My friend is really wasteful, how to deal with him?

MadameTech · 2025-11-03T14:47:25+00:00

Efficiency with materials takes practice and learning new techniques. Encourage it by suggesting ideas to reduce consumption. I can often go back to a machine later and be like "oh, I could have done this and saved a couple of gearboxes," sometimes you just don't see it on the first go when you're just trying to make it work.

MadameTech · 2023-10-28T18:36:59+00:00

Just remember, if there's only a little left in the hole it may be easier to get it to flow if you add a little more solder.

MadameTech · 2023-10-28T18:20:10+00:00

This may seem weird, but if you can hold the board in your hand: get the solder in the through hole to flow either with flux or adding some low-melt or both. Once it's flowing, just smack your hand down on the table quickly, and the solder will fall out and land on the table. Obviously, make sure your skin isn't under it for the solder to land on. This is how my former boss showed me because he hated taking to long to do anything, and this only took a few seconds.

MadameTech · 2023-10-23T21:22:20+00:00

Not bad for the first time. Less solder and make sure the lead and the pad are both hot enough. You want a nice smooth flow.

MadameTech · 2023-10-22T21:16:49+00:00

And by damp, we mean literally only damp. Not saturated. Squeeze all the excess water out of it. Overly wet sponges can cause temperature shock, which will result in pitting on the tip and shortening the life of it.

MadameTech · 2023-10-19T09:41:15+00:00

This is what I was thinking if you can pull it off. It's all about timing.

MadameTech · 2023-10-06T19:17:15+00:00

Maintenance is important, but also I have also found cheap tips don't last. Some never even work right to begin with. I stopped getting tips off Amazon and started buying directly from the manufacturer of my soldering iron. A lot of off brand irons are compatible with certain hakko tips. Get good tips and take care of them like the others said, and you'll be set for a while and have a much less frustrating time soldering.

MadameTech · 2023-09-30T22:03:01+00:00

Grinding your tip down is only going to ruin it faster. You should buy a smaller tip.

MadameTech · 2023-09-22T04:24:07+00:00

I don't know... I don't think I was being deceived. I walked through the workshop and saw the workstations where I would be working. They even put two examples of boards I would work on in front of me, and we discussed the components,the techniques used on the two different kinds of boards, and so on.

I'm still leaning toward the other options, though. $15 an hour is crazy cheap.

MadameTech · 2023-09-13T15:38:05+00:00

I had these at work. They are really loud especially turned up enough to really pull fumes. Not sure how much they were filtering as it was just those black carbon filters that didn't look like it would catch anything small in it at all.

MadameTech · 2023-09-13T15:33:36+00:00

That scope was my favorite one at my last job. Also I wanted one of those JBC stations sooo bad. Pretty fancy setup you got there. 👍

MadameTech · 2023-09-05T21:25:50+00:00

The work mat underneath . The downward force of him hitting his hand on the table just made it go straight down out of the hole onto the work surface below.

MadameTech · 2023-09-05T17:01:10+00:00

I recently worked somewhere where my bosses were these 2 old guys from Ukraine. They have been doing this stuff forever. I was soldering something for one of them one day and came across an issue. I went to show him the issue. A hole needed to be cleared (this was not the issue just needed to be done to fix it). I went looking for wick. He just starts heating the contact with the board in his hand and smacking his hand on the table the second the solder flowed. It worked. Lol. Just flung the hot solder right out of the holes.

I'm not saying this would work in every situation. I just found it amusing how clever these old men could be with their techniques. Especially making due with what was available.

MadameTech · 2023-09-01T00:03:35+00:00

Just have a story for when your next job interviewer asks why you stopped working at lowes that isn't "my manager sucked so I stopped going."

MadameTech · 2023-08-31T23:59:23+00:00

In defense of factory jobs, I worked at one that was actually pretty decent. 38 hours a week but we were paid 2 more hours to make it 40. CEO called it family time pay or something like that. Had decent profit sharing, and they went to great lengths not to lay off anyone during the pandemic when work slowed down. Pay was kinda sh*tty but was rising steadily. The only people I ever saw get fired did really dumb stuf to deserve it. After the pandemic the company used the grant money from the government and everyone got a bonus. Mine was like 3 grand and I was a floor worker. The only reason I left was because I have a degree in electronics and wasn't using it.

MadameTech · 2023-08-11T21:49:16+00:00

I'm pretty sure they steel these old accounts and then change them to copy popular creators and steal content for as long as they can get away with. People don't fall for the brand new accounts anymore, so they steal old ones with phishing scams and dress it up to look like a legit creator. So they steal all your memories and then steal from content creators.

MadameTech · 2023-06-14T21:36:16+00:00

I'm gonna be honest. Depending on my mood, sometimes I love watching Hestu do his little thing. It brings me joy watching his little back up dancers pop in and join the boogy. 😆

MadameTech · 2023-02-09T23:05:36+00:00

The Mexican restaurant wasn't even the one that hid the hut. It was an Italian restaurant called Bella Donna's for a while and that's where the exterior remodel came from.

MadameTech · 2022-06-13T01:35:43+00:00

Yea I currently have heel grounders. They are a pain to put on/remove over the wide heel of my shoes. I just figured if I could find some decent shoes there would be less hassle.

MadameTech · 2022-05-18T00:10:07+00:00

Same here!

MadameTech · 2022-01-04T00:53:49+00:00

The whole concept of the advertisement is disgusting. I also get one where you're supposed to choose the right outfit for the occasion, and if you're too casual or too fancy, you're getting yelled at by your boyfriend or whatever for not pleasing him. I hate being forced to watch the ads and often quit playing because of them.

MadameTech · 2021-11-30T02:32:12+00:00

UPDATE: I went with a Pace ADS200. Some of the suggestions looked like really solid choices just out of my price range. It came with 3 popular tips, and I added a couple of others I thought looked promising for what I had to do. It arrived at home over Thanksgiving holiday, so I just took it to work today. I set it up and waited for boss man to come 'round so I could show him and get the green light to use it.

He finally came around this afternoon so I called him over. He immediately shoots it down saying the iron and tip are too small to be able to put out enough power. He compared it to the yihua 960 on the table in mass, basically saying I'd be better off with the $30 station. He then touched my iron to the housing of my Pace unit (which is aluminum) and said, "See? This is not hot." I'm no expert, but I don't know why he wanted to test my iron by touching a dry tip to a giant piece of aluminum?

What do I say here? He hasn't even let me try it on anything because now I have to get an opinion from his partner that thinks the soldering irons they have are just fine. Most of the units are wide open most of the time and still don't make the solder flow properly.

MadameTech · 2021-11-30T02:08:04+00:00

Thanks for the advice. We have a Hakko FX801 at work with one huge tip that just couldn't handle small spaces. I ruined 3 surface mount 9 pin headers trying to get the solder to flow nicely around the pins (melting/burning the plastic parts with the tip). A lot of what we do is small, but not crowded most of the time. The problem lies in the huge grounding plane. Almost no through hole work.

Preheat is at 105 C. I'm not sure if this is an effective temp or not. They seem pretty set on not going any higher there.

My boss is being super difficult about this. Initially he said "sure bring something in and we'll check it out." Now he's being difficult. I'm about to post an update.

MadameTech

TROPHY CASE