Soldering leads to terminals on board

johnnymenudo · Post by **johnnymenudo** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:23 am

I have half of my board soldered up, and I noticed that although I have what appear to be nice solid joints, I do not have the nice shiney flat or slightly raised joint at the terminal / lead junction. My solder flowed into the terminal and it is still a bit hollow up top. My approach was to heat the terminal and the lead, and then flow solder into the terminal to fill it up. The problem is it takes a lot of solder to fill it up and I was actually worried about heating too much and loosening up my wire solders on the opposite side of the board.

What techniques do you all use to solder the board terminals when you populate it. What do you heat up with the iron, do you fill the terminal, do you use alligator clips as a heat sink, etc. I am sure that I have good joints - not cold, but it doesn't look as pretty as some of yours.

Thanks

gutpile · Post by **gutpile** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 1:01 am

Hey Johnny... what size solder do you use (thickness). I usually use a thinner solder for tube sockets & pots and one size thicker for the board. It sounds like your technique is OK but if you use a thinner solder on the board it can run right down the hole... I am not an expert by any means so others may have better advice... you don't necessarily need to fill the entire hole to have a good solder joint...

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 10:32 am

One thing to note with soldering for all different reasons (not just what you mentioned) is you have to work fast. If you sit there with a hot turret sticking solder into it it will just flow down and may likely blob out the bottom of it too. I usually do a multi attack. I heat the turret and leads and quickly solder them together nicely. Then I come back and heat it again and 'cap it off' so I get a nice shiny dome. I try not to heat it so long that the solder that was there will get very liquid and fall out.