Soldering for beginners.

  This article was written to help people who can’t solder, who want to learn how to solder right. 
  I think it’s better to begin with practice. Apart from wish and patience you'll need the following:
  Soldering iron. Soldering irons can be different, firstly pay attention to its power. 3-10W soldering irons are for soldering very small chips, 20-40W are considered ham and for home use, 60-100W soldering irons are for auto shops and for soldering thick wires and 100-250 are used for soldering pots, radiators and other big things.
  But what for modders need soldering? Thin wires, resistors, diodes and other little things, that’s why buy 25W soldering iron. Don’t take too powerful soldering irons. Radio parts don’t like overheating and they can go wrong. Don’t overdo.
 Stand for a soldering iron. When the soldering iron is turned on it can heat up to 300 C degrees. You have to put it somewhere. Put the working soldering iron on a stand to the right on the edge of the table. Observe the safety regulations, control its wires and warn others.
 
 Solder alloy. Solder alloy is alloy of copper, lead, cadmium and other free-melting metals. There are different kinds of solder alloy. There are free-melting, 65-75 C degrees and there are high-melting – 1000 C and higher. Radio amateurs use soldering alloy POS-61. I recommend you to buy it in match-size wire – it would be easier to solder.
 

  Flux. Flux is some kind of connecting, de-oiling and protecting from corrosion material, which helps solder alloy to stick to soldering point, you can’t solder without flux. It can be also of different types. For different metals, solder alloys and technologies. Radio amateurs always use LTI-120 flux or alcoholic liquid of colophony or just colophony. You can make colophony by yourself. Fill a half of a vial with spirit, add crumbled colophony and shake till it will be dissolved.
 I recommend you to buy somewhat active flux. It could be useful for soldering chrome-plated outputs of some switches and connectors. You could also colder contacts with an aspirin pill. It will be stinking but it works.
We’ll also need a small piece of thin plywood, fiberboard or plexus to protect a table.
 Instruments. Small nippers for wires, details outputs and for removing isolation, a file for clearing soldering tip, a pincers to protect your fingers and medical scalpel.
 Devices. I strongly recommend you buy a digital tester. It’s very useful device. You need it check voltage and resistance and its very cheap.