True true true

Nicer than what i used working as a mechanic! should be more than adequate

And you can watch the videos. Do yourself a favor and read the thread linked earlier.

Part 1
Part 2

About the iron, it is a little low on power. I currently use an 80watt iron, and I think it is a bit low on power. It woks fine, just heats up slow, and looses heat

People make it out harder than it seems, i learned through trial and error on an X-Mod when i was about 9-ish and it was really simple, i learned on the silver rosin and found it really easy, as for train and error, pick up some Audio wires at walmart for $2 and cut it into 4-inch strips and solder a few wires together if you're not comfortable with it, it's really worth it in the long-run to be able to do it yourself!

Silver / lead free doesn't require a arc and works great for small electronics. Flux, however, is mostly used in torch welding and not always a great conductor of electricity. just my $0.02

Wish i had internet when i was teaching myself how, would have saved me about 45 minutes of messing with stuff and going really slow scared to mess up! once i got the hang of it i went a little crazy and started soldering everything (by the way, not a good idea to solder non-re-useable batteries together, they don't break or anything, they are just really hard to remove from an X-mod when the springs are melted to the tabs...

You break those motor tabs loose down on the stator by putting to much heat to it using lead free solder and you will know what I mean by trial and error. No reason he can't get setup at home but have someone who knows how do that motor for him. Would literally take 30 seconds when he goes to the track.

just spend the cash and get a hako it will be the best investment you could do if your into this hobby

Yes, even one of the cheaper hakko single irons will do pretty well against other things.

If he's not expecting to need to solder again, then i see your point, worth looking into (maybe bring a soda as a peace offering!) I was just un-sure if he had access to a track with skilled people on-site.

I agree with this as well, though i still use the cheap soldering setup i got years ago, i often wish i had a nicer one.

I just found this clicking random adds on the website and browsing around, but i think it may help make your decision.
http://teamnovak.com/products/index....roducts_id=530

And i stand corrected, There is a flux core in some solder, i just never use separate flux wire.

In most cases bad soldering joint is caused by not having right temp. Like one suggested earlier, invest on good soldering station. It makes soldering so easy when your tip is at right temp. Here is one suggested good one

Um that bit in bold… Uhm, no.

Sees you are not very well versed in the world of soldering because a really good trigger soldering iron is better than many of the best pencil type irons. Trigger irons only apply heat when the trigger is depressed but when you press that trigger the leads heat up almost instantly.

You most likely are not experienced enough to know how to solder a broad range of electronics. If you did that would never have left your fingertips and onto a forum. LOL

If you have access to a good Trigger style iron, I urge you to give it a proper try and see if you still feel the same way. Those mirror like shine solder points you see that look like liquid beads of mercury are best achieved with a quality iron that heats things up to a high temperature in the least amount of time, and usually the ones the can do that most efficiently are the larger, more powerful trigger irons.

Alos, to make life easier on you, use an alligator clip to hold your leads when soldering because the worst thing you can do while the solder point is cooling is to move it. You wan to keep it still until it solidifies.

More important than anything is proper tinning of the wire leads. This is something you need to practice to learn how to get it perfect. Most people either apply too much or too little or none at all and thus end up with less than desirable solder jobs. The proper way to do it it so hold the wire onto the hot iron tip and then press the solder over the opposite side of the wire so as to apply pressure towards the iron Once the heat builds up to the optimum temperature, the wire will begin to absorb the solder. Once this process begins, move the solder to cover the entire exposed lead. Once that's done YOU WANT TO LOOK AT THE UNDERSIDE as the side that was in direct contact with the iron seldom ins thoroughly and you must then apply a touch of solder to omelet the tinning of the lead. You only need to allow the wire absorb just enough that all the strands are coated and not much more. Doing so means solder will work its way farther up the lead than you'd want, The more solder you allow it to absorb, the further down the wire it will travel and the wire will be stiff to the furthest point the solder travels which defeats the purpose of having flexible wire.

ALSO, Strip the least amount of wire possible. I generally strip just over 1/16" and tin properly. Some hard leads like on motors can have some sort of coating on them which makes it difficult for solder to adhere to. In these instances you can do a few things to roughen up the surface so that solder has something to hold onto. I prefer an emery board to scuff it up a tad and then heat the surface and then slide the solder to the end of the iron and leave as small a bead as necessary to ensure a good sold point. Then simultaneously heat the wire and solder point so they liquify and mate them together, apply a touch more heat and allow to cool. DONE!!!

One day I will make an HD series of videos on the subject. I just need to get another quality iron because I loaned mine to a "friend" and they up and moved and took it with them.

Done right your joints should look like this...

I agree that these look like cold joints. It takes some practice to do a good job with the soldering iron after you get a good lesson or two. There are plenty of good youtube videos to be searched out if you can not get a human teacher there.

You want an iron that gets hot enough. (but you do not want to cook what you plan to solder, it should be a quick maneuver and not require more than a couple of seconds of contact)
You will want some Rosin Soldering Flux to dip the stripped wire tip into before you start, it helps a lot to draw the solder in for good contact.
You will need to tin the wires and tabs with solder before you join them, as well as the tip of the iron.

The solder should be shiny and smooth, if it is dull or lumpy you did not get a good joint. As you tin the tabs the solder should sort of flatten out to cover the usable surface off the tab, if it is beaded up in a ball you did not get it on there.