In addition to all the great advice about soldering, I'd like to add my two cents: holding the item to be soldered, and the solder, and the board, and the iron, is a neat trick.
In the "real world", there are tools to help - PC board vices with hold downs that help steady the component. In the shack, the temptation is to "spring" or worse *bend* the component leads to hold them in place, and then solder with the item hanging down. I don't find that acceptable, if only because bent-soldered-trimmed leads are very difficult to remove. So over time, I've somehow developed a technique that works to hold everything in place. I use a panavise to hold the board, and the board is usually close to vertical for component loading. I have learned to hold the solder in my left hand while stabilizing the component on the other side with the smaller fingers of the same hand - sometimes this means a long snake of solder from the coil to the solder land. But works to get the item tacked in place, usually. (It works great for ICs.) Reposition as needed for esthetics, then you can move the board to whatever position you like to solder the rest of the leads, and finally go back to the original one to add more solder or reflow as needed. It's sometimes almost comical, but it works... 73 de chris K6DBG _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
