Solder Wick/Braid...What am I doing wrong? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: humidbeing
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 02:42:53 am
content: I have never been able to get solder wick to work...like, at all.I've tried wick from: MG Chemicals, Chemtronics, and NTE.I'm using a TS80P iron with a chisel tip. I've tried temps from 340 to 400.I'm applying plenty of Amtech flux.The solder will completely liquify UNDER the braid, but will not soak into it. Not even a tiny bit!I'm using 63/37 leaded solder.What am I doing wrong? I see people on Youtube using this stuff and it just soaks up the solder. I'm baffled.

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 02:47:25 am
content: If you put flux on the wick by itself and just apply solder to it like you would a stranded wire does it tin the wick or not?

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 02:51:40 am
content: Do you put soldering iron on top of the braid or just poke melted solder with a cold braid?

author: humidbeing
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 02:55:05 am
content: Quote from: wraper on December 14, 2023, 02:51:40 amlmao, yes iron on top. The solder liquifies under the braid, but doesn't flow into it.

author: humidbeing
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 02:55:45 am
content: Quote from: xrunner on December 14, 2023, 02:47:25 amGood question will test this and reply back.

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 02:59:04 am
content: Quote from: humidbeing on December 14, 2023, 02:55:45 amOK. If it does tin the wick by itself I think that you don't have enough heat when trying to use the wick on an additional load such as a component lead or PCB trace.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 03:02:24 am
content: No need to add flux or solder,put the wick on the solder you want gone,apply your iron and let the braid work its magic.Ive always had good results with the chemitronics stuff,not so with the Spirig stuff,think they forgot to add anything to the braid .

author: Veteran68
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 03:08:36 am
content: Quote from: themadhippy on December 14, 2023, 03:02:24 amIn my experience adding a little flux to the wick helps a lot. It allows the solder to flow easier and farther up the wick, removing more solder in one application.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 03:15:28 am
content: Solder wick tends to have good and bad quality, and the difference between the two is like night and day. Good solder wick is pre-impregnated with flux, and it sucks up solder like blotting paper. Bad solder wick rejects solder and won't wet at all. It may just be that you have bad or counterfeit solder wick.A good test of solder wick is to put some molten solder on your iron tip and then touch the solder wick to the iron. If the wick is good it will just suck up the molten solder like a sponge. If you have some gel flux, dip the solder wick in the flux first, and then it should definitely attract the solder.

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 03:36:54 am
content: In years past I had gotten some 'Solder-Wick' that was as alergic to solder as if it were Litz Wire or Stainless Steel. I fully believe it was bogus although the label looked genuine. I may have bought it at a stateside hamfest. It was unusable!!

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 04:24:05 am
content: same here, recent purchases of solder wick, different sizesthe copper mesh is bad, had to pour flux on it to help, ditched them and bought elsewheresince covid quality as dropped on many things

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 05:36:51 am
content: I want a response from the OP

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 06:57:24 am
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on December 14, 2023, 05:36:51 amWhile we wait for that. I vote for bad solderwick.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 07:12:23 am
content: i think the flux worked when it was on the braid and the passed out after hours of all the desoldering that he has been avoiding

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 10:27:04 am
content: Any piece of copper multi strand wire should work well enough.How To Make "AMAZING" SOLDER BRAID / Great Soldering HackMr SolderFix

author: shapirus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 10:58:04 am
content: I have yet to see solder wick braid that doesn't work. Anything I have ordered so far, including Aliexpress, has worked like a charm for me. Maybe I've just been lucky.Some specimens were impregnated with really smelly flux, though, yet they still worked.Good thermal contact and sufficient power transfer between the tip and the pad, via the braid, are vital.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 12:31:00 pm
content: I buy MG Chemicals wick all the time. I wet it with a flux pen on both sides though, as it is not factory impregnated with flux. I just can't see why MG Chemicals not work, unless OP bought a bogus one from Ali.

author: armandine2
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 01:07:29 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on December 14, 2023, 06:57:24 amI was given a large old reel of copper braided wire over a polyester (I guess) cord, which I haven't been able to find for sale.I cut a few cms off the reel, remove the cord and it works, marvellous - the solder wick I bought was useless.I doubt this is anything other than strand thickness.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 01:32:44 pm
content: A random thought,how well will braid designed for silver solder work with tin/lead solder,or vice versa

