[Elecraft] OT: soldering practice

[Don Wilhelm]

  Doug,

I would suggest you obtain a piece of perf-board with thru-plated holes 
along with a bunch of resistors (1/4 watt are not expensive in lots of 200).
Give her the Soldering Tutorial that is on the Elecraft website.

While practice with boards that have had the components removed can be 
less expensive, I believe she should start with clean components and 
clean board holes - for one thing, it is easier to look at and evaluate 
the solder connections after a practice session - too much solder, too 
little solder, component lead not heated sufficiently, solder pad not 
heated sufficiently are all things you can evaluate when working with a 
new board.  A used board will not provide as much information because 
there is already a bit of solder on the pads.

In other words, start her out with good tools and materials, this is not 
a time to be "cheap" IMHO.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 6/5/2011 7:10 AM, DOUGLAS ZWIEBEL wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> 1.  Please reply off-list
>
> 2.  I want to teach my daughter how to solder leaded components onto a
> circuit board (to start).
>
> 3.  Where can I get a cheap (really cheap?) source of boards to play on.
> Obviously, they do not need to work, can be broken, etc.
>