Soldering how hard is it?

Just had my busiest month ever and I am on a roll

I have done soldering in the past many years ago when I was school but how hard is to do neatly?

I am thinking of repairing laptops at low level as there is too many machines which come into my bench I have to outsource to repair. E.g I can clearly see there is a popped capacitor or it is the power connector which has a dry joint but I can't repair them myself.

I was thinking of buying a decent soldering iron and some of those Vielman kits to practise on. What do you think? Any tips I should know?

I want to get back into electronics in general as I think there is going to be a big new market for electrical repair as people are now getting environmentaly aware and not always throwing things away the second they go wrong.

The first thing I will try and fix is my Marantz CD player which has a had a dry joint for three years requiring me to hit it to get stereo sound .

 

no need to but expensive kits to practice on, loads off old pcb's find there way into bins, use them to practise your skill.One thing welll worth the money is a decent solder sucker .Iron wise i still prefer my trusty 18w antex.

 

Very easy.

 

As with most things it comes with a bit of practice.

 

Soldering on a laptop circuit board will require significant skill.

 

Yep been doing a lot of research on it today and found that these shops that offer such services have a lot of complains agains them. I think no matter what I won't be able to solder neatly enough however I am still going to learn as I can repair things like HIFI myself which dosn't require the same amount of skill as say a motherboard with very tight solder joints.

I remember from the days I did a lot of electronics my soldering was never exactly neat. I could solder 8 pin DILs but that was about my limit.

 

You need to be offering to replace the logic board AT, come on son work this through.

 

Also, many old lappies will be pre cosh regs. You will now need to use lead free solder, sonme older PCB's dont like the extra heat required to flow lead free solder.

 

Not on repairs to equipment pre the requlations,you can still use good ole lead/tin solder,widley available from all decent suppliers.Just make sure you've got suitable ventilation,ppe , cosh details and risk assessments.

 

I'm not sure that soldering on a laptop makes economic sense. I'd second Gary's suggestion.

 

Me too, though I don't really know anthing about it, it seems a sensible approach.

I thought you were doing nuclear physics the last I heared?

 

Changed my mind about opening that Nuclear power station in my back garden. I don't think the neighbours were too keen, even though my local MP Randolph Moron Sheikter said he would recoment it he I gave him a few Ponys.

I am still really rather stuck, I have competition which is increasing heavily but I have a lot of regular customers, I just need to do something radical to ensure I am the biggest and best person doing this in the south Manchester area.

 

A sound enough ambition but I doubt if learning to solder is the answer.

though my local MP Randolph Moron Sheikter said he would recoment it he I gave him a few Ponys.


....I'll bet he did

 

One of the things I have been doing lately is learning some advanced virus removal techniques. It is always my aim that if I have to format a computer (unless the hard drive has failed) I have cheated within reason.

I agree soldering is not the answer. I am just going to have to get more jobs from software based problems which is happening anyway. Hardware repairs are actually quite rare.

 

Interesting