post pictures of what you are trying to solder.

that is not a PRO soldering iron, you might want to buy a soldering station where you can set the temperature you want , plus another tip, there is a bunch of tip that are used depending on the area

areas that are ground are hard to deal, because they need high temperature and bigger tip, else the solder will not melt.

Heat up the area to be soldered with a hair dryer first.

Is there corrosion on the solder points you're trying to melt? If they look dark or dull try yo scrape it until it looks shiny, and also apply flux to help the solder to flow. You may also try to add fresh solder while heating up the joint as well.

If all you're going to do are simple tasks like removing batteries then you don't need something too fancy or expensive, but that gun-type iron doesn't look very comfortable for this job, I would get the more common pencil type.

When using a conical tip you generally want to touch the solder joint with the side of the tip, trying to apply heat by only touching with the pointy tip is not going to work properly. Also remember to tin the tip often, especially if it's metal (personally I find ceramic tips much better and easier to maintain). Most people will recommend a chisel tip due to its greater ability to transfer heat, but I mostly use conical since I find it more precise even when doing SMD stuff (when using a chisel I always end up heating several components at once). In your case it probably doesn't really matter what tip you choose.

Some photos of the board you're working on could help also.

Coming from 40 years of soldering experience starting out when I was just a child and father building soldering together electronic kits all the way to current job fixing phones, game consoles, etc.

Warmer the board is, works better.

The 10 dollar soldering iron junk is your biggest causes of problems good for burning wood art. Poor thermal conductivity from heater to the literally thin rod of copper tip all are screwed on and kept in place with a set screw. Gah. But I can suggest doing a modification to the tip to get bit more performance; saw off that end diagonally giving you a bevel tip instead of conical.

One step up is soldering station with indirect heater barrel that surrounds the very thick soldering tip which is better and tad faster reaction time, The tell tale design is hand nut & external barrel at base of the handle holds the tip on. Commonest models: Quick, Weller and few others. I have Quick now that replaced the dead adjustable Weller based on similar design. Still have the other Weller station. I wished I bought the other station with tip cartridge type. The problem with the indirect heater is reaction time is still slow and not good on heavy copper planes but you can wait long time to get results.

Best of all is any soldering stations that has replaceable cartridges that has heater built right inside the tip with contact bands at other end. Quick change, turn off and pull the tip out of the handle, and push different tip in. Light, medium and heavy tips in all types of tips. Reaction time is milliseconds when touches the work and can solder at less temperature (350-500C) and not burn the board, instead of over-driving the tip (700C) at higher temp to get any work and more chance of burning and overheating something. Heats up cold tip in few seconds.

You can find one very cheap for these occasional need. Fast reaction, can get heavy tips for this massive copper plane soldering.
Also don't have to be expensive.

Like this:

https://www.unionrepair.com/toor-t12-11-75w-d … ng-station.html
https://www.unionrepair.com/sugon-t26-precisi … dering-tip.html

Tips design is crucial too:
Conical tips is poorest, all round, too small contact patch for heat transfer, I prefer conical with very tip flattened wedge type that ends in softly rounded chisel shape, comes in several sizes, medium size is perfect. Not bevel knife. But I also like large cylindrical bevel tip. This is perfect for this application where soldering ground lugs, capacitors etc.
Example of this:
https://sra-solder.com/set-of-soldering-iron-tips-bevel

Cheers,

What I have found with leaking barrel batteries is that the leak changes the properties of the solder and it simply will not melt. Turns it into a powdery looking gray type crap.

I usually clip the battery leads to get the battery off and then work on them one at a time.

Putting flux on the joints and then adding new solder helps enough to be able to get the old battery leads out but it is still a pain.

@pentiumspeed
The TS100 has the same kind of technology for 50€ 😁
This is really a great advancement in tech imo.

Also yes I think it's better to clip off the battery first and then melt the joints. Because at the moment, the battery must be sucking some of the heat itself, which doesn't help with corroded solder joints, plus that may be a risk considering the chemicals that sit in it !

Deksor wrote on 2020-09-30, 05:49:

@pentiumspeed The TS100 has the same kind of technology for 50€ :D This is really a great advancement in tech imo. […]
Show full quote

@pentiumspeed
The TS100 has the same kind of technology for 50€ 😁
This is really a great advancement in tech imo.

Also yes I think it's better to clip off the battery first and then melt the joints. Because at the moment, the battery must be sucking some of the heat itself, which doesn't help with corroded solder joints, plus that may be a risk considering the chemicals that sit in it !

TS100 is pretty good. So are T12 Hakko clones. Can find them on ebay, but they maybe even better than a 100% copy of a hakko FX888 since they dont have annoying controls. Both options can be had under $50 Dollars.

The chinese clones are so good that I can't see any reason to buy the real thing, and if you are that worried about quality you can buy a T12 Clone kit and build your own.

I think that soldering iron OP linked is junk but the overall design of that might be good for someone with only 1 hand, so I don't want to totally clown it.