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 02:22:09 pm
content: after decades of use, my experience:1/ Match the width of the braid to diameter of the solder joint eg use 0.100" brade on a joint abot 0.1002/ No flux needed on good braid it is embedded already3/ Apply hot iron with clean tip right size to braid, NO added solder.Push tip against brid and braid on the connection4/ Jiggle tip for best thermal contact5/ Beware any epay or Chinese vendr may have counterfeit braid6/ After someburned boards and ruined parts we went to other desoder methods, like the one strok spring pump irons, perhaps $15 ea from China.Bon chanceJon

author: macboy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 02:59:49 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on December 14, 2023, 01:32:44 pmCopper wets very well with lead free, leaded, or silver bearing solder, it makes no difference. As long as the braid is made of clean pure copper, then any electronics solder will wet into it.The "Amtech" flux that the OP is using may not be ideal. First, there is the possibility that it is fake. Second, even if genuine, the most popular Amtech NC-559 is a no-clean flux. A very important property of virtually all no-clean fluxes is that the fluxing action is very limited in duration. In other words, the soldering heat activates the flux so that it cleans the oxides from the surfaces, then -this part is important- the chemicals are used up, which effectively de-activates the flux, and it no longer has any "fluxing" action. At that point, it is benign residue, which is exactly why it is considered "no-clean". At soldering iron temperatures (much higher than reflow), this happens within a few secondsat most. When desoldering with braid, you will always exceed this heat/time, and deactivate the flux quite quickly. A no-clean flux core in solder wire is designed to fully activate then become benign within the 3 or so seconds it takes to hand solder a single joint.Other types of flux are continuously active when hot, and inactive when cool. This is true of most Rosin flux (R - not activated, or most RMA - mildly activated, and some RA - activated). The residue is hard, crusty, and ugly, but can be safely left behind on most boards. There are exceptions to every rule: high moisture makes a difference, and some activators in some Rosin fluxes are not safe to leave. Always read the datasheet for your flux. If I rarely feel the need to add flux to braid/wick, I always choose a good quality RA or RMA flux, and never any type of rosin-free no-clean. If I could buy Kester 44 flux in a bottle, I would be in heaven. That stuff is just ridiculously amazingly good.One tip for desoldering with braid: if the board is cold, forget it. I always reflow the joint first, with a little flux, making sure that the solder liquefies completely (including to the other side for through-hole). Then I quickly introduce the braid on top, and apply heat through the braid. Especially for through-hole components, if you only heat through the braid on a cold board, just the topmost solder will melt and wick into the braid, leaving behind most of the solder in the plated hole, protected from touching the wick by a nice air gap you created. The trick is getting all the solder to melt before the topmost bit disappears and disrupts the capillary action which pulls the solder out of the hole or from behind SMD IC legs.I firmly disagree with jonpaul about "push the tip against the " and "Jiggle tip". If you apply force to a hot pad, it may delaminate from the board. This is especially true on single sided boards which do not have the benefit of a plated hole to hold the pad in place. Your iron tip should have a tiny amount of molten solder on it, which will conform to the shape of what it is applied to, and transfer heat effectively with only a light touch.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 03:26:40 pm
content: Also, don't use the tip of the braid, the very ending side of the braid has to be away from the solder joint.Leave some clean braid to both sides of the solder joint that needs to be cleaned, left and right. The solder has to find clean braid both to the left and to the right, and it will be soaked into the braid in both directions (left and right) at the same time, sideways away from the solder joint.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 04:37:11 pm
content: Quote from: shapirus on December 14, 2023, 10:58:04 amYou've been lucky. I had some cheap no-name braid (via amazon) that essentially wouldn't wet. Brand name wick works.

