesn't look like he's holding an earthworm.

[drahunter]

I have a coin I wanted to make into a necklace but when I try soldering it (I never tried soldering before it seemed straight forward) the solder on the neckhoop thing and the coin kept on slipping off and wouldn't stick to the metal so I'm looking around trying to learn the basics

[GorVala]

Thanks for sharing video.. Makes sense and to the point.. cheers

[RideRedRacer]

awesome video, screw the haters. let them make their own videos