First pedal build - making a RAT clone pedal from a kit

ewal

There's a fine line between having the tip of your soldering iron tinned and a blob of solder on it. Nothing wrong with having solder on the tip and it certainly helps getting heat in to the joint. Just don't have so much that you end up accidentally depositing elsewhere on the PCB.

Edited to add: I've always used basic lead-free solder from Maplins and never had the issues you are describing.

Megii

ewal said:

There's a fine line between having the tip of your soldering iron tinned and a blob of solder on it. Nothing wrong with having solder on the tip and it certainly helps getting heat in to the joint. Just don't have so much that you end up accidentally depositing elsewhere on the PCB.

Edited to add: I've always used basic lead-free solder from Maplins and never had the issues you are describing.

Cheers @ewal - in the past I have used Maplin's basic unleaded for guitar wiring, and been able to get it to work, although I do find their "lead-free silver solder" is worth the extra cost. I did get some decent looking joints done this morning using the Maplins silver solder too, to be fair - just that I was a little concerned that I couldn't seem to get the joints done as quickly as I'd like.

I have now ordered a few metres of 0.7mm 60 40 solder, plus a Hakko (Japanese) brand 1.6mm tip for the iron. I don't know who makes the iron tips that Maplins sell, it may or may not be Hakko, but it's possible that the new tip will be a bit better quality, which might help. And I'll see how the 60 40 solder works out - whether I use that for the pedal pcb I don't know, but experiment seems quite useful anyhow at the moment.

Megii

lasermonkey said:

Having a small amount of solder on the tip will definitely help speed up the soldering process. It's known as "wetting" and it facilitates better heat transfer between the iron and the components. Just remember to wipe and re-wet the tip frequently, as any burnt flux will impede the task.
 May I ask what temperature you have your iron set to? A 60W iron with a 1.6mm tip should easily be able to flow the solder more or less instantly.

I think what I was doing would be well within the accepted "wetting" definition, cheers @lasermonkey. I had the iron set to 350 C, according to the display anyhow. I could probably back that down a bit and it would still work OK.

lasermonkey

For lead-free you need to be at 425 C. I know that's much higher than the melting point of lead-free solder, but that's how it works. The Weller TCP tips for 60/40 solder were set to operate at 370 C, which is pretty much perfect for that task.
Give it a try. Remember, it's not the so much the temperature that causes damage to components, it's the length of time that the components are exposed to high temperature. In, out, job's a good 'un!

Megii

lasermonkey said:

For lead-free you need to be at 425 C. I know that's much higher than the melting point of lead-free solder, but that's how it works. The Weller TCP tips for 60/40 solder were set to operate at 370 C, which is pretty much perfect for that task.
Give it a try. Remember, it's not the so much the temperature that causes damage to components, it's the length of time that the components are exposed to high temperature. In, out, job's a good 'un!

Appreciate this advice very much @lasermonkey, and I will indeed give it a try, cheers!