New to Soldering, practice projects?

Welcome to the forums!

Are you looking for form/function (i.e. a project that does something useful) or just to get started?

This chap is very good although I think he works mostly on repairs now.

(8) Mr SolderFix - YouTube
 
When I was were you are (and that was really in the dark ages) we worked on fairly large boards that were mainly for point-to-point work and although they're not really missed (they were awfully messy to look at) but they had one overriding advantage over everything else: distance between the various contacts.

These days we're working with tolerances of 1/10th of an inch for the largest commonly available parts like ICs. The last lot of V2 heads are on my GitHub page. You can see them using KiCAD - this design software is free and an excellent addition to your library even if you never intend to design your own stuff.

Being self-taught can be fraught with problems - my instructors had us making stuff like ladders and grids with tinned copper wire, where each crossing was a joint. It's tougher than you think to make a clean joint.

Now this sounds pointless (I could already solder well by this point so it wasn't too hard for me) but it's a surprisingly clever way to learn how to heat wire and deliver the right amount of solder to the joint. I won't pretend this is fun and you don't end up with anything (not even something you could hang on the wall) but it's a cheap way to learn how to apply the correct amount of heat and solder for the solder to flow over the joint and creep slightly up each lead. Too cold and the joint won't hold, too hot and the solder won't flow and so on.

But all of that said, you might want jump in and try something that's useful but simple. There are lots of little kits but I won't recommend anything until you give me an indication of what your budget is and what calls to you.

As a final point, we *should* always use lead-free solder but when you're learning it will make your life a lot harder because it doesn't flow the same way as leaded solder does. So for your first projects, get lead-based solder and don't go cheap. I got a reel from eBay which is so poor that even with my experience and powerful soldering iron; melting this stuff almost needs a blowtorch and even after that it doesn't appear to contain any flux (look for "rosin" which is made from tree sap).

BUT when you want to get rid of your experiments with leaded solder, please take them to a specialist electronics recycling place rather than dumping it in your trash because lead is very bad for the environment. It's dangerous for us too - and as Matt will show in his videos you should ALWAYS use a fume extractor.

In my day we didn't have such things but Health and Safety wasn't really a thing back then, we had lead pipes in the homes I grew up in and lead was in most white paint. Heavy metals like lead can get into our bodies very easily (I'm probably full of it, and it's no joke) and they don't leave but they can get into our germ cells and affect our children.

So even though it's better to learn with, leaded solder should be used with extreme care.

I'm just looking to get started, no need for a project that actually does something, so your ladder/grid project sounds like a great start!

I appreciate the thought about trying leaded solder, but between my own paranoia about heavy metals and the fact that I don't have a dedicated workspace for my soldering and the toddler in my house, I'll be sticking with lead-free solder, even if it leads to some frustrations at first. Just waiting on my fume extractor to arrive before I can get started on some practice.

The other potential issue with any "useful" projects is that I don't know what I might actually need. I wanted to learn to make this mic as it's something I could actually use that Matt made seem relatively simple. (though I suppose the whole point of his channel is making all of what he does look manageable, this one seemed like it might actually be within my abilites)

Your "paranoia" is quite warranted. Stick with the lead free if you're prepared to put up with the more difficult flow. Learning with using it for many years gives the old men like me (and Big Clive on YouTube) makes us hate the more recent stuff. It doesn't seem to shine like leaded solder does so we have to use other methods to look for "dry" joints.

Matt and I will tell you that as good as this mic is, a lot of people have come unstuck trying to make it (which is why I'm trying to make a V2 which is pretty much "me" proof). It's taking me longer than predicted due to life getting in the way.

Working with Veroboard (properly called stripboard) can be very frustrating indeed. The proper stuff has a decent weight of copper, stuck down with a decent glue. I got some "cheap" stuff recently and it's prone to coming apart just by applying downward pressure on a soldered part.

Then there's the issue of cutting tracks or making tiny solder bridges. If you're in the UK, when you've got your mandatory five posts in, drop me your postal address and I'll send you some non-working samples of from the Gen2 head v2 and you'll see what I mean about a "tight" fit.

I hope this hasn't put you off because there are some excellent projects you can get to develop your skills on a spacious PCB that's got a solder resist (so the chance of solder bridges is reduced to almost nil) cheaply available on eBay.

