Its a symmetrical 18v ac rectifying and puffering module for an active speaker project that my father has started and i'm continuing.

Opposed to the flair i wouldnt call myself a soldering newbie.

I had soldered a lot before but mostly for repairing broken electronics like laptops, gpu's, motherboards etc.

This is the first time i had to "design" a board layout and put it together from scratch.

It wasnt an easy process, i didnt plan enough and there were some last minute additions like the rc filters and the discharging resistors and filtering capacitors between the ac and dc sides of the full bridge rectifier.

Because of the changes its not very space efficient on the dc side and very cramped on the ac side

I have used 1.5mm2 solid copper wires as bus bars and pin headers to temporarly hold the 2 boards together.

I would appreciate any feedback or pointers.

What should i do differently next time?

Are there any techniques i could have used?

Thanks in advance!

Forgot to add flux, solder wasnt melting on the joint, i applied pressure to the joint with the iron and it kinda flew towards me, threw solder onto the safety goggles, which if i hadnt wore i wouldve likely lost my eye because i set the temp to 500°C

Hi all, pretty much a newbie when I comes to soldering I've done some mainly fixing wires and done my first bit on a board today fixing a broken solder joint on my extractor hoods circuit board using a parkside soldering iron.

I've managed to get a fnirsi hs-02b with 3 tips for just over £10 on AliExpress I was going to get the set which includes the plug but heard it's not the best so thought I would get my own although I do have a Lenovo laptop charger that is 65w (unsure if that would be sufficient for the iron)

Any suggestions on what plug + cable to get?

I think they pretty good would like another opinion. Also what causes that foggy appearance on some of the headers, temp?

Also why does lead taste so good. 😋

350C hakko fx888dx

My fake ps3 controller L1 shift wasn't working and i tried to fix it (everything gone wrong and i threw it away :(( .) and noticed the rumble motor wires

I’ve tried using an I tip and a K tip, the STM was done entirely with an I tip which went eh? I also used the 0.3mm solder again until I found the much^2 thicker one which just took being more moderate.

The row that you can see on teensy was done entirely with a K tip and it felt GREAT like everything actually took just a few seconds and I felt the solder, base and probe actually all heating together and having the solder flow.

With the I tip it felt like I was dropping solder on a pin and hoping for a connection.

Did I use the I tip wrong? And please do rate my work this time and where can I improve?

Background: My company does film restoration and videotape digitization. I have been kind of forced into learning how to repair the broadcast videotape decks because it's too slow/expensive to send them out for repair, if you can even find places that can do it. Some of these things weigh 50+lbs and are easily damaged in shipping. It's been kind of fun getting some of these fixed, and I recently acquired a library of service manuals and parts, which makes it much easier. Most of what I've done has been minor, but for one particular deck the only fix to a well known issue is to recap the entire servo board - 63 caps - and it's been a bit of a nightmare with my current gear. And I have 3 more of these decks that will eventually need the same work done.

Most of what I'll be working with is 1990s and earlier, so nothing really microscopically small. Most of the boards on these decks are a mix of SMD and through-hole.

I'm using an older passive tip iron, which is fine for small amounts of work but has issues when it's on for a long time, and it's clunky for fussier work like this current recap project. I also have a cheap vacuum desoldering tool, which works well, and a cheap hot air rework gun. I used the hot air gun on this project because it would be quicker, but I managed to mess up a bunch of tiny smd resistors that I have to re-seat now.

So I want a system that supports both an iron and hot tweezers. I'm willing to spend some money on this because I want it to be reliable. I know the JBC stuff is recommended here on the high end, and I've looked at Haako setups as well, but I am partial to Weller. Before the current generic iron I bought I always used Weller for hobby stuff, and liked it. I still have the weller iron I bought in the 1980s in high school and it works great.

Looking at these two, as far as I can tell the main difference is in the software and tip serialization. Why should I care about that? I just need it to be reliable, well built, and with available accessories. The WX2021N is much less expensive than the WXS2021, so is there any reason to avoid it?

It seems like a lot of the WXS2021 features are applicable to production environments where you have to keep an audit trail. That's not us. so if the WX2021N will do the trick, that's probably what I'll get. or is the WXS2021 really that much better? If so, in what way?

I know how to solder but I only ever soldered for my fpv drone (which turned out good) and one time to fix a device for my dad so I'm kind of a noob.

I just found this remote that broke a few years ago for a lamp i still use to this day, the lamp has touch controls so that's how I've been using it but now that I know how to solder and have both the original remote and a button from an old electronics kit i figured I could give it a shot.

My problem now is figuring out the best way to lay that button on the board and solder it to the pad, do I cut some of the legs? Do i bend them in some other way?

Edit: I managed to solder it to the board but apparently this button is slightly higher than the rest so for now the remote is half closed until i get a new shorter button and I'll just swap it out.

