Terrible at Soldering

[Pmj]

I think I'm literally the worst at soldering. My hands are too shaky and these LEDs are too small. This is my first time ever soldering btw. I'm good at drawing so I had this vision that I would be great at it. Backstory is I wanted to change some of the 12k whites that came with my china IT2040 (basically a Photon16) for neutral whites. My LED is disassembled at the moment till I work up courage for the 5th time to try this. Anyone got tips for soldering?

At first I read don't touch the solder to the iron, so I first I would touch the iron to the metal part and then touch the solder to that after but it never melted. I also tried heating the LED terminal and then touching it with solder but same results. Then I see videos like here: here
where it looks like he's touching them directly. Also the LED doesn't lay flush on the PCB bc it's not soldered yet, so I constantly accidentally move it off where it needs to be when I'm trying to do it. I tried to put a piece of tape but it's way too small. So frustrating...

 

[rovster]

Keep in mind some irons take time to heat up the pad or wire enough to melt the solder. You want to apply solder to both pieces you will be joining first, THEN join them. It's easy once you get the hang of it. The more powerful guns work quicker, but the tips are larger and bulkier.

 

[Pmj]

Thanks I finally figured it out. This helped: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-guide-excellent-soldering/common-problems

Iron definitely wasn't hot enough at first. It helped to clean up with with alcohol, scrape off some solder, really look at what I was doing closely and try again. With the iron hot enough it "pooled" it's supposed to, and it was much easier. I only had to add extra solder to about half, most still had enough when I added them. I also listened to some music for a while and tried to calm down a bit, that helped calm my nerves and hands.

 

[Pmj]

Also applied the thermal paste to the PCB not the LED, I kept making a mess everywhere trying to handle the LEDs with the paste on the back.

 

[dadummy]

once you do a few and get the hang of it the shaky hands will go away. I found resting my shaky hand against something helped to steady the iron

 

[reefsahoy]

Fyi, you can use a butane soldering iron. http://www.amazon.com/Weller-P2C-Bu...r=8-2&keywords=portasol+butane+soldering+iron

Weller is a decent name brand iron, i use butane irons at work and they are great. They can get real hot and are adjustable temp, the tips are changeable from small to big, and you can turn it off and put it in your pocket immediately as they are protected like a pen when you place the cap back on (its alittle warm,not hot but yoy can put away immediately)

 

[mlivvy]

Why are you using thermal paste?

 

[Pmj]

That iron looks pretty sweet, might have to upgrade my cheap one.

To the thermal paste question, b/c it needs it? The LEDs aren't on a star, the PCB has a little circle where the metal to metal goes, paste goes on there, backside is the heatsink.

 

[mlivvy]

What type of LED's are they? What are you making?

 

[Ludwigia73]

I solder alot in my daily work, and a quality iron makes your job much easier. If you paid $10, you'll have a hard time heating up anything with more than a thin lead.

 

[DamonG]

Quality iron as stated above makes ask the difference in the world.. And flux.. That alone will turn a nightmare into a simple job.. Flux is awesome!

 

[Pmj]

What type of LED's are they? What are you making?

3W cheap LEDs that Reefbreeders use, epistar or bridgelux, one of those, got em from Ebay for almost nothing. Got it working great though. The point was just to change up the layout a bit. It's an IT2040, comes with a lot of 10K whites so I wanted to change some to NW as I read that is now considered better for growth. I ordered some more too, gonna add 2 each of 480 NM blue & 420 violets.

 

[Pmj]

This is the one I bought a while ago b/c it was adjustable and came with some extra tips: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M1O9ZSG?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00

This is the solder as well: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00068IJNQ?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00

Worked much better when I turned the heat up and learned what I was doing, but may still have to upgrade.

 

[ReefClownMIA]

This is the one I have and use. Heats up very quickly, recovers quickly, replaceable tips, and adjustable temp.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I30QBW?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage