Shoutout to the guy who told me to preheat my iron before soldering

I used to just heat up my iron after starting a job and it took forever. A guy at a repair meetup in Des Moines last month said let it sit for 2 full minutes before touching a joint. I tried it on a motherboard capacitor swap and the solder flowed way smoother with less cold joints. Only took me 5 years to learn that basic tip.

2 comments

2 Comments

robert2484d ago

yeah but if you wait 2 minutes you're just wasting time. I've done cap swaps on old HP motherboards where the iron was hot in 30 seconds and the solder flowed fine. preheating's for people who don't know how to move fast. plus if you leave it sitting that long on a tip that's not fresh you're baking gunk onto it. had a buddy who let his iron sit ten minutes once and the tip turned black. I'll take the cold joints over a ruined tip any day.

drew8054d ago

Nah man, waiting two minutes ain't gonna kill your tip or your joints.