Complete noobie soldering question

I'd say it depends on what you'd be soldering most of. I can give you a few pointers:

1. Get a soldering iron that is rated for the highest wattage you can afford, something temp controlled is preferred. Don't worry about the fear of burning stuff. You should be working fast enough that the parts you are touching shouldn't heat up too much. Sitting there, waiting for the solder to melt while using a low wattage iron actually allows the parts to heat soak and can become damaged moreso than a higher rated iron while working faster.

2. Get solder removal tools. A solder sucker and solder braid (solder wick) are also pretty handy. You can reuse pre-used braid/wick to actually tin parts and leads later without using too much solder.

3. Always tin the connectors and wires you wish to connect. Do not try to stick raw metals together with the iron and solder at the same time. You'll overheat the wires/connectors and you'll get poor bonding between the parts.

4. Always use rosin core solder (unless you know what you are doing). It takes cleanup but no-clean flux and simple flux cored solders don't stick well if the bonding areas aren't pre-treated. No clean is good for fresh ENIG or gold but suck for crusty old tin plating.

There are more, but they are more specific.

Soldering cables:

1. Strip the insulation back on both the outer jackets.
2. Strip the insulation back on the inner conductors, but don't strip too much. A lot of insulators will pull back some when the conductor is heated, so account for it.
3. If the conductor isn't bright and shiny, keep cutting until you find shiny conductor. Tarnished or corroded conductors won't be useable unless you scrub the corrosion/tarnish off. If you don't get 100% of it off, then the connection will be poor, even if the solder encapsulates the tarnish. The conductor could still tarnish/corrode further, even under the solder!
4. Do not use any kind of clips to hold the wire, the heat will soften the insulator and the clip will likely dig right through it causing a place that it could short.
5. Solder is not a load bearing adhesive. Do not expect it to hold something together if there is any tension. Allow plenty of flex in the conductors.
6. Tin the conductors and the other parts where the conductors will connect. Make sure you leave a little extra solder pooled up.
7. Add more rosin/flux if needed.
8. Heat the receiving part with your iron, place the conductor into the molten pool of solder. When the solder from both sides melts and pools together, remove the heat and don't move the parts until cool. If you move even the slightest, the solder could micro-fracture during it's plastic stage and crumble apart later. you might not see the fractures at all.
9. Resist the urge to stick the parts together and then add heat to them together. This can be done if you know what you are doing, but a lot of people who don't solder very often try to shortcut this way and end up with poor solder joints that will break.
10. If this is a guitar cable, I suggest adding a very small length of wire (teflon insulated works good) to the center conductors and then using this to make a small 1/4" loop. Put heatshrink on the joints too. The loop is because the center conductor of guitar cable bends at a different radius than the outer shield/braid/jacket and eventually will pull and tug on the solder joint at the connector until it breaks. The loop give some play and takes the stress off the solder. This will last forever if you've done it right.

Hope these tips help

Just for the fun of it.. I recently mastered soldering 384 ball BGA FPGAs to PCBs... With a Hakko heat gun. The digital guy here at work didn't think it could be done. I won lunch out of it at least.

I think soldering wires has to be the hardest thing with assembly soldering . Trying to get the wires to stick without moving, and not melting the conductors is a real pain.

Assembly of kits is pretty easy. Disassembling them is a lot harder and I'd wager that's where most people start damaging things.

A good way to learn is to buy CAPI stuff

You're making me blush!

Thanks, m8

Gustav

Bo gets credit for the Bo DI schematic. I only made the circuit boards (Didn't even design the layout). 

I also built a few to check out the drop-in trafo options. Haufe is my favorite. what did you use?



Gustav

You are correct - and good choice on the Haufes. 

I never built that Ez760 myself. I fear its a pretty expensive project, and right now, I can only afford two beers a day and my prototyping.

Gustav

Great info! Thanks, guys...

That's actually a great idea...