EEVblog

Soldering the Nixie Tube display PCB. How to do drag and dab soldering to make surface mount parts soldering easy.
Also a look at the Elecrow blank prototype PCB quality.
Jump to 3:36 for the soldering tutorial
Part 6 of the Nixie Tube project
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[@dand8282]

Surface mount skills (for better or worse) are needed by today's hobbyists. Thanks for keeping the flame burning!

[@nickguy6820]

You open a lot of possibilities that way. (To all) If you haven't converted yet, give it a shot. Not hard. :-)

[@noanoxan]

I find it easier than through-hole parts because you don't have to worry about getting that nice fillet on the main side of the board.

[@DFX2KX]

I haven't tried it because I don't see well. I solder bad on the things I CAN see. xD (I need a microscope mount for my phone or something)

[@nickguy6820]

Nobody sees SMD parts well. :-) An articulating lighted magnifier or an RPi camera + LCD work pretty well though.

[@EngiMeer]

I just use hot air like most youtubers.. lol

[@802Garage]

Came for the soldering, stayed for the accent. Joking, but you could definitely voiceover a children's show, hahaha. Awesome video really appreciate it. You're hopefully going to help me revive my car radio that burned an STM32.

[@tohopes]

This is like The Bob Ross of Soldering.

[@andruloni]

Nah, that would be BigClive, Dave's too excited.

[@MyBigThing2010]

Niko Andruloni I was gonna say Big Clive too....you beat me to it

[@kallewirsch2263]

We don't have short circuits. We just have happy little accidents. Every resistor needs a friend.

[@DiverCTH]

Maybe in your world, RoHS doesn't cause (intentional) premature equipment failure, and that's OK.

[@alpachino468]

Bob Saget

[@johnpiettro4644]

Ha-ha, I like those Dave's casual mumblings "Beauty, Joy forever" and alike. Makes it fun to watch.

[@totally_not_a_bot]

Thanks a bundle for this! As an amateur, being able to look over the shoulder of a professional is priceless, and much appreciated.

[@capeman29]

That was NOT a bit boring. That was mesmerizing!

[@russtuff]

That was not boring, it was excellent. I'm new to this stuff and have learned a ton from your indepth explanations. Thank you.

[@parentteachernight]

Not boring at all. This was very helpful to me. Thanks.

[@W1RMD]

You're never boring!

[@blessedwarrior1]

Remarkable Sir. You are awsome. The world is still in existence just because of you awsome people. Sharing knowledge, and guiding people to the right stuff, clearing up their confusions in a matter of minutes. The world definitely ows you alot. May you live strong and long. Best Regards

[@Elecrow]

I actually like Nixie Tube and EEVblog. Thanks for your review on Elecrow blank prototype PCB quality.

[@KuraIthys]

Love the tutorials. They really help us hobbyists out a lot. I mean, you can learn many things best by doing, but it helps to know some basic things to avoid stupid mistakes or common pitfalls. Or just get general advice on some of the more complex and really quite confusing things...

[@2dfx]

I've enjoyed this series. It's nice to see the whole start - finish from conception to real world 'in your hands'!

[@hendacteslar]

Thanks Dave for this short one. I like the minimalistic and short type of videos, filled with just the "right" amount of information. Thank you as well for those soldering tips and the checkup for the pcb.

[@lg1355]

EEVblog is one of the few channels that I watch at normal speed. Most are at 1.5 X. Makes it a struggle to catch up on the first 800+ that I missed, but I believe in taking time for the things that are truly enjoyable.

[@nrdesign1991]

Maybe I'm just too old, or too old-fashioned for watching at more than 1.0X, but then I'm doing other things while the video rambles on in the background

[@iwtommo]

Try mikeselectricstuff at 1.5 if you dare!

[@lg1355]

I tried, I failed....

[@nowt2957]

Could have done with watching this before I just finished soldering some SMDs. Joking aside, pleasantly surprised that I didn't do it all wrong and I love your practical attitude to this. I have learned for next time from watching this but also gained confidence that I was on the right lines and to just do it.

[@unsaltedskies]

Dave you're a legend mate. I've not soldered in 15 years and your tutorial was super helpful. Nice one!

[@notrealy180217]

My friend who isn't with us anymore used to watch this guy. I was never subscribed but I'm getting into electronics also and once I heard this guy say "hi" I immediately felt nostalgic

[@Cephalon_Shade]

Been soldering stuff for years, and I haven't need to solder smd stuff til now, and this video came at the right time. Thanks Dave!

[@Besmirchant]

Not boring at all. I could watch this all day.

[@deathrodamus9608]

Your videos aren't boring at all. I've learned many things. Thanks man! Keep doing these kind of videos.

