Getting Started in Electronics

Soldering is a essential skill if you want to do electronic repairs, build projects as a hobby or even commercial products.

If you're getting started in electronics and struggle with manual skills, don't worry. It doesn't mean you're not good at it. Sometimes you have the wrong tools and lack of knowledge as a beginner. It just takes practice and having the right information.

I started out repairing headphones at an Internet café where I used to work. Some special clients liked to pull the headphones from the cable instead of the plug, shortening their lifespan. I just don't like the buy-throw-buy mindset when things can be repaired. I felt something was wrong when we were buying new headphones every month and decided to do something about it and help my boss saving money on supplies.

That's how I purchased my first soldering iron. Nothing special, no temperature control or replaceable tips. I felt it very hard at the beginning. The tips wore out easily and it took for me a lot of time to repair a single pair. My soldering, even if it worked at the moment, was a mess. I just thought I had bought the wrong tools.

After some time I decided to do proper research on how to solder (instead of trying to figure it out by trial an error as before) and my results improved dramatically. It turned out the real problem was I lacked skills and practice, AND had the wrong tools and didn't know to choose. I visited an electronics shop and bought some perfboards, basic components like leds, buttons and resistors, and a soldering practice kit called "Simons Says" from SparkFun Electronics.

Simon Says is a game that has four leds and they make a secuence as they turn on. For example, the first iteration a light will turn on one time. Next, two lights will turn on, it can be at the same position or another. And so on, each iteration adds one more position and the goal is to repeat the secquence pressing buttons. If you fail you start over. You will like after 10 successful hits. The point is, the soldering was correct if you could play the game properly. I was so excited, my soldering was very neat and could finally know that electronics was right for me.

Later I continued soldering the header pins of other components like LCD displays, Arduino and Raspberry Pi. This gave me the confidence to move from the breadboard to prototype PCBs for my own projects. Finally I became a freelancer designer and programmer of electronic devices for startups. My next goal is to learn SMD soldering and build professional PCBs like you can see on a remote control or cell phone. And hopefuly, build my own electronics lab.

So if you think this beautiful journey is for you I give you some tips:

SAFETY FIRST. Buy safety googles that fully cover your eyes. Solder blobs may to jump right to your face. Happened to me and my googles saved my eye from serious injury.

Get basic tools first. Wait until you gain experience before you move to more complex tools like soldering iron with temperature control, heat gun or even a reflow oven.

Buy a soldering iron with repleaceable tips and solder spool. You don't need to replace the whole soldering iron and you won't need to worry too much about mistakes. Choose in the range of 30 W - 40 W.

Note: from experience, the solder tube from your first soldering kit will probably suck. This is one of the cases when you do have the wrong tools. Grab a spool from an electronics shop, but practice with the one from the tube too so you can get a feeling of both.

Learn how to clean the tip. Buy a special sponge or brass wool. Tin (cover the tip with solder and clean) your soldering iron after use to remove oxidation. Clean after 2 to 5 applications of solder.

Buy soldering flux. This is a special liquid or paste which helps a lot with the application of solder.

Learn to desolder. Mistakes happen but you can correct them. Buy a solder wick and a desoldering pump.

Get some other tools. Wire strippers, diagonal cutters, nose pliers, flush cutters, third hand / PCB holder, soldering / cutting mat (cardboard will work fine if on a budget), anti-static wristband.

Get a basic multimeter. This tool is like the swiss army knife for the electronics technician or hobbyist. It will help you check continuity between solder joints so you can know if the contacts are in short (if they shouln't) or they are properly connected (if they should be). Besides soldering you can check current and voltages, diagnose electrical appliances and find burnt components.

Learn to read and make schematics. When you move to more complex projects, you need to know where are you going to solder the components. Keeping a diagram handy will save you time prevent you from commiting mistakes. Start with Easy EDA and search tutorials on YouTube.

If you'd like to learn more, Sparkfun tutorials are a good place to start: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/where-do-i-start/all

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