How's my soldering?

[mictas]

So what have I done, well I had $5 ish free and on eBay, I found some CH340G SMD IC's and breakout boards for sale and ordered them.

Firstly, I was wearing disposable food gloves, the ones you buy at woolies, while soldering and yes I was careful. I have a few open wounds on my hands,  so yea...

Now, the two images I have attached are from the same job, I used two tips, one being a very fine tip and the other a chisel tip with my Hakko FX-888D, I had set the temperature to 240, before getting to work.

Now as you can see, pin 1, 9 and 16 on the IC were the ones I did first and it didn't work out as well as I had planned, after a while I sat down and with some electrical tape to hold down the IC, I heated the breakout board, counting to 30. Then I heated the pin and counted to 15, at the 10 count, I would add a little bit of solder and then I dragged the tip off.
And you can see how the other pins set out.

As for the header pins, I switch to the chisel tip and they took a count to 15 before that is how they ended up.

Any suggestions or comments about the soldering, if I did anything wrong or could have done something better?

I'm still new at this.

[mrflibble]

Did you use flux? Because guessing by the way the solder flowed (or rather, did not flow all that much) I'd suggest using some more flux. I find flux to be all the difference between "painful" and "too easy" when it comes to soldering.

Did you also do the header pins? Because those look good.

[Wh1sper]

You are using too low temp. by far!
When using leaded tin I do use 330°
This way the process works much faster!
max 2-3 seconds for a pin each, no preheating.

Your are going to destroy the IC while stressing such a long time with high Temperature.
And yes, the solder joints are looking ugly.

[AndyC_772]

I agree, you've made life way more difficult for yourself than you need to.

Ditch the ultra fine tip. Any tip that's too small to readily accept a blob of solder is too small for this type of work.

Set the temperature to 350C. Don't be afraid that this is too hot; the chip will actually get less hot if you solder it quickly at a higher temperature rather than taking longer at a low temperature. I've seen way more defective products in which there wasn't enough heat during the soldering process, than where parts were overheated.

Apply a thin layer of liquid flux to the bare PCB.

Clean the tip of your iron on a damp sponge or brass wool. Apply a small blob of solder to the chisel tip, then transfer it to one of the corner pads on the PCB.

Now take the IC and hold it in place with tweezers. Melt the solder on the corner pin, so the IC is held in place by it.

Solder the diagonally opposite pin, taking care not to stress the joint you've already soldered by twisting the device.

To solder each pin, ensure there's a small quantity of solder on the tip, and apply it to one side of the IC leg. The solder that's on the tip at this point is just there to ensure good thermal contact between the iron and the IC pin. Feed additional solder in to the other side of the IC pin, at the point where it touches the PCB. The IC pin itself should be hot enough to melt the solder; the solder from the reel shouldn't touch the tip of the iron directly.

Repeat until the entire device is done, then clean the board with Flux-Off or similar.

[mictas]

Did you use flux? Because guessing by the way the solder flowed (or rather, did not flow all that much) I'd suggest using some more flux. I find flux to be all the difference between "painful" and "too easy" when it comes to soldering.

Did you also do the header pins? Because those look good.

With the header pins yes, however I used my chisel tip on those and they took pretty much no time.

The solder, I used was the brand Multicore that comes with flux. I did at one point attempt to buy flux, but that went down hill sadly.

You are using too low temp. by far!
When using leaded tin I do use 330°
This way the process works much faster!
max 2-3 seconds for a pin each, no preheating.

Your are going to destroy the IC while stressing such a long time with high Temperature.
And yes, the solder joints are looking ugly.

You should see my other ones, but still locally I was told not to use too much heat, because that would destroy the IC, I still have to place it into a breadboard and test it.

I wasn't able to see the real damage, I had done until I took these photos.

I just hope when I ask someone at Hacker Space again, about flux and getting sent with someone else order to save on postage, I don't get stone walled, because I use the Multicore brand. I got a free partly used reel when I got my secondhand Hakko.

I agree, you've made life way more difficult for yourself than you need to.

Ditch the ultra fine tip. Any tip that's too small to readily accept a blob of solder is too small for this type of work.

Set the temperature to 350C. Don't be afraid that this is too hot; the chip will actually get less hot if you solder it quickly at a higher temperature rather than taking longer at a low temperature. I've seen way more defective products in which there wasn't enough heat during the soldering process, than where parts were overheated.

Apply a thin layer of liquid flux to the bare PCB.

