r/soldering 1d ago

First time soldering. Any advices? My First Solder Joint <3 Please Give Feedback

Basically the tittle. Any feedback and guidance appreciated.

45 Upvotes

18

u/Legal_Carpet1700 1d ago

Not bad for first time but here are some input

  1. Never use single strand (hook up) wire for soldering they are a pain and will snatch easily

  2. Always trim the extra pins after soldering

  3. Component placement is good but try to push the diodes and resistors all the way in and make them flush, you can enlarge the holes if the diodes terminal are big

  4. Use high quality zero PCB boards these brown ones are not good IMO try the green ones

4

u/CaptainBucko 19h ago

>Never use single strand (hook up) wire for soldering they are a pain and will snatch easily

Not entirely correct. For this type of application, I would only use single solid conductor copper wire. However, this example of wire usage is not the best example. The routing of the wire should be neater, and secured with glue to the PCB to prevent vibration. The size of the wire seems excessive and insulation seems to be damaged by heat. Yes I get this is a high current application, but over a short distance you don't need such thick wires. Instead of the point-to-point wiring used here, the OP could create a RED and BLACK busbar, using a single strand of wiring running down each side of the PCB. Short lengths of wiring could then connect to the bus bar. The whole lot should be secured with glue. Multi-strand wire is best when signals need routing to/from a PCB, not for routing on a PCB, so to speak.

5

u/kartoshechka8088 1d ago

Definitely good for the first time, mine first trials were much worse and ugly.

4

u/tfwrobot 1d ago

Use flux.

4

u/Lanky-Abbreviations3 1d ago

good job! I learnt this after a while, but the secret to good soldering is a clean and high quality soldering tip for your iron. keep it clean, keep the tin layer on the tip fresh and have a wire brush handy for scrubbing away at the oxides that form. use good flux and apply the tin to the wires and connectors after you have been warming them up with your iron. The tin then flows well. the secret is having good surface area of contact between tip and component. when the flux on the component or wire starts to flow, apply the tin and it will stick for years to come

2

u/Thin_Cantaloupe_3541 1d ago edited 1d ago

https://preview.redd.it/2jihtvub70ce1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3ec8f083df2d12c56abd84c9e8699c2084727ba

Just reseated this 29f400. First time attempt. Absolutely beautiful. Always use plenty of flux and ipa to clean everything would be my tip.i checked every leg afterwards with my meter just to make sure it was all good on every joint

1

u/oldmatebob123 1d ago

What i would do is tin the ends of the jumper wires, let them cool, tin the point that the jumper will solder too then solder the jumper onto the point. Helps with the burnt insulation. Then trim the tail up so it looks neat. Also use flux, dip jumper into flux then tin it, same with the point you are soldering to.

1

u/BigPurpleBlob 1d ago

Nice work for first attempt!

The second photo seems to have a short circuit at the bottom right, between the lowermost 2 pins??

1

u/CaesarSaladt 1d ago

İ think you mean the legs/pins of resistors. İ cut them afterward. Will connect them to katot ends.

1

u/BigPurpleBlob 1d ago

I meant the transistor at the bottom of the right-hand side of photo 2

1

u/TheSolderking 1d ago

The layout seems really good but the soldering needs some work. For a first time this isn't bad.

I would recommend getting some bus wire of 30 gauge or slightly larger to run your connections on these boards. You can eliminate the point to point soldering and make it much cleaner and easier to handle by essentially running traces with bus wire.

For your joints you need to use some flux and more heat/dwell time. The solder is spiking which means it's following your iron as you pull it away. This can be addressed by using flux, more dwell time with the iron or a different direction of pulling your iron away. Remember , solder follows heat. So keep your iron on the pad and lead while making a joint.

I see a short on the back. I would address that before any power is applied if you haven't already. (Bottom right fet/transistor)

1

u/JarrekValDuke 1d ago

Keep going

1

u/polis345 1d ago

Vero board/strip board! I see a lot of people prefer the boards that just have individual pads, but imo once you figure out the Vero board it saves so many solder joints and jumper wires.

1

u/unused_1337 1d ago

Much flux needed

1

u/ningcraft123 1d ago

Get some silicone wire instead of pvc/vinyl. Solder joints dont look the best but if it works it works

1

u/luee2shot 1d ago

Heat the pad/mounting point, not the solder.

Use flux. After use clean off board with alcohol.

Get dark green boards to practice on. These brown ones offer little to no use - old technology.

Work on temp control. Some of the solder is tear drop shaped. This is telling me low heat during first application or you second guessed yourself too much trying to move components around.

Since you are using a holder, cover the clip tips with some kind non conductive material. These tips can cause pcb damage.

1

u/my3sgte 20h ago

What were you using for a solder iron? And temp?

1

u/fakarhatr 14h ago

Amazing first attempt

1

u/CaesarSaladt 8h ago

Thank you all for the feedbacks. İ took your most common advice and bought flex. İt's amazing. Much easier to solder and incredibly strong.

https://preview.redd.it/4ym9blt6g5ce1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=72ee4b9b5cb94933a2afc735a993ea1549665ad5

1

u/Born_2_Simp 8h ago

Don't sit on the board, the components will bend like it happened to you. Also try Altium Designer for the routing, a board like yours would have taken 10 minues at most (plus the printing, ironing, acid, etc). But never, ever, improvise connections by soldering cables between components, always check your circuit on a breadboard so that you won't have to make the PCB layout twice.

0

u/derekhyams 5h ago

Advice, there’s no s on advice.

1

u/VuhDooch 1h ago

Way too much solder. Generally speaking, you should almost always be able to discern the shapes of the objects you are soldering. The solder joint should look concave. The parts are held together by the solder between them. Anything else outside of that doesn't do anything except to obscure the joint and make it difficult to inspect for defects.

0

u/ElPablit0 1d ago

Looks good, don’t hesitate to use flux

Is that an H bridge ?

0

u/JustBaconCloud 19h ago

also u should generally use two types of tips, small and pointy and wide and little bigger. small tip gives good control but takes longer to heat stuff. you are less likely to ruin closely packed stuff with small tip and widebtip to something like mosfet legs (can be done with small too but is way easier). well ofc depends on soldering iron you are using. also dont be afraid of flooding parts with flux...also get good flux like NC-559-asm

0

u/pofpofgive 19h ago

More flux. Also there's a solder bridge on one of your transistors.