Various methods and methods of soldering are always used in order to assemble any electrical circuit, create a finished printed circuit board with radio elements, so that all parts hold firmly in place. Soldering is subjected not only to different wires, cables, but also light bulbs, resistors, transistors, diodes, microcircuits, keys, buttons, bridge circuits, etc. Not everyone knows how to solder wire to wire, although this skill is sometimes very necessary.
Soldering can come in handy even at home: if you accidentally blown a wire in your favorite radio due to a power surge, or you decide to build an amplifier with your own hands to make the music louder at your party.
Selecting a soldering iron and other tools
Before proceeding directly to soldering, you need to choose a soldering iron and everything else that you may need to work.
First of all, a soldering iron is selected, they differ in power. Therefore, you should consider what exactly needs to be soldered. If these are radio elements that are afraid of severe overheating, or microcircuits, then the optimal power of the soldering iron will be 5-20 watts. To solder a wire to a wire or terminal, a soldering iron with a power of 40-50watt. To connect metal elements that have a thickness of 3 mm or more, you need to choose a soldering iron with a power of 50 watts or more.
Also, to work with a soldering iron, you need to prepare:
- solder;
- long tweezers;
- pliers;
- rosin, flux or soldering acid.
How to prepare for soldering
Before work, the soldering iron tip is cleaned of carbon deposits by cleaning it with a file. Then the soldering iron is connected to the mains, heated and dipped in rosin.
If you have never worked with a soldering iron and do not know how to solder wire to wire, you need to practice.
To do this, take a piece of waste wire without insulation and divide it into 12 approximately equal parts of 2.5 cm each. Using tweezers, a soldering iron, solder and flux, try to assemble a cube from these pieces. This will be a good practice for learning how to solder. After the design is ready, let it cool and check how tight all the connections are. If something fell off, solder it.
Before work, all places where soldering will be made must be tinned.
Important Soldering Rules
Soldering wires with a soldering iron requires certain rules to be followed so that the resulting work is accurate and reliable. Soldering is required for soldering, the most commonly used are POS-40, POS-50, POS-61. The latter is successfully and most often used in production. To solder, you need to warm up the place where it will be appliedsolder, to a temperature so that the solder can melt and the wires do not overheat.
All work on soldering wires consists of successive steps:
- Wires are being prepared for soldering. The oxide film should be removed by wiping with soldering acid or rosin.
- A pre-heated soldering iron is brought to the solder, it is taken very little to avoid large influxes in the places of soldering.
- The soldered wire is applied to the wire and a soldering iron is brought to the place of their contact exactly for the time it takes for the solder to remain at the junction of the wires.
No need to hold the soldering iron too much near the wires. It takes a couple of seconds for the solder to hold the wires together. After the tip is removed from the place of soldering, the solder solidifies. So that the junction does not have to be soldered, and it turns out to be neat, the wires must be held motionless until the solder has completely hardened. If there is an excess of flux at the place of soldering, it must be removed. This is necessary so that the place of soldering does not oxidize over time.
Helpful tips
Before you can practice firsthand how to solder wire to wire, here are some helpful tips you may need.
During soldering, you do not need to use a lot of solder, it is enough just a little bit so that the solder can get into the micro-gaps of the material and fasten the wires. This will be enough for the forces of intermolecular interaction to begin to act.
To remove excess solder,you can use a shielding braid taken from any cable. And also use a soldering iron, which has a hollow on the tip, into which excess solder gets when it touches the soldering point.
Too much solder can cause the contacts to short.
If you put too little solder on the tip of the soldering iron, you won't be able to solder anything.
If there is a lot of soot or flux left on the soldering iron, the soldering will turn out to be of poor quality. The same will happen if the soldering iron is not heated to the desired temperature.
Do not forget to solder with a good exhaust or in a well-ventilated area.
Now you know how to solder wire to wire correctly.
