So what other "crash-course" type videos would you guys like to see?

I'm a 71 year old female who has been soldering here and there for most of my adult life, I never claimed to be an expert. Thank goodness because I just learned a few things that made me realize that I've been doing a couple things wrong. Thank you for posting this video. I certainly do appreciate it because I'm going to attempt to replace the switches in my M570 Trackball mouse.

I'm an electrical engineer, and this is the best video I've found on UKposts for a primer on soldering. Excellent work!

I have been curious how difficult soldering is, so I express my thanks for creating this guide to assist beginners. Soldering is definitely an essential skill to learn.

Your first tip was crucial to me to learn to solder. I initially thought that you got solder on the tip and almost "painted" it onto the wires. Learning that you heat the wires so that the draw/wick the solder in place was a game changer for me and led to work that was very passable :)

I’m 4 minutes in and realize this is the exact detail without fluff I’ve been seeking. Thank you. I’m learning a lot and already feel more confident.

Terrific Video TY. Haven’t soldered in years. I just inherited the contents of an early Radio & TV Shop. It sold and repaired both. It’s been preserved and passed down over the years. The shop opened around WW II. Each item resembles a museum piece. Hundreds of radios & TVs. Tens of thousands of repair parts; bulbs, etc..+. It was my Grandfather’s shop. The shop was successful, but he pretty much kept it just for storage and repairs. He’d started installing TVs in hospital rooms. Back then patients paid rent to watch TV. He supplied thousands of TVs and collected rental fees. Here’s something shocking I learned. His TV rental customers were billed by mail. In the 1980s I asked him: “Of those countless customers how many never paid you?” He looked down as if he’d never considered such a thing, paused, then replied, “Honestly Bob, I know it was less than 5, I’d guess 2 or 3.” A different era. As a young man he tried to enlist but he’d been born blind in one eye. He spent the War learning the trade via a mail order correspondence course. He saved everything. The lessons and catalogs are so damn cool. There are even rolled up 6’ x 6’ schematics of early TVs. They’re beautifully artistic, I’m framing a couple. The family folklore goes like this: Grand Pap Ben built his own first TV. In fact the first one in the neighborhood. His parents, my Great Grandparents, had to point this amazing new invention toward the front porch windows to accommodate the overflow of outdoor curiosity seekers. I have his Shop’s working neon sign. The name of the shop circles a 2.5’ clock. We were fortunate, with five generations for years. Forgive me, I’ve gone on too long. I love him and miss him still. TY

I didn't know anything about soldering before your video, now I do. Thanks for a clear, easy to understand video that gave me a very good understanding of basic soldering! Great start for a newbie!!

Wow incredibly beyond helpful video. Cleared up decades of confusion in a few minutes. Thank you. I can’t wait to buy a soldering kit and get started on a couple of projects I’ve been putting off for years because of intimidation.

