First Time Soldering, what do you think?

ESK8 Electronics
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I did my first soldering connection today and I know I need to improve because practise makes perfect but what do you guys think of this connection:

image.jpg2448Ă—3264 1.33 MB

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:grinning: I’ve seen worse. not bad for a first time. remember Tin your wire and connector first and then heat them together. try to use a smaller blob.

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Ok thanks @lowGuido you are the man. I had trouble heating the wire from the bottom and melting the solder on the top of the wire. Should I use a higher degree of temp?

EDIT: Should I heatshrink the connection now or should I make some changes?

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If you do the second one that large you’d risk a short because it’s big. Xt60 are nice because the wire can sit inside of the gold lead. It really only requires half a pea size of solder.

(Scientific measurement) lol

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I will heatshrink though so that hopefully doesn’t happen.

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Hopefully I’d try and desolder it and try to make it smaller it’ll give you practice.

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the trick is “drag” the heat out of the soldering iron with the solder. you would have a hard time with the iron on the bottom and the solder on the top.

one day I will make a video.

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@lox897 really nice for a first time!

Make sure that the tip of your iron also has some solder on it when you start to heat the wire from the bottom… solder is what transfers the heat. Also, hit the wire with a little bit of flux if you have it. it will help the solder to melting into (and in between the strands)

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Another tip, idk your set up, but helping hands with clamps on both hands really really helps. I used to try soldering without and man, the joints you get from not using helping hands suck.

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Thanks for all the help guys. Appreciate it.

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I have a MR Jig and helping hands.

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@lox897 - Not bad… A good soldering iron goes a long way. I’d even it straight but without a hot soldering iron it would be hard to do that. Just brush it back and forth.

Easy to melt those XT60/XT90 plugs though with a hot soldering iron.

5.5mm Bullet :slight_smile:

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I have a Hakko FX888D. I have connected two xt60s so the heat distributes evenly and doesn’t melt the connector.

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This might help you out.

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:+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2: don’t think that’s coming off easy…

Looks good in my book… Heat shrink will cover up any blobs … As long as there are no sharp edges of your soldier … And if you wanna get really fancy…get to using the different color wire sleeving … It’s makes it look tidy

Good stuff bro

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I love :heart: this site … Everyone is very supportive

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I have the same iron, and it may be worth changing the tip- the stock tip is a small point, and doesn’t work as well for high gauge wire. I bought a chisel tip off of amazon, and it works like a charm. I find it way easier to get good solder joints with the new tip!

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Yeah, I bought a set of tips off hobbyking. I am using a chisel tip too.

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Can you give me the link to your one (if you can find it) so I can check if they are the same?

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Sounds good!

I bought this guy right here: http://www.amazon.com/Hakko-T18-D24-Series-Soldering-FX-8801/dp/B004ORB8J2/ref=pd_sim_21_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=31SYj7NAXpL&dpSrc=sims&preST=AC_UL320_SR320%2C320&refRID=0QQDJVVJNP65C6K7KTHS

and to be honest, before soldering 18650 cells I will probably get an even bigger chisel tip. This is a good normal day-to-day soldering one though.