Damn, these replies...thank you...even the people who suggested I do something I literally put in the post they are responding to or have already tried.

One of my main questions is the solder paste one. Does anyone know? I think I might just throw $20 at it and see what happens. I mean, it's not the end of the world if it is as worthless as I envisage.

Warlord wrote on 2020-09-30, 06:11:

I think that soldering iron OP linked is junk but the overall design of that might be good for someone with only 1 hand, so I don't want to totally clown it.

Probably, it's just a basic pencil with a right angle. I selected it deliberately because I found the distance between where I hold a pencil and the work to interfere with my control over what I'm doing. I didn't want to spend $150. And then about $40 on tips. And then another $50 on odds and ends like a hot air pencil a wick a vacuum pump and a flux capacitor. I'm sure that's the difference between quality soldering and what I have going on. I just thought I could get by with less than that for the most basic capacitor swapping and a larger component or two.

And while we're going on about it, it's a cheap tool, I can see that, but that doesn't stop other people from doing actual useful work with it. Maybe it's the wrong type of tool (non miniaturized electronics) but the point is what I pointed out in my post and not some generalized request for people to point out what a fool I am; it ought to be able to do the basic tasks I have in mind and that is the modest expectation I have of it. Yet, I struggle, and I'm hoping to learn if there's something I'm doing wrong besides having bought equipment that nearly everyone but me seems to get along with.

I just removed a very stubborn and extremely corroded barrel battery from my Amiga 2000 several weeks ago. You'll need a temperature adjustable iron, and the tip doesn't matter a whole lot for the desoldering activity. The batteries usually tie into a large ground plane and require a lot of heat to liquify the solder.

The easiest way is to clip the battery off the board, but leave a good amount of leg on there so you can grab onto it with needle nose pliers later.

Start with a small amount of solder on your iron tip, add some flux to the back of the board where the battery legs come through, then touch the soldering iron to that through-hole connection and feed in a little more new solder. It should liquify and have fresh looking solder. Then you can pull that battery leg out of the hole with the needle nose pliers and come back with the solder sucker to clear out the hole.

For a whole host of soldering techniques, you can look at the link in my signature.

I have one of the Chinese knockoff Hakko clones. One with the regular iron and the hot-air irons as well. Has been reliable for the few years in have had it. I also ended up buying an antique vacuum desoldering station. That makes a lot of difference with being able to actually suck the holes clean.

Those plunger type solder suckers I grew up with are absolute crap compared to a real desoldering station... and the plunger type can also end up helping you damage what you are working on.

Best way to get the holes cleaned out that works for me is to heat from the one side and then use the desoldering station sucker from the other side... especially on ground plane connected holes.

If you don't want to spend the money on a mechanical vacuum pump solder sucker, the only good manual one I've used is the "Engineer SS-02 Solder Sucker".. I use it all the time and it works extremely well. I even did an entire Socket 8 Pentium Pro CPU socket replacement with it.

I always wanted to get the engineer, but so far my super cheap €1.41 solder sucker has been working like an absolute breeze ^^

Hmm. The temperature controlled irons really are pretty awesome. My Chinese Hakko T12 clone only cost $30, and tips are about $3 a piece from China. It heats up in less than 30 seconds and with its flexible cord and slender handle lets me manipulate it easily and get into tight places. My previous experience with an iron was a basic Radio Shack unit, which took about five minutes to get hot. I know people do use those basic pencils to do serious work, you're right on this, but they're certainly harder to use and easier to damage a circuit board with. Given temperature controlled irons are so cheap, I think they're now really only for soldering wires and basic point to point wiring.

Other thing of note is to make sure you're using first rate consumables. Stuff made in America, since you're American, like Kester, MG Chemicals and Chemtronics. I've not bought the cheap stuff, but I keep hearing the difference is profound. Ditto for traditional, leaded solder. I remember the wick that came with my learn to solder kit. It sucked, but not solder. Maybe that's why everyone thinks wick doesn't work, they have cheap wick?

Lastly, solder is much easier to melt if put flux on it. Not just flux from new solder, but large amounts straight from a flux pen. This will really help you clean out old joints and flow large joints.

You should be able to buy a temperature controlled iron and a basic set of professional quality chemicals for $50 on Amazon.

wiretap wrote on 2020-10-01, 13:51:

If you don't want to spend the money on a mechanical vacuum pump solder sucker, the only good manual one I've used is the "Engineer SS-02 Solder Sucker".. I use it all the time and it works extremely well. I even did an entire Socket 8 Pentium Pro CPU socket replacement with it.

I bought one, and I actually kind of regret it. It's infinitely better than the generic solder sucker I bought prior, but for the most part I find I just use desoldering braid. Which is expensive too, but $25 buys 50 feet of Chemtronics wick. Which is still cheaper than the Engineer.

I've never had good luck with solder braid for clearing holes. It depends on the diameter, thickness of the PCB, and pin size. It always seems to leave some behind and the pins stay stuck. I mainly use braid for cleaning pads or cleaning up SMD/QFP stuff.