A couple of comments that may be useful to newbies. Traditional tin- lead solder that is designed for electronics usage usually contains a rosin flux which is actually a pine tree type product, non toxic, and generally non corrosive and non conductive. The fumes from soldering this type of solder may be mildly irritating to your nose and throat, but the boiling point of lead is much higher than the temperatures you are soldering at and therefore any kind of lead poisoning scenario from the fumes is extremely unlikely, but you should certainly wash your hands after handling it. Lead free solder generally uses a very different type of flux made from organic acids, the fumes of which are extremely unpleasant to breathe and can be potentially toxic. Those specialized lead-free fluxes are also both conductive and corrosive and *must* be thoroughly removed from the circuit board or they can cause problems for the circuitry had some later date. Rosin flux is best dissolved and cleaned away with alcohol, but lead free type fluxes are often water-soluble and may or may not clean off easily with alcohol. Also note that lead free solder is more corrosive to the soldering iron tips than lead solder, partly because of the corrosive effects of organic fluxes and especially because of the higher temperature tip settings necessary in order for lead-free solder to flow well. Regardless of which type of solder you are working with, the soldering iron tips will degrade with time and use, so be sure to buy a couple of spares, and ideally you should buy an arrangement of shapes and sizes. For most electronics work I find that the simple conical, sharply pointed tip as used in this video is not the preferred tip shape. A chisel shape tip with a rounded, blunt end works best for about 95% of my electronics work. Get an assortment of tip sizes and shapes to experiment with. Note that high quality soldering tips are usually made of copper (or sometimes brass) that has been plated with iron or steel. Steel resists the corroding effects of solder and flux much better than plain copper does, and yet still wets to the solder well; copper is a better heat conductor, but plain unplated copper very quickly pits, corrodes and oxidises from the constant heat and chemical effects of the solder and flux. So many of the soldering tips are made in Asia nowadays, probably from a variety of recycled metals, that you might have to try several different brands and sources to get something that lasts a reasonably long time. I do like the brass wool tip cleaner shown in the video here; they work quite well and I have read elsewhere that the traditional wet sponge cleaning technique tends to cause micro fractures in the tip and shortens its life. (The springy brass sponge tends to fling little bits of solder around as you clean/wipe the tip, and so a holder with a hood over the brass wool will help contain the mess). You can use steel wool to clean the tip if absolutely necessary, but with proper tip care, maintenance and suitable temperature settings, steel wool shouldn't be necessary. By the way, the "best" way to turn the tip of the soldering iron so black and oxidised that it doesn't work well for soldering is to use it to melt and fuse plastic parts, repairing cracks and so on; a useful technique, but keep a sacrificial extra tip around just for that use. By the way, *never* scrape a soldering iron tip with a razor blade or take a file to it in order to "clean" it (as shown in some You Tube videos). Never! You will remove the steel plating and the tip will wear out that much faster. You may find it instructive to put a magnet to the soldering iron tip and see if it is magnetic to any degree. A copper or brass tip that is still plated will have at best a very mild magnetic attraction. If it's strongly magnetic then the chances are good that the entire tip is made of steel. If a highly magnetic steel tip still works well for your soldering purposes, that's fine, but generally copper or brass are better heat conducting materials for our purposes.... Regardless, lead-free solder often tends to make a more grainy, crystalline, dull looking solder joint, and the solder joint is likely to break down prematurely if exposed to extreme heat from a power supply resistor or regulator, and interestingly also tends to break down in extreme cold temperatures and form "tin whiskers", aka dendrites, that can short-circuit to adjacent parts or circuit paths and PCB foil traces (as polar explorers and NASA engineers have discovered, the hard way; Google "tin pest"). I personally prefer traditional tin- lead electronic solder with a flux core. Lead free solder doesn't wet and flow as well as lead solder, and is responsible for numerous devices breaking down and failing prematurely and ending up in the landfill. If you are just starting out learning to solder, I recommend that you start with lead solder, and only use a known, name brand product from a reliable source, such as Kester or Weller. Be advised that solder, or the flux inside of it sometimes seems to go bad if it is old and therefore freshly made product is probably better. There's also a lot of variation in lead free alloys and the fluxes they contain. Probably a good idea to buy at least 2 different brands of solder from different sources and see if one is easier to work with or gives you more consistent results. It is also a good idea to buy yourself some separate flux in paste or liquid form; but unfortunately I have seen cases where soldering flux that isn't actually designed for work on electronics is being sold to electronics hobbiists. Always check the label on the bottle to see if it has a precaution against using it for electronics work. The highly acidic ( and corrosive) fluxes designed for soldering copper water pipes are not the same as, and not interchangeable with, fluxes designed for soldering circuit boards and electronic components; nor can plumbing solder be used as a substitute for electronics solder. Be aware that there is a special-purpose "soldering paste" which is a mixture of powdered solder (typically lead-free) and flux, designed specifically for soldering microprocessors with miniature, nearly microscopic pins (or hidden "pins" on the underside of the processor chip), and therefore is not the same as plain soldering flux.

Also, thanks Wermy for introducing me into this hobby. I saw the minty pi lite and I was really exited to build it! I enjoy watching your videos! Thanks

I've watched this video in the past, but must not have been ready. I'm back into having the need to efficiently solder, and re-watched this video. A lot of things made more sense to me this go round. Thanks for all the care in the instructions. You, sir, have earned my subscription more than twice over.

Ive always just winged soldering and learning through trial and error, but this definitely filled all my knowledge gaps. Love all the tips and tricks. Thanks!!

I love this channel. I got a soldering iron for my birthday and I love it. Thanks for the new hobby, wermy, and i hope you do well in these trying times.

Finally! A guide that's both broad-spectrum and specific on each individual subject from a reliable source. Thanks a ton!

Thank you for walking through the basics!! I was struggling because I didn’t have an understanding of the basics. I successfully made my connection as soon as you explained the heating of both the items I was needing to fuse together!!

This was great! I've never soldered before and ordered an adapter board for my pi with unsoldered components, because I've always wanted to solder and was determined to do it myself. With your help, I got it right on the first try! Thank you. I can now connect Atari 2600 controllers directly to my RetroPie for a more authentic feel 🙂

Finally: A truly articulate, intelligent, no-nonsense guy, and a very well-done video!.... Give me more!

