Alternatives to soldering, seeking suggestions

[seaviper]

I use the Weller WESD51. It has a digital readout, gets hot fast, and is industrial quality. Get an assortment of tips. For RC you will mostly use a chisel tip for power connectors.
Get some decent rosin core solder that states its melting temperature. And get some tip cleaner/tinner.

I put just a little bit of melted solder on the tip before I touch it to the work. This lets me get good heat transfer. Heat the work, feed the solder into it. Simple. Once you figure it out, you wont go back.
Keep your tips clean and tinned. I wipe my tip on that wet sponge every time before I put new solder on it.

[Stringbag]

It might interest you blokes to know this, it might not.
90% of my soldering, up to 10AWG wire is done with one of these bad boys.....they work rather better than you might think.

Soldering is about CLEAN...nothing more....I have soldered wires back together in the car with a piece of wire coat hanger as an iron and a cigarette lighter as the heat source. Needs must at 3am halfway between Sydney and Canberra BEFORE they bypassed Lake George. Fun, soldering in the dark, in the bush, in the middle of no-where, in the rain, with ski gear all over the side of the road, so the shorted wires could be found in the boot......never trust a car that has the battery under the rear passenger seat.....

[Alpha]

"Never trust a car that has the battery under the rear passenger seat"... Nice one, Stringbag!

I've seen that USB soldering unit before. Another neat unit I've used in the past plugs directly into a 3s lipo. Perfect for soldering on the fly when "out in the bush".

[yorkiepap]

Soldering is quite easy if you make it easy. There's really nothing to get frustrated over if you simply do some practicing. A good soldering iron is an invaluable tool that can be used in many situations from wiring to fixing my reading glasses. I have the Yihua 852D Soldering Station on my worktable that solders & has a heat gun for the shrinkwrap. In my field kit, I have (2) great soldering irons that one plugs into the 12V receptacle in the rear of my Grand Cherokee, & the other is a small butane powered iron I got from the now-defunct Radio Shack. I have saved several club members from having a really shortened flying day because of a broken/loose/poor electrical connection at our club field. I use nothing but 60/40 Rosin-core solder on all my soldering jobs. Here's some pics of my "stuff".....

Denny

[TiredIronGRB]

Now that's a nice setup!

[seaviper]

Just the other day, when re-assembling the Super Scorpion I had to repair a broken wire on a rudder servo. My soldering station saved the day in minutes. Luckily I keep a few sets of those JST type servo plugs and pins. I just soldered on some new pins, crimped around the wire insulation, and went back to building. Soldering makes your life much easier.

[Stringbag]

"Never trust a car that has the battery under the rear passenger seat"... Nice one, Stringbag!

I've seen that USB soldering unit before. Another neat unit I've used in the past plugs directly into a 3s lipo. Perfect for soldering on the fly when "out in the bush".

Sorry, stick a 3S into a 5v iron ??? The topic is how to solder, not how to INVENT solder jobs to fix......run 11v + into an unprotected 5v iron and your " going to see the built in factory smoke.......":):)
Look up "bigclivedotcom" on Youtube and watch his teardown of one of these, you will see in that, they are struggling to cope with 5v, let alone 12v. If regulated, it would be fine I suppose.
I just use a 5000Mah battery bank. Runs the iron all day if needed.

If this is too light, I have my rework station, and an assortment of hand irons from a cute 3w job, a few 5-12w irons, several 25-60w irons and a 150w and 275w industrial iron. Then if they are still TOO small I get the adjusto-magic-flames-torch and silvering brazing kit out....100 degrees to over 6000 degrees if needed. I can solder upto 7" barstock if your undercarriage is a tad weak....and if this fails...WELD THE BASTARD !!!!!!!!!!!!

[F106DeltaDart]

Sorry, stick a 3S into a 5v iron ??? The topic is how to solder, not how to INVENT solder jobs to fix......run 11v + into an unprotected 5v iron and your " going to see the built in factory smoke......."

He did say "another unit", and I don't think he was referring to another USB version. Pretty sure he was talking about one like this: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/solderin...xt60-plug.html

[Stringbag]

He did say "another unit", and I don't think he was referring to another USB version. Pretty sure he was talking about one like this: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/solderin...xt60-plug.html

Yes, it was my error. But I wasn't having a go or anything, just a mis-read on my part.

Another neat unit I've used in the past plugs directly into a 3s lipo.

If you add a "that "between past and plugs, as my brain did, it read as using the USB on 3S directly...MY BAD

Another neat unit I've used in the past THAT plugs directly into a 3s lipo --- typed that way it says to me, tried THIS unit and on 3S lipo.

