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12 years of using solder wrong and never knew it
I always heated the iron then touched the solder to it. Melted fine right? Then last week I watched a guy fix a old Tandy 1000. He touched solder to the board not the iron. I felt like an idiot. Anyone else do it backward for years?
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webb.val6d ago
Man I felt that "felt like an idiot" part hard. I did the exact same thing for years, just dabbing solder onto the iron tip like it was the only way. It wasn't until a buddy who builds guitars showed me the proper way that I realized I'd been making things harder for myself the whole time. The solder flows so much cleaner and you get way less cold joints when you heat the pad first. Don't beat yourself up though, it's a stupid easy mistake that nobody really warns you about.
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kim.wren6d ago
Honestly the thing that took me forever to figure out was that cheap solder makes a huge difference too. I was using some no-name stuff from a random electronics kit and it was oxidizing before I could even get it to the pad. Switched to Kester and suddenly everything just worked way better.
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