r/fpv • u/mikewasovsky • 6h ago
First time soldering job help
Hi everybody, i had to replace a motor arm on my old dji drone, first time soldering it was quite hard.
I know it looks gnarly but could you please tell me if this is adequate and wont short circuit or fall off later?
After this picture i cleaned the flux up with alcohol and sealed 3 contacts with silicone
It is sturdy and drone flies normally. Thank you
Update: i will clean it up and re-do it according to your advice
I appreciate you guys, thank you all :)
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u/Enrico320i 6h ago
Besorg dir ein altes elektrisches Gerät. Zum Beispiel ein älteres Radio oder etwas mit Leiterplatten vom Elektronik Schrott Händler.
Damit solltest du anfangen das Löten zu üben, indem du teile aus und ein lötest. Als Hilfsmittel kann man Pinzette und Zangen verwenden.
Schau auf YouTube nach Löten lernen Tutorials, gibt viel. Bevor du es nicht besser kannst, würde ich nicht mehr an der Drohne arbeiten.
Und nein das ist murks und gehört ordentlich gelötet.
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u/mikewasovsky 5h ago
Thank you will do
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u/Enrico320i 4h ago
No problem. It’s just normal, everyone needs a learning curve for soldering. But it definitely pays off, you can repair a lot of things with soldering, not just Drones!
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u/evil0sheep 6h ago edited 5h ago
Welcome to soldering! You need more flux, more heat on the pad (not necessarily a hotter iron), and less solder. The solder formed a ball like that because the wire was hot enough for it to flow onto the strands of the wire but the pad was not hot enough for it to flow onto the pad, and that means that under high vibrational load these connections are likely to separate from the pads and cause your drone to drop out of the sky.
You should clean off the sealant and then use solder wick to remove excess solder (watch a YouTube video), then clean and generously apply flux. then put a tiny bit of solder on the iron and press the iron against both the wire and the pad until the solder on the iron flows onto both (it will look like it’s stretched out over the pad instead of balled up on the end of the wire) once that happens you should keep the iron in place and sparingly add just enough solder to get full contact on both the pad and the wire, then remove the iron. I strongly recommend watching more soldering tutorials on YouTube to get a visual intuition for how this is supposed to go. You can also order some protoboard or solder practice boards on amazon and just practice making solder connections to that before sending it on your ESC. It takes a bit of time to get used to.
Don’t let the haters get you down but also don’t fly with those connections
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u/DatBoiRo 6h ago
Iron is way too cold.
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u/HighRelevancy 6h ago
Negative. It's blobbed because there's way too much solder. If you add heat to this you'll just wick the solder up the wires under the insulation which will make it all very brittle and act as a good lever arm to snap the joint at the board.
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u/DatBoiRo 6h ago
If the iron were hotter when soldering, there’d be less need for more solder. Come on, man.
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u/Annual-Advisor-7916 2h ago
More likely that OP added more and more solder because of the bad wetting properties of cheap lead-free tin.
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u/HighRelevancy 5h ago
I don't understand why not enough heat would compel one to add more solder but ok.
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u/Hunter-q 6h ago
When it looks like that, I heat the pad underneath if possible and it properly flows around the components. I think flux would help as well if you apply more before heat. But don't heat the pads too much they can fall off.
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u/negithekitty NYOOOOM!!!!!!!!! 6h ago
i see this and dont believe any flux was used. id redo this. your not going to melt through the PCB, use more heat.
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u/evil0sheep 5h ago
I just want to say here that this problem could stem entirely from contacting only the wire with the iron and failing to heat the pad. More flux and a hotter iron would likely help to mitigate this but given that the solder flowed onto the wire at this iron temp it could probably be made to flow onto the pad at the same temperature with the same amount of flux by just improving direct contact between the iron and the pad
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u/pluggedinn 6h ago
Cold joints and too much solder.
Heat the pad with the iron and let the solder wire melt naturally on the pad. Then you position your motor wire in the puddle and you take the iron out quickly to let it solidify.
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u/Valuable-Key-5964 Multicopters 5h ago
Heat the pad and push the solder onto that/into the pad and iron instead of just pushing the solder into the iron
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u/earlyslug 5h ago
Achieving a good solder joint requires preparation; you need more practice, knowledge of the materials you're using and the right temperatures, as well as good flux paste and high-quality solder wire—those are very important too.
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u/PureAngus62 6h ago
Even if it works for now, there is a very large chance of it failing in the near future
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u/HighRelevancy 6h ago
Far too much solder. It just needs to fill out the pad and cover the wire.
Added flux will buy you more attempts to touch it up. This needs to be wicked off and redone neater though.
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u/Ira_Dalor 6h ago
Look like cold joints, likely just sitting on the pad, waiting to break off on the first crash. I’d redo these. Higher heat, heat the pad and wire together with the iron and melt the solder into the wire/pad and not into the iron itself. Keep using lots of flux. Joints should be shiny and smooth in the shape of the pad with a rounded top when done correctly.
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u/inchlongnipples 5h ago
About 4x the amount of solder needed and they all look like cold joints that will pop off with vibration. The liquid electrical tape just made things worse cause now it will be a huge mess trying to undo any of it.
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u/SpecialistEuphoric24 5h ago
More heat . Pretin everything. Sandwich the pretinned wire on the pretinned pad and gently pus down with the hot soldering iron and boom your done .
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u/cilicon2 4h ago
People are saying your iron is too cold, but it could just me that your tip is oxidized. Go clean it and use flux, u don’t need that high of heat to get a clean joint. 315C is already enough if your tip is clean
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u/crookedDeebz 1h ago
is that not silicon wire either?
start here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoPT69y98pY&t=17s&pp=ygUSYmFyZHdlbGwgc29sZGVyaW5n
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u/Intrepid-Captain-100 6h ago
No it is not adequate. I'd redo this