Clean the tip of your iron on a damp sponge or brass wool. Apply a small blob of solder to the chisel tip, then transfer it to one of the corner pads on the PCB.

Now take the IC and hold it in place with tweezers. Melt the solder on the corner pin, so the IC is held in place by it.

Solder the diagonally opposite pin, taking care not to stress the joint you've already soldered by twisting the device.

To solder each pin, ensure there's a small quantity of solder on the tip, and apply it to one side of the IC leg. The solder that's on the tip at this point is just there to ensure good thermal contact between the iron and the IC pin. Feed additional solder in to the other side of the IC pin, at the point where it touches the PCB. The IC pin itself should be hot enough to melt the solder; the solder from the reel shouldn't touch the tip of the iron directly.

Repeat until the entire device is done, then clean the board with Flux-Off or similar.

I'll keep a copy of your post and once I get myself some flux, I'll give it a go, thanks. (I'm trying not to buy the L-cheapo items when it comes to something I will use more then once)

I find the brass wool to be better.

As for the chisel tip, it came with the station and by the looks it is a Hakko T18-S3 Shape-S3 and at times I have coated that thing with solder, when I have been recovering parts from TV and power boards. I do know not you use that much.
I do take the time to clean the tip with the  brass wool, before turning off my iron.

[mrflibble]

Didn't even notice that, but 240 is far too low as pointed out by the others. 325 - 350 is more like it. And use the biggest tip you can get away with. For this job a solder bridge every now and then is no big deal since you can remove it afterwards with some solder wick.

As for heat ... you want to limit the total amount of heat transferred. And amusingly enough, 10 seconds at 240 degrees will transfer more heat than 2 seconds at 340 degrees. Well, the "total amount of heat transferred" is not strictly true, but I hope you get the idea. Better to make a good joint heating the pin for 1 full second at 340 degrees, than for waaay longer at 240 degrees.

As for flux being hard to buy, you could buy some reasonable-ish stuff on ebay. Or proper stuff when buying parts at digikey/mouser/etc. I also recall there being a few threads on here on flux...

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:eevblog.com+what+flux

[Wh1sper]

adendum:
What a chip isit?
without branding I would consider it as as garbage. 

[SL4P]

When I learned to solder through hole parts, the starting point was pre-tinned, then...

Touch the iron to the junction of leads, count 'touch -2 -3', then while the iron is still on the joint... apply a little solder to complete the joint if needed... and the iron should come off about 2 secs later.  So iron on joint for about 4-5 secs in total.

For surface mount (chips, or rows of device pins)... ensure part and PCB are clean and pre-tinning is intact (not dull/corroded).
Tack one corner pin to locate the part on the footprint.
Tack another corner - also ensuring the package is flat to the board surface...
With pre tinned surfaces, it should be as easy as running the chisel tip along the row to complete all the pins.  a tiny extra bit of solder can help if needed.

Finally visual inspection, and maybe solder wick to draw off any tiny shorts.
I load QFN parts like this with zero problems.

For chip resistors etc, same pre-tinning, then tweezers to tack down one end, but hold it down while finishing the 'other' end, or it may tombstone, or stick to the iron!

Only one rule... NEVER carry solder to the joint on the iron tip, because you 'dry it out' before the solder reaches the conductors.

[mictas]

adendum:
What a chip isit?
without branding I would consider it as as garbage. 

As I said, it was a CH340G or a cheap china IC that dose the same things as the FT232RL.

[Howardlong]

I just made you a video... https://youtu.be/97bipayv3N4

How to solder a 1.27mm pitch surface mount chip to a breakout board.

I use an overhead illuminated magnifier for this pitch: 1.27mm is quite big for surface mount. At pitches below about 1mm I use a 20x microscope. A microscope with this level of magnification would only fit about a quarter of the 1.27mm pitch part in the field of view.

For smaller pitches, it's almost certain you'll need to use a drag soldering method however hard you try.

My soldering iron is a Weller WP80 with a 0.25mm LT1 bit at 350 degrees C. Solder is 0.3mm diameter leaded.

Unless there is a specific need (ie, you're making or repairing commercial equipment for public use), I strongly recommend leaded solder rather than unleaded.

I also have some 0.8mm desolder braid handy for cleaning up fine pitch solder bridges.

Keep all your unused boards in ziploc plastic bags to avoid them becoming contaminated either from oxidation or grease from your fingers. Tarnished boards are very difficult to solder.

