Resources to Get Good at Soldering?
Hello. I've recently started soldering, specifically wanting to repair the joysticks on several Playstation 4 controllers I have, but I also want to get good at electronic repair in general.
Right now I've busted a board, and managed to desolder and resolder a stick but the controller doesn't turn on anymore. I'm doing this all by myself, and I think I'm following good advice (ventilation, good iron tip, using flux etc...).
But there are many variables, and a lot of experts have different opinions on stuff. Does anyone know good resources that I could use for getting good and making less mistakes ? Thanks.
My late friend Ward was a strong supporter of Build-a-Blinkie[1] and their mission to teach people to solder by doing.
My friend Jim's been soldering since the 1950s. We solder a lot of things with leads, for this, his method is to get each item to be joined tinned, then use solder as a mechanical joint. Melt in the solder, remove the iron but hold them together, then once cool, tug on the joint to make sure it holds.
[1] https://build-a-blinkie.org/events.php
You don't need any real educational resources to get good at soldering. Any random primer will do. It's genuinely a simple task that doesn't require a lot of explanation or have a lot of tricks.
What gets you good at soldering is just practice. Solder a lot. A fun and easy way to do this is to pick up those cheap ($5 or less) electronic solder-it-yourself kits and do a bunch of them. Include ones that contain small surface mount parts.
You can also practice desoldering on them, or pick up broken electronics and desolder parts from those.
> managed to desolder and resolder a stick but the controller doesn't turn on anymore.
There's a chance to practice repair (which is a completely different topic from soldering)! Odds are very high the problem is that you've made an unwanted solder bridge or you have a cold solder joint.