Do This Before You Solder Anything – YouTube
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/03/10
Soldering steps and common problems – Adafruit
These are nice references when you start to learn soldering:
- [Wayback/Archive] Do This Before You Solder Anything – YouTube
- [Wayback/Archive] NEW REFERENCE CARD: Soldering 101 « Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!
The right part of the image from Adafruit is an almost 10 year old one that is heavily copied without reference. With reference, it is at¹
Adafruit also has this great link: [Wayback/Archive] Common Soldering Problems | Adafruit Guide To Excellent Soldering | Adafruit Learning System
The video:
- Clean with isopropyl alcohol
- Before soldering
- After soldering
Do not use (in the USA popular) rubbing alcohol, as that is only 70% (and 30% water) alcohol by volume: use at least 90%
- Use a dispenser for alcohol to dose tiny bits
- Use a non-woven tissue (large areas) or swab (small areas) for cleaning
- Use flux before soldering as it
- helps cleaning the pads when it heats up
- makes solder flow a lot smoother
- Know about solder:
- Different types of solder
- Leaded solder is easier to start for beginners
- Lead free solder is less damaging to your health and environment
- Different widths of solder: match with the area you need to solder
- Use the right temperature depending on the solter type
- 330-340 degrees Celsius for leaded solder
- 360-370 degrees Celsius for lead free solder
Exact temperature ranges are usually printed on your solder spool or packaging
- Know your soldering iron
- Clean the soldering iron tip first
- Then tin the soldering iron tip, as it helps heat transfer
- Heat the joint of pad and part (usually pin) so both are hot
- Apply the right amount of solder (it gets heated through the joint)
- Remove solder, then soldering iron
- Let the applied solder solidify (DO NOT BLOW!)
Do not heat longer than 3 seconds. If you need more, then adjust either of these
- Solder diameter
- Soldering iron tip size
- Soldering temperature
The video also shows how to correct common mistakes:
- Too much solder
- Too cold solder
- Too little solder
- Shorts
The great Adafruit link mentioned above even explains more issues and how to solve them
Menda 35289 is a 5″ high 8 oz capacity Durastatic™ square high density polyethylene blue ESD-Safe bottle.
Example bottle to dispense isopropyl alcohol:
[Wayback/Archive] ESD-Safe Blue durAstatic™ Isopropyl Alcohol Solvent Dispenser Bottle with One-Touch Pump Top, 8oz
Wikipedia links:
- Isopropyl alcohol – Wikipedia, often incorrectly named isopropanol, is actually 2-Propanol, and different from 1-Propanol – Wikipedia
- Solder – Wikipedia
- Soldering – Wikipedia
- Soldering iron – Wikipedia
- Solder alloys – Wikipedia
- Solder paste – Wikipedia
- Solder mask – Wikipedia
- Solder fatigue – Wikipedia
- Solderability – Wikipedia
- Desoldering – Wikipedia
- Flux (metallurgy) – Wikipedia
¹ GitHub links:
- [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – adafruit/Reference-Cards: Business card-sized references for Arduino and basic electronics
- [Wayback/Archive] Reference-Cards/Card 4 Back.pdf at master · adafruit/Reference-Cards · GitHub
- ________________________________________
- [Wayback/Archive] History for Card 4 Back.pdf – adafruit/Reference-Cards · GitHub (committed on Dec 24, 2016)
- [Wayback/Archive] Reference-Cards/images at master · adafruit/Reference-Cards · GitHub
Via: [Wayback/Archive] NEW REFERENCE CARD: Soldering 101 « Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! (December 2016)
- [Wayback/Archive] Reference-Cards/Card 4 Back.pdf at master · adafruit/Reference-Cards · GitHub
- [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – Karpova-Lab/cerebro: System for wireless optogenetic stimulation
Via:
- [Wayback/Archive] “WHAMMY” Pass DIY headphone amp guide | Page 238 | diyAudio
- [Wayback/Archive] Stick boxes : SSBM
- [Wayback/Archive] Quick soldering guide by adafruit. Make sure all of your joints are solid! : consolerepair
- [Wayback/Archive] Adafruit MAX 31856 to Sparkfun ESP32 – Science and Measurement – Arduino Forum
- [Wayback/Archive] Various types of soldering joints… : coolguides (one of the many copies without attribution of Adafruit)
- [Wayback/Archive] How To Do Through Hole Soldering well ? – Maggie Zeng – Medium (one of the copies that put their own mark on the image – how blatant!)
--jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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