author: Veteran68
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 07:31:47 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on December 14, 2023, 04:37:11 pmSame here. I remember buying this stuff from Amazon, and it sucked.I next bought genuine Chemtronics brand "Soder Wick" and it works great.As mentioned before, even with the included flux, I will often run into a situation where a bit of added flux improves the performance. I don't start with adding flux by default, but at the first sign of lack of wicking, a little flux tends to clear it right up.I'll also echo that wick isn't always best desoldering solution. I have multiple approaches depending on the situation: wick, manual vacuum pump ("solder sucker"), heated desoldering iron with manual pump, powered desoldering station. I only fire up the powered desoldering station for volume desoldering; for small one-off component removal the wick and/or manual solder sucker are usually sufficient.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 07:35:25 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on December 14, 2023, 04:37:11 pmI have seen bad solder wick, too. And semi-bad. Those kinda-sorta work, and if you add fresh flux, they work a tad better. And in a pinch you can indeed use any multi-stranded wire with added flux. But once you have usedgoodsolder wick, you don't want to use the crap, or something which needs added flux.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 08:09:56 pm
content: In addition to the remarks above, make sure the solder wick is fresh. It has a limited shelf life (not weeks, probably not months, but somewhere in the small number of years). Adding flux sometimes will restore it, but sometimes not.Good contact between the wick and the solder is important. Pressure helps on this, but as has been noted this can result in pad damage. Practice on something you don't care about to figure out the right balance between wick effectiveness and damage to the pads.

author: Veteran68
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 08:35:01 pm
content: Yeah, it cannot be stressed enough: NEVER apply pressure to the wick and scrub it around like you're trying to clean a frying pan. Press straight down, not too hard, and don't slide the wick across the pad while under pressure. The heat and roughness of the wick combined with the lateral forces will easily strip pads and traces off the PCB.I cringe at a lot of YT repair channels where they do this. And then they express surprise/despair when a pad comes off.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 09:18:28 pm
content: I have plenty of rolls of wick that don't work very well under certain conditions.But I've never met a wick that didn't work with a bigger (hotter) metcal tip and a little paste flux.Kester sp-44 flux activates anything. But you better clean the board after.

author: Dan123456
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 10:47:35 pm
content: One tip for OP, don’t forget solder braid is a consumable.Once one part of it has been used, cut off the tinned part and use fresh stuffI know I made that mistake real early on wondering why it wasn’t working so good on the second joint and it is because I was trying to use the used section as could still see some copper colour

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 11:45:46 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on December 14, 2023, 08:09:56 pmYes, years ago, at my old work, amongst the goodies which came with our Siemens TV transmitter some twenty years before, I found a small bonanza.The Siemens 'scope probe & the trimmer tools were very useful, but the several rolls of desoldering braid were useless.They were a top brand, but all those years had tarnished the braid enough that it just wouldn't wet.it still looked nice & "coppery" but compared to new "El Cheapo" stuff from Dick Smith, it was quite noticeably duller.We went through so much desolder braid that the stuff we bought new didn't have time to age, but I have noticed since I have been using it much less intensively, that braid that is even a few years old is pretty hopeless.These days, there is always the possibility of somebody buying a big roll of "time expired" braid & repackaging it as "a nice little earner".

author: radar_macgyver
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2023, 11:49:54 pm
content: Chemtronics makes several versions with different types of flux, and they also make a type with no flux. This requires you to add your own. I bought some of the latter by accident and it took me a while to figure it out. Also, improperly stored wick can tarnish - Chemtronics sells them in a sealed bag to protect against this. I store mine in a ziplock bag (gotta do something with the million bags that Digikey sends me on each order!)

author: Dan123456
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2023, 12:10:36 am
content: Quote from: radar_macgyver on December 14, 2023, 11:49:54 pmSorry for going off topic but, my god, don’t they just!!! Bags inside bags inside bagsPlus they are all good quality so would feel bad chucking them so I just have a giant bag bag but for my DigiKey bags

author: humidbeing
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2023, 12:36:24 am
content: Wow this kinda blew up while I was busy, lmao. I will get you guys a video of me trying to wet the braid directly with my microscope tonight (US time).Quote from: radar_macgyver on December 14, 2023, 11:49:54 pmI too have a huge bag of little mouser baggies. But poly bags will not keep out moisture. Put one of those humidity cards in one and they will quickly turn pink. That's why Mouser puts humidity sensitive components inside those metalized plastic bags.

author: Snowycage
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 15, 2023, 02:16:32 am
content: Keep your hand oils off the braid too. Just helps. Not the game changer. The other part that helps is getting the wick hot before you go to apply it. It needs to be pretty darn hot before it will start to do it's job. That means up and down the wick. The single spot you're heating isn't going to wick as much as more of the wick heated.

author: humidbeing
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2023, 03:06:03 am
content: Ok so if I cut a small piece of braid I am able to tin it with a chisel tip at 370 C. So I guess my TS80P just can't handle heating up the whole role, the copper trace, the component, and the solder joint all at once.