Finally, keep off the coffee: my limit is one cup, any more than that and I might as well write off the next few hours for fine pitch soldering and placement.

[Rick Law]

...
Firstly, I was wearing disposable food gloves, the ones you buy at woolies, while soldering and yes I was careful. I have a few open wounds on my hands,  so yea...
....

Plastic or Latex melts.  If a blob of solder should hit it, it may melt the plastic and sticks it to your skin...

Work gloves tends to be too thick.  I've no idea what those gloves are called - used by door-man wearing white cloth glove when they open the building or car door.  I also saw those kinds of thin cloth gloves used for searches when I was an an airport in Asia.  Those thin gloves may be better if you do need to wear gloves.

Eye protection is actually much more necessary.  A boiling bubble of flux, if there is impurity, could burst like water dropped into boiling oil - the steam burst basically is a small pressure-bomb blowing hot oil droplets everywhere.

I had a tiny (1mm-ish diameter) solder ball hit me just above my eye lash.  I wear reading glasses when soldering, so that offers some protection.  As near as I can figure, moist sponge when too wet could be a source of water, flux took the role of oil (as in water drop into hot oil) for such steam-bomb.

[mictas]

Alright, so for now I am going to but this on the back burner, until I have seen my doctor in a few days.

But I have ordered a flux pen, a cheap ass one. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/390668251919 with luck it will come undamaged and working, I can keep in it a place at home that is cool all year round.

Now second, I have tested this breakout and Windows 7 seems to ID the IC, now I know I could have damaged the IC, but this is learning and it is a hell of a lot cleaner then the first two or three I did with an ATMEGA328P, but anyway.

Early next week, I am going to attempt the tinning that SL4P has said and will try the flux one, once it arrives in the post.

[GreyWoolfe]

Solder and flux are something you really can't cheap out on.  Quality is worth the additional cost.  I have always had better luck adding flux even though I use rosin core solder.  I bought MG Chemicals Rosin flux off of eBay for about $8 for a 4 oz bottle.  $2 for a squeeze bottle and I was good to go.  I learned the 5 second rule that SL4P talks about when I went to ITT Technical Institute and never damaged ICs soldering them to pcbs and we used firesticks.  Sometimes I had to touch a solder joint more than once but not for more than 5 seconds at a time.  I normally use 350C on my Hakko 936 with an appropriately sized chisel tip.  I do have a conical SMD tip that does work to 0402.  The tip works better than my eyes.

[SL4P]

Just a thought to add.  I mentioned tacking and wiping across the pins, as well as the 5-second rule.

When you have a multi-pin device - try to offset your soldering / heating of the device... .e.g. doing opposite or alternate pins as the opportunity arises.

The idea being that you try to distribute heat across the whole chip over the duration of the soldering process - rather than a few pins in one corner at a time.  This is a bit harder to achieve with fine pitch SMD, but even doing opposite sides, then take a moment followed by the remaining sides - will share the thermal stress around everyone - so all the pins fail at the same time (not just in one corner !)

With (plastic) connectors - e.g. headers - this also minimises melting of the plastic before the solder tightens up around each pin!   For male header pins, or through-hole connectors - I usually try to mate an unused opposite sex before soldering.... then if there is any heat distortion or displacement of the pins - the mated connector tends to keep it in place also until the plastic hardens up again.

This is all common sense that is learned after you've cooked a few chips, burned a few finger tips and ruined a few connectors!

[Howardlong]

Regarding gloves, I only ever wear them when handling flight hardware. You should always go for the edges of boards, it will (and should) become a natural way to pick up a board, thus avoiding grease/oil contamination from your fingers.

If you do choose to wear gloves, there are two schools of thought here. The breathable cotton gloves are comfortable to use, but they lack enough tactile feel and they're no good in a clean room due to the lint around. Nylon knit gloves are better in this respect as they tend to be lint free, but I've never seen them used in a clean room. Nitrile gloves can make your hands a bit sweaty, but usually in the confines of a clean room it's temperature and humidity controlled so not much of a problem. The benefit is that you lose almost no tactile feel with them.

But for day to day use, I don't bother with gloves at all.

[G7PSK]

Not a good idea to wear rubber or plastic or any low melting point synthetic gloves while doing any work that involves heat. If you burn yourself while wearing them you will melt the material into your flesh. cotton is good for low temperature work like soft soldering anything hotter and leather is best.

