Best Equipment and Temperature Settings for Soldering Electronics to Circuit Boards

Using the right equipment to solder electronics to circuit boards makes the experience more enjoyable and produces higher quality results. In this post, we describe the equipment and settings that we use, and recommend to others, for soldering surface-mount (SMD) and through-hole components to printed circuit boards like a pro.

Weller WESD51 Soldering Station

Soldering Station

Start with a quality ESD-safe soldering station like the 50-Watt Weller WESD51 or the 70-Watt Weller WE1010NA ($198 USD at Digikey). These types of stations are excellent at maintaining constant heat which makes soldering much easier and produces better results than lower end stations or plug-in pencil soldering irons that struggle to regulate temperature.

Kester 44 Solder

Solder

Use good quality solder like Kester 44 (P/N: 24-6337-0027). Kester 44 is a tin-lead (63/37) activated rosin core (RA) formula that flows well for hand soldering. A solder diameter of 0.8 mm works well for most jobs because it is thin enough for precision SMD work and thick enough for larger through-hole components without having to feed a lot of solder into the joint.

Soldering Iron Temperature

A soldering iron temperature of 640 degrees Fahrenheit (338 degrees Celsius) works well for soldering surface-mount components to circuit boards.

A soldering iron temperature of 680 degrees Fahrenheit (360 degrees Celsius) works well for soldering through-hole components to circuit boards. This temperature also works well for re-working (removing) SMD components from circuit boards.