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2023, 03:38:05 am
content: Quote from: humidbeing on December 15, 2023, 03:06:03 amThat's what I thought at the beginning. Not enough heat. Nothing else is wrong.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/solder-wickbraid-what-am-i-doing-wrong/msg5220942/#msg5220942

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2023, 10:58:31 am
content: Solder wick is, compared to a typical solder joint, a huge mass of copper. So it will require more heat (≠ higher temperature!!)* to work properly. This means a few things in practice:- use as large a tip as possible. The larger thermal mass will enable you to pump in more heat without having to increase the temperature (which is damaging).- make sure everything is impeccably clean. Every layer of oxides, be it on the tip, or tarnished solder, or tarnished wick, reduces heat flow. So clean and re-tin your tip every time. Reflow old, tarnished solder joints with fresh solder before attempting removal. Discard old wick. Flux helps, but is no substitute for proper preparation.- cut off the piece of wick instead of using the whole reel. This limits the thermal mass of the wick. Use tweezers to grip the cut piece because it will get too hot to hold by hand.- ensure there is a good thermal bridge on your iron: this means having a good dab of fresh molten solder on the tip. More specifically, this dab of fresh solder needs to be on the side of the tip that you will apply to the wick.- paradoxically, you may need more solder in order to make it absorb well. The solder improves thermal conductivity.- use a tip shape that allows you to apply a flat side of the tip to the wick. A chisel will work but has to be held at a shallow angle; angled tips (the kind that are basically a cylinder cut off at an angle) work very well. Conical tips suck at this job (as they do for most jobs IMHO.)*while a higher temperature is one way to push more heat into the joint/wick, it’s not the only way, and is usually not the best way. That’s why I indicate that they aren’t the same thing.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2023, 11:11:45 am
content: yeah, I was going to say.It was either going to be not enough heat, or fake solder wick.Though normally the fake solder wick does work ok if you add your own flux.So, yeah, lack of heat is the one.Your iron maybe lying to you about the actual temp due to being way out of cal.Or maybe just underpowered for some reason. If its a TS80 you sometimes supply your own PSU for it.Are you sure your PSU can pump out enough volts/amps to fully run the iron at its full potential?I did wonder for a sec if maybe your iron was in F mode rather than C.370F is like 190C which would melt lead solder wire if you touched it to the tip, just , but would be totally useless to do any actual work with.But that's probably unlikely to be the issue. If you have used your iron to solder anything at all then it's not running at 190C.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2023, 05:21:37 pm
content: FWIW, used or unused solderwick makes a good ground connection on your RF circuit prototypes. It's got a really low RF impedance due to the geometry, similar to copper tape or strap.

author: humidbeing
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2023, 07:48:32 pm
content: I'm using the official USB-C PD PSU that comes with the TS80 kit. I've never had an issue soldering with it before. Have had this iron for a few years now.However, those of you that mentioned calibration may be onto something. I have noticed I must set this iron about 20 degrees (C) higher than all my other irons to get the same performance I'm used to.

author: radar_macgyver
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2023, 06:24:35 am
content: Solder wick will have a higher than average thermal mass, so if your iron can't regulate its tip temperature well, it may cool down to below the solder's melting point. My current solder station (Pace ADS200) handles solder wick without issue. My old Hakko 888D would sometimes struggle, especially on larger pads. Also, thanks for the tip that the poly bags are not moisture proof. Their newer ones are labeled as having volatile corrosion inhibitors embedded in the plastic, that may help a bit. Maybe a Zerust tab in the drawer with solder supplies?