Brown/whitish looking stuff appearing around my work.

[Mad_Professor]

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if it's the solder or the new tips or what.. *picture below. Using 70% alcohol somewhat removes it, seems to be glazed over.

The only thing that's change are new tips for my iron which made a big difference in heat transfer.

Too much heat? *user error
Something wrong with my solder?
New tips causing it?

Looking at the pic it looks like I have my iron on too long, and I realized my joints look like shit up close but from my normal prescriptive it looks ok.

edit: add a before and after, I used q-tip with 70% alky, looks a little bit better.

[mockingbird]

Re: Brown/whitish looking stuff appearing around my work.

That's the flux. It may or may not eat away at the etching, depending on the PCB. Try acetone to clean it. I usually remove the flux right away with dry Q-Tips.

[steve2]

Re: Brown/whitish looking stuff appearing around my work.

Like Mockingbird said, It's flux. I use denatured alcohol to clean my boards, but isopropyl (higher than 70%) will clean it too.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Brown/whitish looking stuff appearing around my work.

Ok so I did what mockingbird said and use acetone and wow what a difference, not to mention I missed the hole on the middle cap, right lead.

Thanks for tips guys.

Got any more tips that can improve my soldering skills?

[steve2]

Re: Brown/whitish looking stuff appearing around my work.

I had a link here a while back to the Navy Mars soldering, but they have changed it. Are you touching the iron to the solder pad and the part at the same time when soldering? This is the correct way (pad and part at same temp) and the quickest which reduces the time the heat is applied to the board and part. Also, when I do chips with lots of leads, I go from one end to the other and (depending on the size) may let it cool down a little after a couple connections to prevent overheating the new chip.Just keep practicing and they will be fine.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Brown/whitish looking stuff appearing around my work.

I try to, but sometimes the pad is smaller then my pencil iron, I have a chisel tip on it right now which I prefer the most. I can handle the solder the best with it, but I do have a micro-point and general point tips in my arsenal.

The one in the pic is a motherboard, Inorder to remove the caps on it, I put a nice blob of solder on my iron and apply it to the leads and jump back and forth on the leads as I wiggle the cap side to side, slowly removing it. Then I clean the iron and re-apply little solder and run a sewing pin through the hole to make a opening for the new caps going in. Again clean the iron and then heat the pad and lead of new cap the best I can, apply solder and let it heat for about second or two during this process then remove and inspect, the only problem is the damn flux.

This may not be the proper way tho, so far tho I haven't burn anything off or fried anything yet, but it's always on the top of my mind. If you got anything useful or quicker in doing this process I would surely appreciated it.

I do fine on SMPS boards, nice and clean, quick and fast, probably because I use the desoldering braid. It just motherboards I have the most problems with, smaller tracks, different solder doesn't heat up as quick and doesn't pull to the braid easily, fills in holes quick after removal, desoldering braid is useless in this environment.

[steve2]

Re: Brown/whitish looking stuff appearing around my work.

It seems like your doing it right. The motherboards are harder as you have to heat up more. Your doing fine.

[pun84]

Re: Brown/whitish looking stuff appearing around my work.

Yeah, those fatter/wider traces require a lot more heat..

[c_hegge]

Re: Brown/whitish looking stuff appearing around my work.

I just use a leg from a cap to scratch it off. It flakes of really easily once it's cooled. I don't think I've ever damaged a trace on the PCB by doing it.