[mictas]

Solder and flux are something you really can't cheap out on.  Quality is worth the additional cost.  I have always had better luck adding flux even though I use rosin core solder.  I bought MG Chemicals Rosin flux off of eBay for about $8 for a 4 oz bottle.  $2 for a squeeze bottle and I was good to go.  I learned the 5 second rule that SL4P talks about when I went to ITT Technical Institute and never damaged ICs soldering them to pcbs and we used firesticks.  Sometimes I had to touch a solder joint more than once but not for more than 5 seconds at a time.  I normally use 350C on my Hakko 936 with an appropriately sized chisel tip.  I do have a conical SMD tip that does work to 0402.  The tip works better than my eyes.

The flux I linked, have you dealt with it before? eBay auction: #http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/390668251919
I Know another item I should by is a reflow station, and if I do hear back from Woolies (Woolworths) and do get the job as a night packer, I plan to take every shift they offer.

Ah the things I have never used, before I got to sit down and use an old Hakko 963 (preESD) and sadly broke the tip twice and replaced with one from china. (I break it and its not mine, I really freakout  )  I never knew soldering could be so easy, mostly because I had gone through two crappy $20 irons, that I picked up locally.

Check below and you'll see something hanging over my tablet, I got it after I moved, mostly because it was on special and ordering one from eBay was about the same, it helps a tone.

Just a thought to add.  I mentioned tacking and wiping across the pins, as well as the 5-second rule.

When you have a multi-pin device - try to offset your soldering / heating of the device... .e.g. doing opposite or alternate pins as the opportunity arises.

The idea being that you try to distribute heat across the whole chip over the duration of the soldering process - rather than a few pins in one corner at a time.  This is a bit harder to achieve with fine pitch SMD, but even doing opposite sides, then take a moment followed by the remaining sides - will share the thermal stress around everyone - so all the pins fail at the same time (not just in one corner !)

With (plastic) connectors - e.g. headers - this also minimises melting of the plastic before the solder tightens up around each pin!   For male header pins, or through-hole connectors - I usually try to mate an unused opposite sex before soldering.... then if there is any heat distortion or displacement of the pins - the mated connector tends to keep it in place also until the plastic hardens up again.

This is all common sense that is learned after you've cooked a few chips, burned a few finger tips and ruined a few connectors!

If you take a look at my first post, you'll see the two worst pins are 1,8,9 and 16, it is because I did all them first, but not in that order. As for the rest, I would solder one and then miss the other, do the other side and then go back and do the others I missed.

I've been recovering a lot of parts from old board, and I made a note to collect as many as I can, that and I did order a few off eBay, I budget each pay or save money for a few weeks or so and then go out and splurge. Its the little things that count.

As for your last paragraph, cut yourself an endless amount of times 

Regarding gloves, I only ever wear them when handling flight hardware. You should always go for the edges of boards, it will (and should) become a natural way to pick up a board, thus avoiding grease/oil contamination from your fingers.

If you do choose to wear gloves, there are two schools of thought here. The breathable cotton gloves are comfortable to use, but they lack enough tactile feel and they're no good in a clean room due to the lint around. Nylon knit gloves are better in this respect as they tend to be lint free, but I've never seen them used in a clean room. Nitrile gloves can make your hands a bit sweaty, but usually in the confines of a clean room it's temperature and humidity controlled so not much of a problem. The benefit is that you lose almost no tactile feel with them.

But for day to day use, I don't bother with gloves at all.

For the most part, while soldering and such I see no need to wear gloves, however I have switched to washing my hands with normal soap and that has caused my skin to dry up, crack and bleed.

Well I do wear gloves and intended to wear a disposable mask while working in the workshop, a number of things can trigger my asthma, so I would like to try and limit that.


As for the photo I attached, it's what I have to work with, in frond and away from the bucket is a pile of boards I have pulled out of TV's mostly, I am slowly talking apart for ewaste or parts for myself, I have a number of aluminum heatsinks, I just hope I can use one or more on a making a lab power supply, after I have completed the PC power supply mod that is.

[that_guy]

adendum:
What a chip isit?
without branding I would consider it as as garbage. 

As I said, it was a CH340G or a cheap china IC that dose the same things as the FT232RL.

So that's what a fake FTDI looks like! I was wondering how this cheap fakery happens. Doesn't it cost billions to set up an IC fab plant? Is someone coming in at night and running off a design on the sly or are the fab plant management actually in on this stuff?

