Soldering and solder bridging questions

[Ignoramus14135]

I am going to make another timing circuit, identical to the one that I
assembled on breadboard

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Homemade-TIG-DC-to-AC-Inverter/Questions/Resistor-Mess/dscf0001.jpg

but the new one would be assembled on "pre-drilled fiberglass
board". The objective here is to mount everything neatly and to reduce
"inductive loops" etc.

The question that I have is how to connect the holes. I would love to
do it using little lines made of solder.

I also want some super nice soldering thing in general.

Is there something that could be bought for under $50 that would let
me do solder bridging and also make a very nice soldering gun (quick
to warm up, with settable temp, etc).

i

 

[Noway2]

There are two options I can think of, off the top of my head.

1 - You can use a PCB etching kit, which will contain some light
sensitive PCB material that you can draw your circuit on and then
expose it and etch it. You should be able to get such a kit from an
online electronics supplier or possibly even a local store.

2 - There are some low cost PCB houses that could make the board for
you. Some of these houses use custom software so that they can produce
boards only produced with their tools. Others use standard Gerber
plots to make the boards from. I have seen this topic come up in the
newsgroups numerous times - try searching for this subject and you
should get plenty of suggestions.

If you are concerned about signal integrity, as you mentioned reducing
the inductive loops, etc, consider putting a ground plane on one of the
layers of your PCB. I am assuming here that you will use a two layer
board. With the use of a ground plane, the power circuitry can be
somewhat arbitrary, just be sure to use bypass capacitors
appropriately.

 

[John Popelish]

I am going to make another timing circuit, identical to the one that I
assembled on breadboard

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Homemade-TIG-DC-to-AC-Inverter/Questions/Resistor-Mess/dscf0001.jpg

but the new one would be assembled on "pre-drilled fiberglass
board". The objective here is to mount everything neatly and to reduce
"inductive loops" etc.

The question that I have is how to connect the holes. I would love to
do it using little lines made of solder.

I have done that, but it works a lot more reliably if you first lay
down a small gauge wire along the route. I like 30 ga. kynar
insulated wire wrap wire, because the insulation slides off easily
with a pair of sharp cutters and the wire is silver plated, which
makes it tin very nicely.

I also want some super nice soldering thing in general.
Is there something that could be bought for under $50 that would let
me do solder bridging and also make a very nice soldering gun (quick
to warm up, with settable temp, etc).

Get a thermostatically controlled iron and a few different size tips,
something like:
http://www.web-tronics.com/aueltecosost.html

 

[[email protected]]

I am going to make another timing circuit, identical to the one that I
assembled on breadboard

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Homemade-TIG-DC-to-AC-Inverter/Questions/Resistor-Mess/dscf0001.jpg

but the new one would be assembled on "pre-drilled fiberglass
board". The objective here is to mount everything neatly and to reduce
"inductive loops" etc.

The question that I have is how to connect the holes. I would love to
do it using little lines made of solder.

I also want some super nice soldering thing in general.

Is there something that could be bought for under $50 that would let
me do solder bridging and also make a very nice soldering gun (quick
to warm up, with settable temp, etc).

i

/| /| _____________________
||__|| | |
/ O O\__ | PLEASE DO NOT |
/ \ | FEED THE TROLLS |
/ \ \|_____________________|
/ _ \ \ ||
/ |\____\ \ ||
/ | | | |\____/ ||
/ \|_|_|/ | _||
/ / \ |____| ||
/ | | | --|
| | | |____ --|
* _ | |_|_|_| | \-/
*-- _--\ _ \ | ||
/ _ \\ | / `
* / \_ /- | | |
* ___ C_c_c_C/ \C_c_c_c____________

 

[Ignoramus1487]

/| /| _____________________
||__|| | |
/ O O\__ | PLEASE DO NOT |
/ \ | FEED THE TROLLS |
/ \ \|_____________________|
/ _ \ \ ||
/ |\____\ \ ||
/ | | | |\____/ ||
/ \|_|_|/ | _||
/ / \ |____| ||
/ | | | --|
| | | |____ --|
* _ | |_|_|_| | \-/
*-- _--\ _ \ | ||
/ _ \\ | / `
* / \_ /- | | |
* ___ C_c_c_C/ \C_c_c_c____________

who are you and what is your problem with my post?

i
--

 

[John Popelish]

who are you and what is your problem with my post?

What makes you suspect that either is important enough to mention?

 

[Chris Jones]

I am going to make another timing circuit, identical to the one that I
assembled on breadboard

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Homemade-TIG-DC-to-AC-Inverter/Questions/Resistor-Mess/dscf0001.jpg

but the new one would be assembled on "pre-drilled fiberglass
board". The objective here is to mount everything neatly and to reduce
"inductive loops" etc.

The question that I have is how to connect the holes. I would love to
do it using little lines made of solder.

I also want some super nice soldering thing in general.

Is there something that could be bought for under $50 that would let
me do solder bridging and also make a very nice soldering gun (quick
to warm up, with settable temp, etc).

i

The nicest soldering iron that I have used is a Metcal MX500, but they are
fairly expensive and the tips for them are too.

For big stuff like 1206 and 0805 SMD components and also for non-SMD
components, the Weller TCP is still a reasonably good choice. That would
still be more than $50 though.

You might be able to find a supplier of Antex brand irons in the US, though
they are made in the UK. These are the best irons I know of that would be
in the $20 price range. Some of their models have a thermostat circuit in
the handle.

Avoid anything which has a 'bit' (or tip) that looks a little like a
screwdriver and where the bit is held into a hole in the end of the iron by
a set-screw in the side of the element (e.g. cheap weller irons in the
hardware store, and actually pretty much any iron in a typical hardware
store). These might be useful for opening tins of paint or maybe for
poking holes in plastic bags but are not suitable for soldering.

By the way, like the other guy said, lay a piece of wire along your
connection before you solder. Solder is actually a pretty bad conductor
compared to copper, so using solder for long lengths of track is bad. Also
the solder does not really like to bridge gaps because of the surface
tension, unless there is a wire there for it to stick to. (ok, solder will
happily bridge the gap between the pins of a TSSOP, but only because you
don't want it to. If you wanted it to it wouldn't.)

Chris