I finally stopped pretending solder wick was optional on through-hole joints

For like 3 years I'd just heat-and-pull through-hole components, leaving messy leftover solder in the holes that made replacement a nightmare - a buddy of mine at a repair shop in Cleveland showed me how wick makes it clean in 10 seconds flat. Anybody else stubbornly skip basic tools for way too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

julia_jones7213d ago

Oh man, that reminds me of when I first started soldering years ago. I used to think flux was just some extra goo you didn't really need, so I'd skip it on everything. Ended up with these cold joints that looked like craters on the moon, had to redo a whole Arduino shield because nothing was connecting right. Finally caved and bought a little flux pen and it was like magic, everything just flowed so smooth.

matthewsullivan12d ago

Flux is definitely one of those things you learn to appreciate the hard way. I had the same experience with my first few soldering projects, everything was a mess until I grabbed a little flux pen. Now I won't even start a joint without hitting it with flux first, makes such a huge difference.