I purchased the following from Amazon:
TS101 Soldering Iron
Solder
Flux
Wick
I work in IT so I have access to tons of broken laptops and desktops. I took out the mother boards of several laptops to practice micro-soldering.
After all this, I then found Northridge fix videos and so I wanted to attempt tinning the pins of an IC or connector by applying a ton of flux, solder to the tip and moving from left to right across all the pins. I've done this dozens of times with no success. Every time, the pins are bridged, it's ugly. I can't seem to get the solder to flow, it seems to harden almost immediately as I move towards the right. Not sure what I'm doing wrong or if I have bad flux and/or solder or am using the wrong tip. I have the iron on 400 degrees (have had it as low as 350) and using the stock tip pictured in the TS101 link. The temp doesn't seem to make much of a difference. I've also tried to use the solder wick to remove the bridges and it's impossible, think this wick stinks (seems to be very dry). Any tips and/or tricks would be appreciated.
Alex makes it look too easy!
Thanks,
Brett
Sounds to me like you have one or more of the following:
1. the soldering irom temp too high (320C should be more than enough for most applications) you are burning off all the flux before it can be useful. If you have poor quality lead free solder it doesn't flow nicely at all.
2. Poor quality soldering iron tip. When you put the solder onto the iron tip does it pool right to the base or does it clump?
3. As with point two, if the board is too cold/thermally conductive for your soldering iron then it wont flow nicely. Where possible use a preheating plate, this will make things so much nicer for you.
Addressing the solder wick issue.
Dous the solder braid in your flux and tin your iron, if the braid does not absorb the solder from the soldering iron when heated then it's a cheap braid with poor thermal conductivity.
YOU NEED TO SUMMON THE SUPERMAN SOLDERING GODS!! Good tips.. not the cheap ones.. you get what you pay for.. i use 3 different temps.. 550, 650, 700 F.. everyones flavors differ from unit to unit.. user to user.. yes.. the Superman God Alex makes it look easy.. but its kinda like making love to a woman.. you can't rush it.. take your time.. try to use different tecniques to make it happen.... use different temps.. NOT ALL SOLDER IS THE SAME!!!.. not all Flux is the same.. crappy Flux.. crappy results.. i have faith young grasshoppa..