So I picked up one of those mini soldering irons from massdrop a while back. I've never soldered anything in my life and have no idea what kind of projects I should be getting started with. I don't have have any EE knowledge, either. I am an SE by profession, though, so hardware/embedded programming should not be an insurmountable leap.
Do any EE types hang around Sup Forums? If you do, what should I be doing?
solder a processeor
There's a lot you can do with an soldering iron but you should narrow down your interests. Truth be told all s soldering does is place components and remove them. Really depends on what kind of electronic circuits you want to make.Visit /diy/ for a more insightful response.
Like Ahmed
In order to git gut with an iron you just need mindless practice. Its a skill that needs to developed.
Try and make an LED matrix. start with a 3x3x3 and than if you feel like it expand maybe make a 3d clock ahmed.
This will give you some decent practice time for dirt cheap and if you bring it to school you might get invited to MIT or the White house.
Apart from that get your hands on some old boards (like 1970 radios) and desolder components from it.
As far as actual projects you wont solder that much. Most people use breadboards for early prototypes and cad stuff for the circuit before they inevitably ship it to china to be made by children, their small hands make for much grater precision and they get played less.
also for general circuit design and project ideas:
>The Art of Electronics 3rd Edition
I soldered hundreds of cables and often spent hours of rework on jobs, now that i think of it what a fucking waste of time. Should've badgered the designeers to use off the shelf cables. OP you don't need an iron unless you're building boards off oshpark.
Cool, thanks guys.
In your opinion, where would the time be better spent for someone trying to get into EE?
Got an old xbox360 laying around? want to use the controler for somthing else?
Try this.
instructables.com
It's as easy as it looks
burn wood. really relaxing.
make holes in plastic
Go find some old electronics that people threw away like an old dvd player or something and practice soldering and desoldering components. You're probably going to fuck up so you don't want to gain experience by messing with something you actually want
You can start by modifying things around the house. I use mine mainly for repairing purposes, mostly cables and replacing components. Or just mod some stuff by making a hole on them with it. Stuff I've used my soldering station on;
>repair my netbook backlight FFC cable
>combine my galaxy s3 battery for double capacity
>mod my old PSU for extra switches to turn AC fans on/off
>IR blaster out of 3.5mm audio phone cable
>repair/extend my usb cable charger
>burn holes on my old ITX casing as it doesnt really have any for ventilation and I dont have a dremel
>kill bees, lizards and roaches with it. Sizzling.
Really it's better to think of it as just a tool. Similar how to use a usb stick.
If you really want practice just buy some kits.
electronickitsbychaneyelectronics.com
You can build multirotors or mess around with RC stuff.
I use a soldering iron everyday, i'm and auto-elec / electro comms tech, always soldering cannon plugs - to ant bulkheads and through hole components - to battery lugs. I learnt soldering by soldering and desoldering hundred pin cannon plugs for a couple days. Hint, you want a medium heat, not to hot to cause dry joints, not to cool that the solder solidifies half way through. Try what some said before and solder up a led matrix or buy some diy kits
>projects are the means
>using this tool is the end
555 LED blinker is a pretty good electronics hello world project.
These if you want to destroy your fancy expensive iron asap. Use a $10 plugin iron for this shit.
Dave from the EEVblog youtube channel has a few soldering videos that offer some good insight. I'm a EE grad student and solder almost daily. Some tips for ya:
Don't keep your iron on the highest temperature setting. You'll just burn out your tip that way. I keep mine on 300 C for lead bearing solder and rarely change it.
If you have one of these tip cleaners amazon.com
Never use a conical tip unless you absolutely have to. Those things are garbage and offer terrible heat transfer. Chisel tips are much better.
Heat the pad and the component to be soldered.
Hakko's website has several videos and pages describing good soldering practices and theory. It's definitely worth looking at.
calculus
Mass drop is a complete scam
>>The Art of Electronics 3rd Edition
>recommending this book to a noob who just bought a soldering iron
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