TIL I was using way too much heat on my soldering iron for years

I was swapping a cap on a motherboard last tuesday and my iron was set to 400C like always. My buddy whos been doing board repair way longer than me walks by and goes "why are you cooking it?" I laughed it off but then he had me drop it to 315C. Same joint flowed perfect in half the time. Felt like an idiot. I guess I figured more heat = faster work but really I was just waiting for the whole board to soak. Anyone else have a basic thing they did wrong forever?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.river26d ago

Honestly I read something from a guy who used to work at a repair shop that said most people run their irons way too hot just because it feels right. He said 350C is usually the sweet spot for leaded solder and anything over 380C just burns the flux off before it can do its job. I tried dropping from 400C to 340C on a tiny connector the other day and the joint came out way cleaner without that brown crusty residue. Kinda wild how bad info gets passed around.

noahward26d ago

Wait wait wait @king.river you're telling me 380C just burns the flux off? That actually explains so much about those crusty brown joints I've been getting on small header pins. I've been running my iron at like 410C forever because I thought hotter = faster = cleaner. Dropped it to 360C last night on a connector and it melted clean and flowed way nicer without that nasty residue. Feels like I've been doing it wrong for years because some random YouTube guy said crank it up.