After watching countless soldering videos making it look easy, trying and getting no results whatsoever, this one finally gave me all the information I needed in a clear fashion. I was able to reproduce all the exercises, except that last board on board one, which I'm not interested in at the moment. I have several projects that I had been putting off because of lack of confidence in my soldering, that can now tackle. Thanks so much for this.

This is a great introductory video to soldering and exactly what I needed getting into the hoby. Thank you for the crash course

I'm currently learning to become an electrical engineer (first year) and we just started with soldering, so this video is a great help! You're explaining everything very well and the fact that you're showing it is of great help. Thank you for the great video c:

Thanks for sharing your tips! I’m self-taught and definitely missed some of these things while learning.

Thanks for the great video. I have been working on a drone project and have a problem with the solder not melting quickly on the motor controller. This video helped

Thanks for the video. I've not used a soldering iron in 20 years, and with this handy video I did quite a fiddly ESP32 wiring job and it all came out great first time!

I've been soldering for years and trying to up my game. This was a major help. Thanks!

This is the best tutorial on soldering for those who know next to nothing about it. Every other tutorial for beginners I’ve watched assumed the newbie knew what tools and supplies were needed, they just needed to know how to use them. I appreciate that you explained what the specialized substances and materials and what they do in the process.

This is an excellent video and there just isn't enough videos about soldering. I know voultar has quite a lot of content based around soldering and stuff but, he never really goes into detail about all of the little stuff. You nailed this one, dude.

Great video. You really broke it down for a newbie and took away a lot of the anxiety I have regarding soldering. Thanks

This was an awesome video with great content. I feel like the soldering work I did today for my 3D printer was a million times cleaner and considerably quicker. Ended up buying the 853D and it was so much easier to knock out my project. Thanks for all the great information!

Really glad you mentioned rosin core solder. I've seen so many comments about soldering where people say you have to use flux. I worked for years doing electronic repairs on telecoms and radio gear and before that, electronic assembly. I never once used flux, because all the solder I used was rosin core. Even when I was trained in high-reliability soldering, we never used flux.

Excellent video, helped get me from never holding an iron to finishing my first electronics project. The one thing I'll say that I'm kinda surprised wasn't mentioned in the video and doesn't seem to be very frequent in the comments: keep things ventilated! The wisps of smoke that come off the iron are mostly flux fumes, and they can cause chronic respiratory issues (namely asthma). The lead in leaded solder is most dangerous if flakes of it (like, say, the ones that tend to come off the tip of your iron when you clean it) are ingested or inhaled, but soldering with it also produces some lead-based fumes that are equally dangerous with enough exposure. Make sure the space you're working in is reasonably open; open a door if you're in the garage, a window if you're in an office, etc. If you can, use a carbon-filter-based smoke absorber to pull those fumes away from your face and to keep the air cleaner. If you don't have one (or ideally even if you do), use a desk or household fan behind or to the side of you to push air away from you and toward the open window/ventilation.

I just replaced the faulty cord on my old Sony MDR-7506 headphones with your help, particularly the "wire to board" section of your video! I am forever grateful to people like you who offer advice and tutorials to those of us who can't afford professional repairs or replacements. Thanks a million!

WoW! I actually stumbled on this video. it's like finding gold on a walk to the park, your explanations are clear and precise and totally easy to understand. wish I had discovered you 12 months ago . Thank you

I’m retired and just starting out to try to see if I can do some board repairs. This is by FAR the best and most concise tutorial I have seen explaining soldering. Nice job & thank you sir!

Thanks for taking the time to upload this - I've been 'dabbling' for a long time but still picked up some useful tips. All the best from Australia

Thank you so much, I had never done any soldering in my life and with your tutorial I was able to replace the Oscilating Crystal in my original NUS-001 Snes and It's back to working like a charm!

Thanks a lot for sharing! It is so hard nowadays to find a video that is informative, right to the point and not filled with ads/promotions.

Thank you. Seriously. Nothing like learning from a person who knows what there doing and takes pride in there craft.

How serendipitous! I just started a null 2 project and was looking for soldering advice. Perfect timing!

I learned how to solder from a after school program in elementary school. Everything you went over makes sense and I appreciate the help.

Thank you. Excellent coverage. As a beginner, I feel much more equipped to get started. Also, your comment about not approaching it like cake icing is priceless.

Very helpful to a beginner and I haven’t started yet but am sick of not being able to fix my own electronics thank you

Hero level video! Exactly what I needed with no BS and a TON of useful information!

Thank you very much. I'm about to get into a my first soldering project. This video gave me some confidence and much needed prep consideration.

