Soldering tips(advice)?

Soon ill be making my first GGW build. Of corse I've messed up some PHRs before, and I've had some sucessful ones, but I've never really esablished a good soldering technique.

So is the best way to put solder on the tip and then touch the wire to the pin?

Or is it better to apply solder with the iron at the same time? (This method requires too many hands and has caused me to break builds in the past, so I think I'm sticking with the first method)

Mikeeey I see you posting these kind of questions here and there. I'm not trying to troll you but you have almost 1500 post and you ask these very basic questions that have been posted over an over. You should know this. Maybe instead of posting, take a few weeks and read. This stuff is all over the forum, you just have to take a few minutes and find it.

lol yep i just got lazy there.. im trying to work on a project for pre-college english class right now, then before you know it I'm thinking about this GGW I'll be building in a few days. I really didn't have the time to deal with VBulletin's search engine (most results that came up are irrelevant).
But now that I've had a few more moments to look around, I've read:

it's good to use a fine tip soldering iron.

Also I should pre-tin the wires (I didn't know this one)

but what I've read so far is mainly regarding soldering to the flexdrive.


I think it would be beneficial tho to have another "noob thread" like this one for those out there about to build a laser. Part of the reason I'm so behind in all of this but have so many posts is a good time I've spent on this forum I've been without a job. No job = no money, no money = no lasers:undecided:
Now that I'm finally making money I can waste it on lasers lol..

There are electronic soldering tutorials and even videos all over the interntz...
Try using Google....

The main trick is Practice... Practice... and Practice some more....
(practice on some old circuit boards oy of TVs and Radios etc...)


Jerry

also, try a good tinning flux. the kind that i use is called "harvey's tinning flux" its usually used for sweating copper pipes, but it works great for anything involving copper and solder. it has silver lead free solder mixed in with it.