[@EngiMeer]

Dave is a madman and I LOVE HIM WITH ALL MY HEART ! :))))

[@modestas3d391]

best of the best electronics channel of all time. clarity, accent, knowledge, humor - perfect combo :)

[@MrSpinteractive]

Your soldering videos are my favorites. Thanks!

[@gfrias06]

It wasn't boring at all. Thanks Dave!

[@wristocrat]

9:00 AN ABSOLUTE WORK OF ART! YOU GAVE ME EVERY BIT OF CONFIDENCE TO ORDER ALL THE PCBS I NEEDED!

[@Nalianna]

Dave, this is among your best content. Thank you.

[@oglordbrandon]

At 9:20 he spits on the chip while talking. The spit then evaporates when the iron touches the nearest pin.

[@geonerd]

Aussie spit makes a fantastic flux! ;)

[@EEVblog]

Aussie flux

[@Viaexplore]

DNA trade mark, so you know you have a origin not a china clone :D

[@EngiMeer]

That's called spit-iron technology!!! It's a new thing in the west! Everyone on the east coast have been doing it for ages...... ;)

[@duchenpaul]

He just cannot stop talking

[@renesolis2604]

Is a pleasure checking your tutorials. Greetings from MX.

[@richardgoebel226]

Straight forward and to the point soldering tutorial.

[@Slicksparky]

Love your channel, I'm a line voltage electrician, trying to get into electronics, Thanks for all your videos... you're awesome to listen to!

[@gordonwedman3179]

Very worthwhile watching. This will help with building the kit I purchased when it finally arrives. China is so far away. But then I have been waiting a month for a used book purchased on Amazon.

[@TazzxCc]

To follow up on my tweet to you - this is the video that showed what a difference 03mm solder makes vs the call it 1mm that I used to have. I really wish I learned this earlier - it makes *SUCH* a huge difference ! My headers now look like machine fitted headers ! Thanks again from across the ditch !

[@FurryMcMemes]

This helps me a lot for an upcoming project. I have a Xbox One X that needs a new plug on the motherboard for the front USB sync cable, bought the part but didn't know how to attach it when it arrives. Now I know what I need to get in preparation, thank you.

[@matthewfischer3312]

Great video. I have a couple of tiny smd chips I need to solder and this was all of the instruction I needed to feel confident doing so. Thanks a bunch.

[@Yreq]

When I bought microscope I found small piece of five-core soldering wire. It's amazing. Now I know what to look for.Thanks

[@Elminator666]

Another soldering video. Whoo! I really love soldering it's just such a relaxing thing to do.

[@springwoodcottage4248]

Loved it! Super useful & delivered with such delightfully encouraging enthusiasm. Thank you!

[@madbstard1]

So relaxing watching someone solder. Am I a freak or something?

[@SianaGearz]

Not at all, no. Maybe check out Big Clive and maybe Paul Daniels and Louis Rossmann and Jessa Jones.

[@madbstard1]

Big Clive is my hero lol. Was through his page that I started watching EEV.

[@Blendedasian]

madbstard1 so relaxing seeing something getting done, it's technology slowly being crafted.

[@ridonculous8374]

everybody love to watch someone soldering, its porn.

[@madbstard1]

That's why I love Clives videos , especially when he designs and builds stuff. Makes it looks so effortless.

[@rikvdmark]

Nice to see the Nixie tube project progressing further. Looking good Dave :)

[@Elecifun]

I am so glad you are showing people how to solder surface mount devices like this. The amount of abuse I have had because I do not apply solder to every pin before mounting the device. Halayluya ! Hopefully they watch this and leave me alone.

[@cutzwithrazzor]

Awesome! great seeing the solder techniques. I too love the solder flux pens.

[@ukzoinks]

I learnt more in this short video, than I have in all the other videos I've watched that say they teach soldering. A really good demonstration of technique with information on tips and solder gauge too. The only thing that was missing, was the question of iron temperature. I get the impression it's hotter the better, but only if you are fast and proficient at soldering as having it too hot for too long reduces the life of the tips.

[@mxcollin95]

Thanks for posting. I definitely need all the advice/help I can get when it comes to SMD work! 🤙 PS. Can’t believe how ridiculously easy you make it look.

[@simonmcd75]

At first I thought I'd stumbled upon another Ozzy man reviews vid... fantastic video, never has soldering been so engrossing.

[@rantalbott6963]

Not boring at all. ;-) Thanks! And *extremely* helpful: it showed me the mistakes I'd made in trying to do SMD after over 50 years of through-hole experience (mostly using solder that was too thick, and not doing flux separately). You've inspired me to get some proper supplies and try again. One tip I'd offer in exchange: when doing something like those Nixie pins, I use an actual part to hold them in alignment while soldering. If I don't, I inevitably find that one or more winds up off-center, or standing taller than the rest. I do something similar for jobs like soldering the headers on a Wemos, or Arduino Mini/Micro, board: I have a piece of protoboard with some male and female headers soldered to it about an inch apart. I insert the two headers to be soldered so they span those two rows, and they stay properly spaced and perpendicular to the board while I solder them in.