[rdl]

So that's what a fake FTDI looks like! I was wondering how this cheap fakery happens. Doesn't it cost billions to set up an IC fab plant? Is someone coming in at night and running off a design on the sly or are the fab plant management actually in on this stuff?

No, it's not a "fake FTDI".

[Rick Law]

...So that's what a fake FTDI looks like! I was wondering how this cheap fakery happens...

Fake ones look like the real ones, that is what faking is.  Fakery happens when
desire_for_$ > integrity_of_the_person.

I am suspect as far back as in the Roman days, you can buy fake jewelry.  So it should not be surprising that modern day faker fakes what ever will make them money.

That said, a car that looks like a BMW doesn't mean that car is a fake BMW.  Some times, people are too quick to yell fake when it clearly is just a "work alike" and "look alike".

CH340G doesn't claim to be an FTDI 232RL so it is not a fake FTDI.  The CH340G does the same kind of job FTDI 232RL does and so it can be used in places where you may choose an FTDI232RL.

[Yansi]

It is quite interesting chip, considering its price. Just take a look, what it costs...

Here's the manufacturers page...

http://wch-ic.com/product/CH340.html

[mictas]

Well, now I have had a chance to sit down and do some more soldering.

Now the ATMEGA16U2 was going to be re-flow, however that didn't workout so well. Too the point were I wasn't able to recover the other three, anyway this one the solder paste had not melted and I was able to clean it up and reuse it.

All three, I have used my chisel tip and was able to solder a number of pins at once, and I should say I still have not tested these IC's as of yet.

So, dose it look like I have missed a few pins or?

[mictas]

Use flux like the way like they are free. Stay 3 secs per joint AFTER solder reflows.

Who and a what now?

---

O I see, well for the moment, I don't have flux I would be happy uses, but in the following weeks, I am hoping to buy http://au.element14.com/edsyn/fl-22-r/flux-gel-f-sw-26-10gr-5ml/dp/1863327

[pickle9000]

Use flux like the way like they are free. Stay 3 secs per joint AFTER solder reflows.

- Read the datasheet it will have the appropriate soldering times for a given device.
- Use a fan for your health, point across your work and at your soldering stand. Open a window.
- Nothing wrong with using gloves if you are having skin issues. That includes latex or vinyl. Yes you may melt some into your hand but skin cracking that happens after a couple days is far more serious. You can always cut off the fingers and use them like that. Use caution after a board has been cleaned (it may spatter) or is old and damp.
- Your soldering has a nice shine, a little more practice and you will have it.
- Good luck

[mictas]

Use flux like the way like they are free. Stay 3 secs per joint AFTER solder reflows.

- Read the datasheet it will have the appropriate soldering times for a given device.
- Use a fan for your health, point across your work and at your soldering stand. Open a window.
- Nothing wrong with using gloves if you are having skin issues. That includes latex or vinyl. Yes you may melt some into your hand but skin cracking that happens after a couple days is far more serious. You can always cut off the fingers and use them like that. Use caution after a board has been cleaned (it may spatter) or is old and damp.
- Your soldering has a nice shine, a little more practice and you will have it.
- Good luck

Thanks.

I'm still waiting to buy flux, its sad. I'm waiting to buy http://au.element14.com/edsyn/fl-22-r/flux-gel-f-sw-26-10gr-5ml/dp/1863327 but I am still wondering if I should, or just get a $10 flux pen.

I have a Window open and a DIY makeshift fume extractor with a carbon filter, that and a desk mount magnifier. You can see my stuff here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/how%27s-my-soldering/msg650243/#msg650243

Right now, I am waiting to do an order with Element14 with a SMD tip for my Hakko FX888, some replacement FTDI and ATMEGA16U2 and a few other parts.

I did this today, after my failed attempt to recover the other IC's that failed with solder paste and re-flow. All I did was put a bit of solder on the end of each tip and drag the tip back, sadly without flux, well this is how things turned out. I did try preheating the breakout board, by pressing my iron tip into the pads, in an attempt to make it easier, but I don't know if it did anything.

--
But I am just thinking of buying this from Jaycar down the road http://www.jaycar.com.au/Tools-%26-Soldering/Hand-Tools/Drill-%26-Socket-Sets/Solder-Flux-Paste---56g-Tub/p/NS3070 From reading I wouldn't need much to clean it up.
That and I still need to buy more cottonbuts atm.