I've been soldering everything imaginable in electronics from vacuum tube boat anchors to surface mount postage stamps going on 65 years. Your video is an excellent introduction to the art of electronics assembly and wiring. 👍

i think a useful addition to this would be tinning the iron tip before actually using it to solder for the first time and re-inforcing tinning after you finish (in a production environment you tin much more often). Also static protection should be mentioned as it is not all that hard to ruin an ic with a static discharge.

Thank you for an up-to-date tutorial. Need more time on solder iron tip selection, temperatures for size of connections to be made. Minimizing time soldering iron is on the pad as not to lift the pad. More heat = less time on scene. There's a fine balance. Flux is your friend. Use it! Practice with a practice board till you get the hang of it. replacing components can get expensive if you damage them.

And just like that, I'm no longer intimidated to start my soldering project. Beyond excellent video! Thank you, Sir. 🙏

I'm studying this in highschool right now and this video's been a great help in realising I solder in the incorrect way you described. Thanks for the advice!

Quick tip: if you are gonna solder something new and the solder is not melting add a bit of new solder and then try to melt it again and it should work :)

I was definitely an “icing squeezer” when I first tried, and was “taught”, to solder. Your definition of the correct way is perfect, and couldn’t be more simple. Yet, it’s misunderstood by so many. And just FYI, your guess for why some people even try to solder that way, is just lack of being taught (or even told) what to do properly. So yes, people that you see do it that way (since I was one of them) do it for the exact reason you wondered why, because we (or I...) just thought that’s what the people who showed me meant, not know that this is not the way to do it, at all. At first I used to wonder how the hell people did it this way, until I found out I was just doing it all wrong.

This is going to be very helpful for me at work, as I'll be doing a soldering training course sometime soon. Thanks for the excellent explanations of these basic techniques!

Fantastic crash course in learning how to solder. The information was conveyed in a very simple and easy to understand way along with visual instruction. Thank you so much.

My favorite part of this video was that it did not take 45 min to explain.

Would love to see a crash course on Desodering! Seems fairly frequent for repairs or changes to fix old electronics. Seems common to add an extra "solder ball" to prevent static or something similar Btw Thanks! Great starter course

Oh deep joy! I’m a British bloke 71, so I was tickled that you got the pronunciation of solder out of the way so soon! I have been putting off a crucial job on a model railway I am building because it means soldering. Your crash course was just pure gold, from the blindingly obvious (meaning I didn’t see it) point that you heat both pieces and introduce the solder to the two hot surfaces. I am so fired up now. thank you so much!

Thank you, I am in the planning stages of building an amplifier and I haven’t used a solder iron in years. Great video!

I wanted to do a single soldering project and I'm realizing over time (even before finding this video) that i need to keep buying more and more and more stuff ... geez lol

for those who want to get into it but don't like soldering, I was the same but when I got a minty pi lite kit, I loved it. It may take a few times to get strong connections, but once you do it a few times, you will get the hang of it.

You're a lifesaver mate! I had no idea smaller soldering wire existed, yet I've wondered why the new boards always have neatly soldered components, now I Know!

I’m looking to become a computer engineer, and this tutorial is going to be invaluable for me. I really appreciate you taking the time to go through every step of each type of connection. Keep up the awesome work!!

tip tinner actually shortens the life of your tips. best method to preserve your tips is to melt a blob of solder onto the tip just as it's cooling down so it covers the tip and forms a blob on the end. when you go to use the tip again it will be perfect.

really helpful tutorial, ive done some soldering, but not a lot, and im getting a new iron for christmas, so its really good to get these tips, especially the little details like how you arent supposed to put the solder directly on the iron, really helpful!

I was taught how to solder copper pipe when I was young and i picked it up for electronics in the last year or two. I still feel like i know nothing, so I absolutely love these types or informational videos.

For 8:30 another method is to use liquid flux to add more fluidity for the solder to melt along with through the hole when heated. Extra tips: 0) Wear eyepro; flying bits from snipping pieces, fumes, general safety. 1) Drag upwards when adequate amount of solder has been melted for a nice cone shape. Using liquid flux helps. 2) After solder has cooled, use a nylon brush plus 99% isopropyl alcohol to clean and shiny the solder. 3) Use the solder to cover the soldering iron tip, and dab into the cleaning container to apply a protective coating to the tip after you're done soldering. 4) Wash hands w/ soap and water every time you're done; don't want an eye infection from rubbing your eyes or face with dirty hands do you? *Correct me if I got anything wrong & I'll edit my comment.

