Topic: Soldering to a circuit board...

[F.O.Bean]

the braid will take care of that alex, it gets everything really clean

also, keep a wet towel/sponge around to wipe the tip of the soldering iron off and keep it hot as hell

[Daryan]

Yeah, agree with Bean here, run to the shack and grab some braid.  Then place the braid on top of the solder point, apply heat, and watch as the solder completely soaks in and disappears.  This will leave you with an empty, nice looking hole from which to work.
FWIW, I found 4 percent silver solder to work better for pcb stuff.  Just what I found though.
D

[F.O.Bean]

Yeah, agree with Bean here, run to the shack and grab some braid.  Then place the braid on top of the solder point, apply heat, and watch as the solder completely soaks in and disappears.  This will leave you with an empty, nice looking hole from which to work.
FWIW, I found 4 percent silver solder to work better for pcb stuff.  Just what I found though.
D

d, shoot me your damn addy, we need to exchange a few tapes

[sml42]

In my experience, braid works OK if you have a relatively hot and large tip on your iron. You can buy braid impregnated with flux, or just the raw copper braid. If you are new to this, you probably want the flux-impregnated braid.

One tip I recently came across (after being involved in electronics, one form or another, for 20 years!) is thus:

Have a hard work surface to hand. Apply heat to the solder for a few seconds... and when it is good and molten, quickly slip the iron to the side and BANG the board down HARD on the work surface. Provided there is a small gap between board and work surface, the solder will splodge out. This does actually work very well, a fairly clean solder removal, no flux required.

I normally do this on PCBs I designed though... so even though my career is in electronics, I would be VERY wary of doing this with anyone elses boards.  G-forces can fuck up many crystals, you have been warned!

best regards,
stephen

[F.O.Bean]

ive done that stephen,m even when no hard surface is around, i just snap my wrist and it usually goes flying out

especially useful when doing 3/4-pins

[nic]

paint thinner is also a great flux cleaner