Getting Started with Soldering A Hands-On Guide to Making Electrical and Mechanical Connections Marc de Vinck Maker Media, Inc. San Francisco Copyright © 2017 Marc de Vinck. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. Published by Maker Media, Inc., 1700 Montgomery Street, Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111 Maker Media books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (s afaribooksonline.com). For more information, contact our corporate/ institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or [email protected]. 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Contents Foreword ix Preface xi 1 What Is Soldering? 1 Other Types of Soldering 3 The Difference Between Soldering and Welding 6 Soldering Electronics 8 2 Basic Soldering Tools and Materials 11 So, What Soldering Iron Should You Purchase? 16 Soldering Iron Accessories 26 Getting a Grip on Your Work 33 A Summary of Tools 37 Materials 37 Project: Portable Mint Tin Fume Extractor 43 3 Let’s Get Soldering 53 Preparing Your Soldering Iron and Workstation 55 Soldering Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) 59 Trimming the Wire Leads after a Successful Soldering Connection 66 Connecting Wires or Components Without a PCB 68 vii 4 Troubleshooting and Fixing Mistakes 77 Common Mistakes 78 Different Ways to Remove Solder 83 Repairing Lifted Pads 89 5 Advanced Soldering 91 Tools 93 Materials 99 How to Solder Simple Surface-Mount Devices 102 How to Solder a Multi-lead SMD 104 When Something Goes Wrong—Fixing and Removing Components 109 Summary 111 Index 113 viii Getting Started with Soldering