[@thesnowedone]

I actually really liked this one; learnt a lot about soldering SMDs which was awesome!

[@tychosis]

Thanks for the video, Dave. I'm no EE, I work in integration and test on SONAR (a field I think you're pretty familiar with based on past videos of yours.) Of course, I&T is the catch-all and the end of the line before delivery, and far too often that means I end up doing work others should have already done. I've never been great at soldering but KZbin has always been a great resource for learning. I also want to thank you for the great reviews you've done on test equipment and test equipment concepts. Your channel, the Signal Path, and w2aew almost make me sound like I know what I'm talking about when operating unfamiliar scopes/analyzers/etc.

[@jordanjohnson714]

I love these tutorial and project videos!!

[@mCKENIC]

Thanks Dave - gives me confidence to try myself on a couple of boards Ive been putting off!

[@RedTopProductions]

I'm a newbie with soldering and working on electronics in general and I love these videos! Thank you for all the tips that more experienced folks probably already know and don't think to mention.

[@maceliusfpv370]

Great tutorial. As a newbie to surface mount, I gotta say I find dabbing easier than dragging, at least without having to go back and fix as many bridges.

[@royh4305]

Incredible stuff Dave. Thank you.

[@johnteran8889]

Jesus I take a break and Dave puts out 450 new videos.

[@PolygonByte]

Wonderful vid, Dave! Thank you. I love watching SMD soldering vids and this was great. I have not used a well tip for soldering SMD and have only used a fine point chisel tip. I will probably never use a conical tip ever again. Looking forward to seeing your board powered up.

[@EEVblog]

Don't use conical tips, the surface area for thermal transfer is horrible.

[@PolygonByte]

Agreed! After I bought my Hakko FX-888D, and it came with chisel tips, the difference is amazing. It really makes soldering enjoyable. Conical is just bad. Thanks for the reply, Dave! Keep up the fantastic vids.

[@mikeissweet]

The fine chisel is my shit. I solder everything with it, every day- down to fine-pitch TQFP and QFN

[@igmusicandflying]

I didn't solder for years because I thought I sucked at it, and you gave that "chisel tip" tip in another video. Asked for some chisel tips as a stocking stuffer for last Christmas got them and the difference is like night and day. I actually can solder well now and am getting back into making my own electronics projects again after not really doing much in decades.

[@dandhcomputers]

thanks Dave that was one of the best teaching videos I have seen .Keep up the good work :)

[@transistortester]

You should probably add to the title that this is part of the nixie tube project. I initially skipped over this video as I thought it was just a tutorial, but only actually watched it once it occurred to me that this was possibly work on the nixie tube board. Anyway, looks great so far.

[@injoelsgarage3934]

Dave , not boring at all, that was fun. Thank you for sharing. Joel

[@jonnyblaze4065]

I was not board once this entire video. I really feel like I learned a lot watching this. And thanks for taking them time to go over multiple methods. I want to solder hdmi into a nintendo 64. This is just the information I was looking for. Now I know more about the tips to use and the solder as well. I never knew what to buy before.

[@lachlan1971]

Thanks so much mate. Soldered my first smd chip last night using your drag method worked great!

[@MyLastSong719]

Loving these project videos!

[@grindle2000]

Nice video , I learned something and someone who is just thinking about moving in trying things like this , this was great.

[@104net]

Hi Dave! Big fan here! I have relase my channel over half years ago, but I'm from Croatia and Croatia is small country and I decided to switch from Croatian to English language. Any support from you and your fans will be precious... Thanks for great videos....

This video arrived just at the right time for me. And I ordered by Elecrow too ^^ Thanks

[@Jokalido]

please dave keep doing this multi paert videos from concept to assembled circuit! really cool

[@jensL.]

my birds went crazy singing when you whistled while soldering the tube pins :-D

[@timgore829]

Excellent video. You really helped me (a beginner) start off with proper technique.

[@KostadinIVKostadinov]

Good work Dave. You nailed it! Now go with the next 6 more PCBs! :D

[@SDogo]

I know this video is a bit old, but... Is something I learned with Louis Rossmann is that you never cheap out on the flux.

[@mcconkeyb]

Great job Dave, soldering is starting to become a rare skill. But to really be able to deal with today's components being able to solder BGA's is the ultimate test of ones skill set. Looking forward to a tutorial on that subject.

[@ranzee]

Excellent video Dave.

[@arn1238]

Very good video. I built a four digit IN-12 clock a few months ago and I put it into a 70s style case with a red glass filter. I will use your tutorial to solder my golden 5402 IC from 1970 on a DIP-adapter to test and use it later for other projects.

