Helping Hands Soldering?

[alanp]

A technique I've tried a couple times now is one that I picked up from Quincas' videos -- put the bare PCB in the helping hands thing, load it with resistors and diodes (legs hanging free), and top solder the lot in one go. Then flip and cut the leads.

Has anyone else tried this?

[Stomptown]

I've been using that technique ever since I got a fancy pcb holder.  Only difference is I flip the pcb, cut the leads to ~.5cm and add some solder to the bottom side before cutting the rest of the leads off.  Not necessary but it pleases my OCD.  Even with the added step it it's much more efficient.

[mremic01]

This seems more efficient, but I've run into a few issues when I've tried it. It's harder to clip the leads when there are so many of them sticking up. Populating the board component by component gives you more focus on that component, meaning if you made a mistake you're more likely to catch it. Soldering it all in one go, at least for me, tends to lead to poorer joints, largely because I try to do more joints in between wiping the iron on the sponge.

Plus, populating the board is the fun part. I'd rather find a way to speed up the other stuff.

[WormBoy]

Plus, populating the board is the fun part. I'd rather find a way to speed up the other stuff.

Hihi, good to see that I am not the only one  . Soldering slowly and methodically works like meditation for me.

[Droogie]

I've used this technique for a while now. It rocks! Also for ceramic caps, and the odd IC if not using sockets.

[matmosphere]

I've done it. I thought I was cheating, and worried I missed some reason why not doing it was a bad idea. Honestly, I work outside in the cold when I solder so lately I've been populating as much as possible inside then takin long it to the garage and soldering all at once. As long as you take your time while populating it works fine imo.

[stringsthings]

Soldering slowly and methodically works like meditation for me.

me too.   Sometimes, I'm almost disappointed when the soldering is done.  For me, it's really the
process that is most rewarding.  I can't say that trouble-shooting is outright fun, but it certainly
helps to understand the circuit. 

And the fumes from soldering smell so good! 

[blearyeyes]

When I try to do it in one go I really have to be careful to make sure not to miss one or two joints. I'll have to try from the top soldering as it seems to be a good idea speed wise. I enjoy trying to go slow but lack patients because the funnest part to me is playing the freakin guitar!

[peAk]

hmm.....

Interesting. Imma gonna give it a try next time. I like to solder 10-20 components at a time and I hate having to work around all the leads sticking out.

This seems to be way more efficient.

At least for resistors and diodes.

[Rockhorst]

I've changed my style to the following procedure lately: load resistor and diodes, bend leads flat to the board, clip them of and solder from the back. Works nicely. The method in the video seems to be even faster, though I don't think it'll work on all types of caps (esp. box ones with no leads showing on the top side). Bending the leads secures everything in place nicely. A drawback is that removing a component to for instance try a different value becomes a PITA.

[reddesert]

I described what I do in a "noob questions" thread in the beginners section: basically I load up resistors and diodes, put a piece of cardboard on top to hold them in place, flip that sandwich over, put it in a vise, and solder them from the bottom.

If the board is fairly dense, then I'll do the resistors in two or more batches, spreading them out to keep the forest-of-leads problem manageable. (I don't literally populate every other resistor, but I try to spread each batch sort of evenly across the board).

After the resistors I do IC sockets and small caps, again using cardboard and/or tape and blu-tak to hold them in and soldering from the bottom. Then electro caps, large film caps, and other large stuff.

It's not as legit as populating in schematic order, but I work sorta slowly, so that would take a long time.

I am not that comfortable in my own abiliites of soldering through-hole on top of the board - I would need a smaller tip - plus it wouldn't work on stripboard, or single sided PCB.

[EBK]

I need to solder the bottom of the board a few parts at a time so I still enjoy my beer while I work without creating easily visible mistakes.     I do all the resistors in one go, but that is as far as I will venture.