Now while I'd avoid anything from China like Tesla coils (!). And yes you can get very small ones that will make a small arc until the transistor burns out which it will, quickly. Same with things like true valve amplifiers since you're (usually) talking enough voltage to hurt - a lot - or even kill. You don't get a 20kV zap and forget it in a hurry I can assure you. 😉

So here's a very small selection of kits that would be suitable. All these are UK ebay and some from China but I've been mindful of cost as your first few are going to look like something Dr. Frankenstein's cleaner found in his lab after a particularly debauched session of stitching bits of dead bodies together and zapping them during a nasty storm. (Take function over form at this stage - it's good enough if it works. Better if it works first time.)

Grab yourself a cheap multimeter too - when I learned the colour code we could read the bands on (mostly) resistors just by scanning for the colours but now even through-hole components are smaller and they now use a blue background for most common resistors which (for my eyes) are far to hard to read. I can "guess" but I always check. Grab a solder sucker while you're at it - you'll need one. Good (small, sharp and hardened) side cutters are a must too.

From the pointless but informative:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/182307855642

To the whimsical:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325618279593
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155237282961
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304738799625

To the functional(without a case though):

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/354940339007

To the functional and with a case:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155759215341

To the greatest kit maker of modern times (since we lost Heathkit) Vellman designs are, as a rule, very well made indeed:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225680278388
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/335034380536

To the more challenging (this is a real test of skill but not as hard as the correction I had to make on the Mathew headphone amp):

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155641957138

and finally, the ones to run away from as fast as you can!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184724477219
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275589539798

Thanks so much for the suggestions! Unfortunately I'm in Canada so I'll see what I can find that doesn't cost five times the project just to ship!

I did see that some people were pretty frustrated with the mic project, and since I wouldn't even know where to start with diagnosing problems, that's part of why I wanted to wait until the V2 is done.

I did actually remember a project I'd thought about before, how difficult is a Nixie clock?

Sorry for the slow reply, I forgot to sub to the thread - that's on me, I will hang my head in shame. See ... there it is, hanging in shame. I'll slope off now.

Many of those should be available on eBay Canada (or something like them will be).

Nixies are cool a/f but they run at 163V roughly which will give you a very nasty (potentially) fatal shock.

There are some Arduino projects that simulate Nixies floating around, but there's nothing quite like the real thing although these do come awfully close and they're a lot safer!

No-Nixie Nixie Clock | Hackaday

This jumped out from eBay Canada. Many ship from China so it's sloooooooo... but you have to offset the time with the total cost (and the savings are substantial).

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/285040882375

Or a Bluetooth speaker (quite useful)

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/185671229657

A nicer radio:

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/166345416829

Just search your local eBay for electronic kit for beginners or if you have Amazon Prime you can get on double-quick for a few $$$s more.

I have done a couple of Arduino designs (including a complete, working Proton Pack at 1:1 scale from Ghostbusters as worn by Harold Ramis. It's not available as a kit although the software is all open source. There were some (cough) interesting challenges to that one.

But the one I haven't solved yet is getting my son-in-law to pay for the darn thing. He supervised the construction, helped debug the code etc. but muggins paid for the plastic, the parts... etc. Brain the size of planet, common sense of a gnat. 😉

The mic heads are coming together slowly and I'm going to do one that's faithful to Matt's original (but uses better, more easily available parts) because the rest are a complete, ground up re-design that won't work with the existing power system (which is part of the genius of Matt's original actually).

Getting more "oomph" out of the head (vs. the weedy signal we get from the impedance matching FET) is the key here as is (crucially) getting that noise down to sensible levels. It's a fantastic challenge that I'll admit I'm enjoying but I should know better than to estimate when it will be ready because I'm three sets of prototypes in and I'm still unhappy with the result.

Several work beautifully (I need to spec a better NPN output transistor though) but none deliver what Matt and I discussed in private and that's what I'll deliver. Eventually! 🙂

First project went mostly well! I made a few mistakes, and learned a few things, the biggest one probably being not to solder parts that go on the reverse side of the PCB until last

https://youtube.com/shorts/3FHjYxTN4Zg?feature=share

Double sided boards like that are a dog to work with. Not bad work for a beginner. Sorry I've been out of the loop for a while!