soldering help

nuky nuclear · Post by **nuky nuclear** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 2:33 pm

ok so i cant figure out how to get the wires to stick to the board with the solder. the solder sticks to the wire easy but then it wont stick to the board. i am trying to get the controller wired but i cant seem to get the solder to stick. what do i do? am i doing it wrong?

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 2:39 pm

Are you trying to solder to metal contacts? You can't solder straight to the black pads for the buttons, you have to find another place or scrape down to metal (very carefully).
If it is metal that you're trying to solder to, make sure that you heat the wire and the contact on the board. The solder likes to stick to the hot parts, like when it sticks to your iron.

nuky nuclear · Post by **nuky nuclear** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 2:43 pm

vskid wrote:Are you trying to solder to metal contacts? You can't solder straight to the black pads for the buttons, you have to find another place or scrape down to metal (very carefully).
If it is metal that you're trying to solder to, make sure that you heat the wire and the contact on the board. The solder likes to stick to the hot parts, like when it sticks to your iron.

i scratched the part where i need to solder the wire to and at first it worked but now the solder only seems to stick to the wire.

Post by **bicostp** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 2:50 pm

Are you heating both the wire and the pad with the iron? They both have to be hot enough to melt solder to make a good connection.

nuky nuclear · Post by **nuky nuclear** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 2:53 pm

its like as soon as we move the iron away the thing cools to much and the solder harden. the tip of the iron doesnt seem to heat enough to melt the solder, further up the point it is hotter. could that be a problem?

also the solder becomes a ball too easly. the solder refuses to stick to the board. it is on the wire but when you melt it on the wire it wont stick to the board at all. it just seems to melt the top of the solder.
I am making a SNES portable, based on the user "the life of brian", portable snes. i just was reading when he attached the wires for the controls and it said he used something called flux on the area he was going to solder. what is flux?

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 3:15 pm

What wattage is your iron? You might have to wait a bit longer for it to heat up more, then wait a bit between soldering.

nuky nuclear · Post by **nuky nuclear** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 3:32 pm

vskid wrote:What wattage is your iron? You might have to wait a bit longer for it to heat up more, then wait a bit between soldering.

40 watt

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 6:38 pm

Needs moar flux

nuky nuclear · Post by **nuky nuclear** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 7:01 pm

ok so we got the flux and things are going a little better but we have yet another problem with the solder. the wires stick but easily break off. do we need more solder? my dad tried and got frustrated because it wasnt working. the problem is the controller. is thin solder better then thick? cause we got thin solder and the wires are 22 gage.

HotDog-Cart · Post by **HotDog-Cart** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:29 pm

I'd use some superglue to help hold.

nuky nuclear · Post by **nuky nuclear** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:33 pm

HotDog-Cart wrote:I'd use some superglue to help hold.

i did put hotglue on it but the wires fell off.

Valium · Post by **Valium** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 9:33 pm

Scratch a bigger area maybe?

nuky nuclear · Post by **nuky nuclear** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:00 pm

well thanks to my dad i have to rip up another controller because he fried the D-pad on my other one with the soldering iron. plus i cant find the piece that has the A, B, X, Y buttons on it, so i have to destroy a perfectly good controller.

Valium · Post by **Valium** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:14 pm

It's not completely ruined, if you follow the traces back to the pins of the chip, and then solder straight to that, it'll work fine.

nuky nuclear · Post by **nuky nuclear** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:16 pm

Valium wrote:It's not completely ruined, if you follow the traces back to the pins of the chip, and then solder straight to that, it'll work fine.

well what i mean is the traces are completely burned out.