Today I tried to continue to learn how to solder on my own. I have previously tried to teach myself for a university project where we were required to, but I was never taught how. I failed, as expected.

Today I've just started soldering today with the right tip, which was previously covered with a little bit of tin. After using it for a while with more metal, I've discovered it has lost the coat while cleaning it with the classic sponge, probably because I cleaned it too harshly and the temperature was too high (450ºC).

I've decided to changed to the other, cover it with tin and lower the temperature (~325°C). I tried to cover it and it ended up as you see on the image.

The left tip is covered with dark and shiny patches and the right one is completely dark. Is the dark part corrosion/rust? Are they ruined? How should I cover it with tin? I only have some soldering wire from a kit and the tin isn't sticking to the dark spots. It has flux in it (because of the funny looking fumes).

Thanks :)

Edit: sponge

I need help to find a way to make my new soldering tip fit a station that takes collared tips such as ts 1564 or a screw in station

This was a work assignment from 2025 (I have prior permission to share) and wanted honest feedback. If I'm still an amateur or if this looks like 25 years of experience (not primarily soldering, but started SMT soldering repairs in 2001).

This is work in progress so it's not cleaned fully.

The wires are 32AWG.

I've had this thing for over 20 years, and I have to say it's absolutely terrible.

Opened it up for the first time and the soldering job, on the soldering station of all things, is just crap. Also the power cable came loose with very little effort, and the soldering iron generally took a good 10 mins to heat up, if it ever got up to the undefined temperature it should have reached.

I post this mostly for nostalgia. Maplin stopped using that logo in 2005 and went bust in 2018, so I've had this sitting around for over 20 years gathering dust.

I want to start learning how to solder and wanted to know if this would be a good soldering iron to learn soldering?

My Geeboon TC22 that I ordered thanks to community advice just arrived and I have just done my first soldering job with it.
Would be great if I could get a review of it! Used some cheap flux and leaded solder, but still, putting an order for MECHANIC solder and flux and probs a fumes extractor as well.

Just a question about the station, the cable it came with does not have a ground prong, there is a hole there, like, what?? How is it grounded then was I supposed to do something about it?

Rebuilt the BGA chip by hand, an ESD filter by hand as you cannot buy them and i cant reball chips anyway.

Need advice on whether to buy an optical microscope, the mechanic robot 6560T trinocular microscope, do any pros think its good?

Basically rebuilt the entire HDMI circuit, including replacing the retimer chip on the right just for the problem to be the hard drive💀

Hi guys I'm just wondering what you guys think about this small area of traces that got damaged on an Xbox 360 motherboard. One of the traces now looks slighly crooked, and may be disconnected but I also want to hear what you guys think too because I'm not sure if there is still a connection or not, not sure how to test for a solid connection between points either.

Would trace repair be neccesary here, or do you guys think that that one crooked trace might still make a connection?

It’s literally my first time soldering ever, so please keep that in mind and please try to be respectful. I’d appreciate some constructive criticism as to what possibly led to this and future ways to avoid it.

1. My only objective to this point was desoldering the capacitors on a GameCube’s optic drive. This is simply a practice run.

2. I recognize the excess solder that I have on the pads. I’m using that to practice using a wick and cleaning the pads

3. The elephant in the room: lifted pad and lack of pad. What mistake did I commit in order for this to happen.

4. Is it chalked?

Thanks all and appreciate the help.

Hi everyone, I recently had an issue with my TV, a faulty pin which is preventing my TV from powering on—an issue which is apparently common with Sony TV's.

The advice has been that I need to solder that faulty pin to the ground. I've watched the PACE tutorials on YouTube and now I'm in the process of looking through tools and trying to decide which ones to get. Preferably I'd rather not spend more than £100 but I can go beyond that price point if the value is worth it.

I would like to ask if anybody has tool recommendations for an absolute beginner?

Thanks so much!

I literally just picked up soldering last week and this is my first one😭 I’m gonna try and stick to it for a month 😅definitely not as easy as I thought it would be in my head. Also, I was having a hard time feeding the solder wire into the iron, while also holding the wire in place😔😔😔

I'm using aliexpress Kingbo flux, not sure how good it is relative to other fluxes. I'm finding it difficult to get a clean board with it. Once I'm done soldering I'll get a toothbrush with 99.9% isopropyl alcohol and brush it down. Then polish with a cotton bud. It still leaves behind a slightly sticky surface. Not as much as pure flux but it still feels like some remains.

Any suggestions as to what I should do? Should I get a hard bristle brush? I'm maybe not brushing hard as I could as I'm worried about knocking components off the board. I'm mostly dealing with GBA pokemon game boards.

How do I go about removing slider inside and under the solder hole areas?