Tips and Advice on Soldering

Edited

Soldering laser wire is the same as soldering any other wires. Shorting doesn't matter because you don't have power connected while you're soldering anyway.

Edited

One tip i have for soldering to Laser Diodes is do not hold your iron on it for too long. Laser diodes seem to hate being heated, so try to be very quick whilst soldering to them

If you have read daguin's tips the iron should never touch the diode pins. Only the solder blob on the iron tip should touch the joint.

WRT the comment you made about not touching the wires together - This would only be the case, if you have previously powered the driver ie on a test load to check current. After doing this you must short the driver leads before attempting to connect these to the diode pins (or leads). Basically make sure the caps are discharged on the driver, before wiring up the 2 sets of wires.:beer:

Use flux and pretin the wires!

SerpantSlayer said:

Use flux and pretin the wires!

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Yes good advice. Sounds like he has a module with wires already attached like DTR sells and soldering them to a driver that already has wires attached. In that case just solder them together, the heat wont reach the diode. A "Helping Hands" if you have one often makes soldering easier.

Alan

Zeebit said:

If you have read daguin's tips the iron should never touch the diode pins. Only the solder blob on the iron tip should touch the joint.

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Err, what? Where does it say that? It makes no sense what so ever.

Don't do this.

Yeah you should definitely get a helping hands, makes life so much easier. I think their only around $10 on ebay.

This method is also used when making wire-to-wire solders with small wire
Soldering diode pins takes a fraction of a second

Pre-tin BOTH the pins and the wire or solder pads
[FONT=&quot]Pre-tining should be done with a drop of solder on the tip of the iron.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You just touch the fluxed pin with the solder drop[/FONT]

Use a small bit of flux on BOTH the pins and the wires/pads BOTH for the pre-tin and the final solder joint

I don't care if you use rosin core solder. USE THE FLUX!

Use a set of "extra hands" to align the pin with the wire/pad.

Make sure that they are side-by-side, touching, and secure

Get a small bit of solder on the tip of your soldering iron

"Touch" the melted solder on your iron to the pin to wire/pad joint

The solder will all flow together in a fraction of a second.

I recommend that you also use some shrink tubing to protect and reinforce the joint



You DO NOT "heat the joint" as with other solder jobs
You DO NOT place the solder source anywhere near the solder job

Only the melted solder on the tip of your iron should approach the pin to wire/pad joint[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
An exception to the above, is when soldering a wire/pin “through” a hole
If you are soldering a wire or pin through a hole, you only pre-tin the wire/pin
You DO still use a bit of flux in the hole
You have to let the iron sit a bit longer to heat the hole and allow the solder to flow
It still should be less than a couple of seconds

If you are new to soldering, I recommend that you get yourself an old PCB and some scrap wire (etc.). Practice the above procedure until you can get a good solder in a fraction of a second.

Peace,
dave

Eudaimonium said:

Err, what? Where does it say that? It makes no sense what so ever.

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daguin said:

Only the melted solder on the tip of your iron should approach the pin to wire/pad joint

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My reply is kinda bit off the OP's question because I was sleepy when I posted.

Zeebit said:

My reply is kinda bit off the OP's question because I was sleepy when I posted.

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Wow, I honestly can't make much sense from that sentence... (the quoted one, not yours)

Dave, chime in, please?

Personally, soldering on diodes is really not all that tricky. It's not tricky at all. It's exactly the same as soldering anything else. Wether you touch the diode's pin with molten solder alone or physically touch it with the tip makes absolutely no difference in end result what so ever, aside from maybe a lot of user mistakes trying hard to not touch the pin with the tip itself.

I would also get one of these to clean the tip of the iron Heavy Duty Soldering Solder Iron Tip Cleaner Steel Wire with Stand Set New | eBay. It helps a lot along with a sponge.

get one of this, and beware with coffee. It gives me jitters, especially with 1/2 gallon a day!

Check your soldering iron temperature when soldering sensitive components/small boards (like diodes and drivers). Don't forget that a big solder blob will maintain high temperatures for more time, so less tin = cooler diode = lower chance of damaging the diode.