Noob Soldering

Yesterday, I watched a couple of hours of videos on basic soldering techniques. Today, I decided to try soldering up a simple kit I got a month ago at the local electronics store. It's nothing fancy -- just a small, adjustable LED flasher.

I think the circuit is called an astable oscillator, a simple oscillator based on two RC circuits and two NPN transistors. Each transistor is configured in a common-emitter configuration and it's collector current charges an RC circuit, which then feeds into the base (input) of the other transistor. So it produces a square wave-type pattern based on the capacitor amd resistor values.

I'm using the 63/37 tin-lead eutectic mix rosin-core solder Bart got me recently. After watching the videos, the lower melting point of this alloy and the "feedback" you get when you make a successful connection seemed better to start with than lead-free solders. Once I get proficient at making connections with leaded solder, I'll try lead-free solders to see how difficult they are.

Unfortunately, the flip camera doesn't seem to focus well at close range (and has no real focus adjustment). Also the box fan and the solder fume fan Bart got me kind of obliterate the scintillating commentary I was providing. But you'll get an idea of what I was doing.

Since I wasn't a speed demon anyway and I found doing this in front of a camera a little distracting, I only solder up the first resistor.