The soldering iron has to have the right temperature, and have enough
BTU's to heat the connection. Make sure you are using 60-40 type
solder.

A proper soldering station is what is normaly used. This will allow
for proper temperature control, and can put out enough BTU's of heat.

If you do not have a lot of experience at soldering on to circuit
boards, it is very easy to damage the solder pads and traces on the
board. This is especialy true with multi-layer boards. This type of
damage takes a lot of experience to fix, it is not easily repairable.
Not having the proper tools and experience can usually lead to
damaging the circuit board, and sometimes the components that are
being heated.


Jerry G.
======


On Jun 12, 7:50 pm, Antony Gelberg wrote:
Hi,

I know this should be simple but isn't. I need to resolder a DC power
connector on a laptop, due to dry joints.

I can't find my old, rarely used soldering iron, so I went to Maplin and
bought their cheapo 30W soldering iron. http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...32909&doy=13m6

I would have thought that is good enough for PCB soldering, but I can barely
get the old solder on the board to melt, let alone re-solder the joint. I
can't work like this, I'm going to arse about for hours and still not get it
done properly. Is the problem likely to be the fine point nib that it came
with? I have always used flat-tip bits in the past. Or is the Maplin iron
crap, and should I have bought the Antek 30W instead -http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=45545&&source=14&doy=13m6?

All advice appreciated.

I should mention that I also tried my 100W soldering gun, like this one:http://tinyurl.com/2z8ehn.

No luck here, but then I have always hated this tool and never been able to
use it effectively. It's rated for 12 seconds use in a minute (don't know
what happens if you go above that), but takes about 9 seconds to even get hot
enough to melt solder. Are these crap, or am I not using the thing properly?

Antony