I just bought a pack of Elegoo Arduino Nanos. I have very little experience with soldering, and when I soldered my pins on some of the pins got connected by solder. (pictures below). Will this be a problem, or will I have to separate them?
Separate them before you attempt to add any power
What did you use to solder them ?
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Ok, I will separate them. I just used a standard soldering iron, using the skinniest tip that I had.
What type of solder did you use ?
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It will be a problem. Your pictures are so blurry that it is not possible to see, clearly, what pins are together, but it cannot be good for any to be that way. You can use solder braid or a solder sucker to remove the excess solder. I prefer solder braid.
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I'm not completely sure, but here is the link to the kit that I have.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LPVQXPS?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_product_details
That kit looks OK.
I use 2.5mm wide solder braid (AKA solder wick) for finer work like yours.
For my hobby use, I use tin lead solder (63/37). It is much more forgiving and easier to learn to use. I have used tin lead solder for over 50 years and suffer no ill effects. The lead free solder is more difficult to use. As long as you solder in a well ventilated area do not eat your projects the lead won't kill you.
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If you don't have solder braid or a solder sucker, you can use the iron itself to remove the excess solder. That's the technique I have always used in this particular situation even though I have both wick and a solder sucker on hand, which I do use in other applications. Just keep alternating between cleaning the solder off on the damp sponge and passing it between the bridged pins. The solder collects onto the dry solder tip until it becomes loaded up.
If you have it, add some flux first. That helps with the process.
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Is there any way I can remove solder, with no other tools than just my soldering iron and some other household items?
Read my reply above. I explained how it can be done with only the tools you have on hand.
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Reply #9 by @pert. I have use that technique as well. Works best with a well tinned tip.
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Great! I will try that!
Alright, I unattached all of the connected pins using this method. Thanks for the help!
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You're welcome. I'm glad to hear you had success. Enjoy your Nanos!
Per
From memory, wooden tooth picks also work. Melt the solder and work the solder out with the tooth pick.
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Yes, de-soldering braid of different widths.
Sometime with vias, I use a can of compressed gas and a fine needle to blow the solder out.
A variety of decent iron tips down to very fine and always a flux like ChipQuik in addition to any cored flux.
Something like QFN32 chips are a challenge, but running over again with braid generally always cleans up the occasional bridge.
A good magnifier helps and does show just how many mistakes you make.
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The extra you pay for getting Arduino with headers is nothing in comparison with the cost of replacing one because of the horrible soldering job
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I do think that often it is not worth the savings for the headerless boards when a pre-soldered alternative is readily available for a bit more.
However, you will likely find that it is not possible to avoid soldering altogether if you get into Arduino or electronics in general at any significant level. Some modules or dev boards are only available without pre-soldered headers. So you might see that the soldering of the headers has value of its own as you learn what is likely to be an essential skill.
Of course, there are less economically risky ways to practice soldering, such as going to town soldering wire jumpers on a perfboard. But in the world of Arduino, sometimes people are finding different paths to skill and knowledge than the traditional formal approaches that work very well for a select subset of people, but not at all for everyone else. Arduino is really about the "everyone else".
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Obviously, you shouldn't learn to solder on the Arduino Nano. There are wires, resistors, diods and a perfboard for this. There are many videos on YouTube on how to learn to solder.
Not an overheated soldering iron, not a lot of solder, and necessarily a flux (liquid or paste). More flux is better than less. Lots of training.
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