Just wanted to say that this video is incredibly informative and well made, it deserves many more views! I will now go and attempt my first soldering exercise... :sweat_emoji:

This was super helpful, thanks for putting this together. I've wanted to get into soldering for a bit, and finally bought an iron recently. Still afraid to break stuff, but looking forward to finally trying.

This is the best tutorial I have seen for a novice like me. Very clear and very to the point. Well done and thank you for sharing!

Love your videos been here since day one

WHY DOES THE SMOKE ALWAYS FOLLOW ME!? Lol. I've soldered electronics, built my own quadcopter, fixed trailer wiring, indoors, outdoors, always the smoke seeming to go right for my face. The leaded solder is supposed to be easier to work with but just knowing there is lead in it has me always holding my breath.

I repair electronics as a side job for some extra money and occasionally do it for local shops. I've been soldering for years and would say i'm pretty good at it but STILL to this day I shy away from soldering jobs because it's such a touchy task BUT worth it if you do them right. You KNOW what you're doing and have even shown me things that I didn't know. I appreciate the video.

Wow, short, comprehensive, and to the point. I've been soldering all my life the wrong way. You nailed all my questions. And thank you for the flux demonstration on the raw wires. Turns out, I've been doing it all wrong all along.

You should only get 63/37 solder, particularly for beginners because it has no plasticy state, its sometimes called eutectic, because it goes straight from liquid to solid and vice versa. 60/40 is close, and will work if you are a little bit more careful, but the easy/best is always going to be 63/37

Notes: 2:56 Don't drip. Heat up both components and use the solder to fuse them together. Dripping will get you a "cold" connection sometimes.

Thank you for providing such amazing stuff to your viewers. It's fascinating material. I appreciate all of your efforts. Sincere appreciation!

I work on guitars (potentiometers, capacitors and switches) and amplifiers and had to learn this the hard way... your wire splice tips were great and turned out really clean, great video!

How about a video that goes a little more in depth with tip maintenance, flux types & usages?

:)

I freaking love you sis. Thank you for your service in reminding me of a lot of things, teaching me new things & sharing your wisdom.

Thanks for the information. I greatly appreciate videos that are to the point without a lot of unnecessary information. Great video.

Just a beginner here. This video was outstanding and just what I needed to start from. Thank you.

I have been doing cold soldering for a couple years, and now I get why! Thanks!

This video was VERY helpful, howed me some mistake I was making while working on my guitars. Thank you!!

Glad I stumbled upon this channel and specifically, this video. I just bought a venerable Nakamichi SR-2E receiver with the famous Nelson Pass "STASIS" amp (c.1986, EXC+, $120). My plan is to buy the capping kit ($60) and recap the whole thing, bringing the unit back to better than original spec. Aside from some TLC to the innards, this tutorial is a big help in preparation for this DIY job.

I'm getting shoved into soldering a bit abruptly (art tablet usb port disconnected interally), and this is so incredibly helpful. Thank you so much! I'll probably be back to look at more things as I get more adventurous 👀

Great video!! Building an FPV drone and I have never soldered before except for 1 practice board. I feel a lot better about it now.

Haven’t been soldering properly and now it’s upped my game amazing thank you

I feel so much more confident in trying soldering now. -Thank you!

Great video! You convinced me to finally learn to solder, just went all out and bought the 853d soldering station and some practice boards wish me luck.

I just did my first project involving soldering using this guide. Thanks for the help!

Great demo mate. This was my only exposure to how to solder and it was enough to have a go and fix my device. Very happy

Just bought a soldering station and a few build kits for blue tooth speakers. I'm going to build with my boys

Hey, thank you! I'm gonna need to solder some stuff at work tomorrow, I've done it before but never really had anyone explain the right way and why. I appreciate this video!

AWESOME Video! Loved, great pace, speech too, did not put me to sleep like some other ands i really appreciated the sheer objective focused speaking, no fluff.

Yeah I've been soldering since I was like 10 with my dad, and I didn't know most of this. You just upped my solder game BIG TIME. Thank you

this is the best video I've found on UKposts for a primer on soldering. Excellent work!

Very hellpful! THANK YOU! Wish I had it this morning before the solder project I did! But? It did give me some great tips for the next one tomorrow!!! THANK YOU!

Very informative, after 4 days of practice I am now able to solder much more efficient as of now. and I enjoy to work that is related to soldering. Thank you so much, Please continue to upload more video such as this or any kinds of project.

Thank you. I am new at soldering and you gave great ways to do it correctly as well as ways not to!

I’m 76, haven’t done any soldering since Exploritory Shop in High School…this tutorial is very well done!