I have to learn to read englich as she is spoke
Apologies to all :Cool:

[WintrSol]

As they say, the US and the UK are divided by a common language; I think that applies to Down Under, as well.;)

[Stringbag]

As they say, the US and the UK are divided by a common language; I think that applies to Down Under, as well.;)

Funny, I always thought it was an ocean chock full of whale pee.

[Beeg]

You'll love it!

TI, been using the Hakko for 2 yrs now. What an excellent soldering iron. It heats up very quickly and love all the extra easily interchangeable tips. As you said I just leave it on 750F. I'd rate this unit a 10!

[TiredIronGRB]

TI, been using the Hakko for 2 yrs now. What an excellent soldering iron. It heats up very quickly and love all the extra easily interchangeable tips. As you said I just leave it on 750F. I'd rate this unit a 10!

You just can't beat them :)

[E-Challenged]

Soldering stations have some advantages but are not essential for good occasional hobby soldering. It's good practice to unplug soldering irons after soldering to avoid shortening useful life of the tip. Soldering irons should have a replaceable tip,

DO NOT USE "Acid" type flux or solder with acid core flux, intended for plumbing. DO NOT USE "Lead-free" solder or flux for lead-free solder, these won't work properly for hobby-type hand electrical soldering.All soldering requires attention to detail. Practice soldering using scrap stranded wire and salvaged connectors exactly as follows, then do the real thing:

Use a name brand tin/lead alloy rosin core solder (Kester 60/40) , rosin paste flux, high enough wattage soldering iron with flat tip (pointed tip for printed circuits), (40 watt Weller) and proper techniques. Keep tip of iron covered with solder and wiped clean before, during and after "tinning" or final soldering. Strip and "tin" wire ends ,i.e. fill the strands with solder before attempting to solder wires to terminals for Deans connectors, etc. Install heat shrink tubing (HST) and keep it away from soldering heat. For Deans, etc. connectors, touch terminal and tinned wire at the same time with iron tip. Feed a little solder to form a "bridge" between iron tip, terminal and wire so that all heat up simultaneously to solder flow temperature, then feed in some more solder to just fill the solder joint. Remove iron tip and hold wire steady as solder solidifies. The same techniques apply to soldering anything to anything properly. Be especially careful when soldering battery leads to connectors to avoid "shorting" wires together. Strip, tin and solder on one battery lead at a time, install HST and solder battery lead to terminal. Slide HST over solder joint and shrink with heat gun. Repeat for other lead. Avoid shorting the terminals with your iron tip. Applying a "dab" of rosin flux to the terminal and tinned wire helps solder to flow properly and fill the joint quickly. Avoid overheating solder joints and damaging connectors, If done properly, soldering a wire to a connector terminal should take around 1/2 second

For soldering wire landing gear, as when building a balsa model, use a 75-100 watt iron. Sand paper landing gear wire to clean it of any surface oxidation, wrap joints with copper wire neatly, apply rosin paste flux, use a bridge of solder to conduct heat from iron tip to the joint, and flow solder into the joint to just fill it. Wipe clean with alcohol to remove flux to prepare for painting.

[Tunaclone3]

I have had some experience at soldering considering that I was a certified instructor at one time. Use bullet connectors that have a round barrel for soldering your connectors. Do not use the half barrel connectors because they are harder to attach a wire to the half barrel. You can buy them on the internet and I use the 3.0 or 3.5mm male and female bullet connectors. Use a 1x12x6 inch piece of wood as your holding plate for the bullet connectors and drill two separate holes to hold the connectors that you are going to solder the stranded wire too. Use a soldering iron as noted above with a small soldering tip and use a small roll of soldering wire. Use soldering wire that does not have activated flux or the acid in the flux will corrode the wire. Place the bullet connector in the hole that you drilled, then place the hot soldering iron tip at the top edge of the cup, the tip of the soldering iron can be inside the cup of the connector and add solder to the inside of the cup. Fill it with molten solder until the solder is at the top edge of the cup. Stick the trimmed wire in the the molten solder as syour soldering iron is touching the edge of th cup, the wire should slid into the molten solder and leave the soldering iron tip at the edge of the cup for about five seconds. The wire needs to be heated after you place it in the cup to prevent a cold solder connection. What you want is an inter metallic connection between the wire and the molten solder in the cupped end of the bullet connector. Buy some extra bullet connectors on the internet and make some practice connections prior to soldering connectors to your ESC or battery. I use the same size bullet connectors for all of my ESC's and batteries and this gives me universal for any battery or ESC that I want to use. DO NOT TRY AND SOLDER A WIRE TO AND UNFILLED BULLET CONNECTOR CUP, YOU WILL NOT GET A SOLID SOLDER CONNECTION.