[@awideman5981]

Really cool to see man! I haven't done anything with surface mounts yet and this was informative.

[@samk2630]

Nailed it first try after watching this, bravo mate

[@dardosordi]

This is just great Dave! Thanks.

[@danishbegmirza]

Thanks for sharing your SMD experience.

[@alexbrown1050]

Just soldered my first SMD pin by pin thanks to this video

[@felixcosty]

Thanks for the video. I have watched your soldering videos and they helped a lot. I needed to take the switches out and put new one in my logitech mouse and was having nothing but trouble, after watching your solder vids, I took a file to my stick no controls solder iron gave it a chisel point and got the job done. Now I have two m570 mice that work better then original. Thanks for the demo vids they are a great help.

[@felixcosty]

I looked up the switch that Logitech used and it is an Omron pressure to activate and distance is normal, but if you release just a little it goes off. The switches work they way there where built, but they where built for things like paint ball markers where you want a very fast on off switch. I did the same got some mice that where not used and had good stiff switches took them out of the cheap mouse and put them into my m570 now it works proper.

[@nathanaelfisher8605]

Whenever I'm soldering in pin sockets like that, or anything else that's not one socket package with all the pins attached, I connect them to the device (the nixie in this case) to make sure the pins stay aligned and parallel. Drop the nixie in with all its pins and drop it flush with the board, solder them all in (tack them at least) then remove the nixie and move on to the next one. If you don't do that you may end up with one or two pins that aren't quite parallel and you can't plug in the nixie without bending a pin a little, and that risks causing other problems. And a nice alternative to a solder pen is to get a bottle of your favorite brand of ultralightweight flux and a soft bodied needle bottle. Then you can dab the solder in wherever you need to, with pretty good control, even into areas that are awkward to use the pen with. Also the pen needs a push to release the flux, whereas the bottle just needs a gentle squeeze, so there are things you can flux with the bottle that you can't flux with the pen. Search your favorite outlet for: needle tip bottle flux no clean that'll get you a bottle of just what you need. (example, listing 201780768122 on ebay with over 2,200 sold) One bottle goes a long ways.

[@electronicsNmore]

Considering the quality of the board, the price was very reasonable. Great video

[@JH-pf6cd]

Laptop power plug with multimeter

[@veda-powered]

thanks for this, I've been wanting to learn how to do Surface Mount electronics for a while now

[@xcross8537]

Just do it. It’s difficult at first like anything else.

[@linksmith1057]

My personal favorite tip for drag soldering is the Metcal STTC-126. Bent conical tip, depending on the pitch of the part, I can hit like 5-6 pins at once so it distributes it beautifully.

[@buffplums]

Great demo mate

[@shurdi3]

I really love the phrase "A bit how you doing"

[@pugnate666]

Since I always like to learn, thank you very much for the tips :)

[@DelcoChris]

“Bobs you’re uncle”…I absolutely adore the English

[@shadyengineer1988]

So so so professional. Thumbs up

[@JeffHopkinsMusic]

Thanks for the upload!

[@obdanton69]

really nice videos you make. thumbs up !

[@ed10523]

Thank You Dave...I am finally confident in soldering something. I have always made mistakes, and i feel that i can do it now. Great Video!!

[@heathwellsNZ]

As a person who's only really ever spent any decent time soldering is with much heavier guage wiring for automotive / CB and HAM radio type purposes it's a marvel to see this fine stuff up close!

[@junctioneerblog]

A a real novice, love these build videos.

[@magicstix0r]

Never before have I seen a video more Australian than this.

[@MrFrobbo]

Some great tips for nuubs, thanks. Having been in the industry for 15 years I was always a dab man with these packages, your example shows why drag (with these tip types) is so unreliable and often time consuming due to reworking via dab. Might as well dab to begin. I often didn't even use a flux pen. Priority of component assembly and the diagonal tacking are great tips.

[@George-gz5zm]

Nice video Dave. Bit of blu tack on the bench stops the pcb from sliding too. This Nixie tube finale has got to be the 1000th video

[@acestudioscouk-Ace-G0ACE]

Useful tips, thanks!

[@koset]

Dave, you made it look so easy. I'm going to give it a go .. and Bob can be my uncle too.

[@unebonnevie]

Love your vids, mate!

[@ncrdisabled]

I spent 7 years in the NAVY on submarines during the 80 s . During electronics 6 month school they taught me how to solder but never smd . If I want to do that I will have to buy small tip and small solder.. The stuff I got from the navy to keep is huge and most was done with a weller soldering gun!!!

[@romainbrami5001]

Thanks for the video, great as always. I usually use paste and hot air for SMDs. Any reason you would not recommend this or chose iron over hot air ?