Cleaning up solder joints

Take a look for these issues in your build:

• "Blob" joints where the solder doesn't form a neat "tent" around the lead. This is from either too much solder or not enough heat.
• Joints that don't cover the pad completely.
• "Cold" solder joints where the joint is not perfectly shiny and uniform. This is the result of not enough heat during soldering.

Follow this process to re-flow any suspect joints:

1. Get your soldering good and hot, make sure the tip is clean (no black oxidation) and tinned (plenty of solder covering the tip)
2. Heat the solder joint, touching the iron to where the pad and the lead meet
3. Heat for 2-5 seconds until the solder melts completely. Sometimes the solder will seem to suddenly “snap” onto the pad. That’s what we want!
4. Add a tiny amount of solder to the molten joint. Leave the iron for another 2 seconds after this
5. Remove the iron