All the steps it takes to master your soldering iron.

As I promised in my last post, here’s the table of contents listing all my HowTo posts on hand soldering:

  1. Introduction to the series - Learn a basic skill for your electronics hobby.
  2. Vision check - You have to see it to solder it.
  3. Work place - A safe and comfortable place for you and your electronics.
  4. Tools - It only takes a few tools to get the job done.
  5. Materials - The things you’ll use up.
  6. Before you start - Things you’ll always have to do.
  7. First steps - Things are finally heating up.
  8. Soldering wires - Finally getting somewhere.
  9. Soldering through hole parts - Some of the most common things you’ll solder.
  10. Removing through hole parts - Not the way most folks expect.
  11. Using a solder sucker - Making good use of a cheap tool.
  12. Soldering simple SMD parts - Anything you can see, you can solder.
  13. Removing simple SMD parts - Anything you can see, you can remove.
  14. Soldering SMD ICs - Any SMD IC that has pins or pads that you can see, you can solder.
  15. Removing SMD ICs - They ain’t pokemons - you can’t get ‘em all.
  16. Regular or unleaded - What kind of solder is best?
  17. Meet my new soldering iron - The hardware store cheapy left me hanging.
  18. Repair an Android headset - Everything it takes to replace a broken Android headset plug (4 pole CTIA.)
  19. A better solder sucker - A modern replacement for the old fashioned solder sucker ball.
  20. Flux and lead-free solder - When supposedly simple tasks turn complicated.

As I complete each post, I’ll link them into this table of contents. I may add other pages, or combine some items and shorten the list. We’ll see how it goes.

Check back periodically and see what’s new.

2020-04-07: I have finally finished writing up all the things I think are the basic skills you need to use your soldering iron. As I work on my own projects, I’ll keep an eye out for tricky things to solder and how to handle them. Those will get their own write up.

If there’s some particular soldering task you’d like described that isn’t covered by an existing HowTo, leave a request in the comments below.