using a 25W iron whose tip wasn’t heating up properly. Had to use its sides to get the solder to melt, which affected precision.

The tip was likely heating up just fine, what you encountered was probably thermodynamics.

Very common for novices to intuitively use the point of the tip. For anything but the smallest joints, it actually is the least effective part of the iron.

Soldering is a game of heat transfer. While you use the iron to transfer heat and try to wet the solder, that thermal energy is being dissipated into the rest of the project - circuit traces, components, and often the heftier ground plane. You’re essentially trying to beat the dissipation rate.

The point of the tip - and especially a conical tip - has a small surface area. Small surface area transfers a small amount of heat. The sides, conversely, have a larger surface area which results in more heat transfer. Most techs gravitate towards chisel or knife tips since they give a wide, flat surface to put into contact with the work.

Ultimately, your circuit works - yay! If you’d like to improve the quality of your joints:

• Add flux to help the solder reflow
• Keep a bead of solder on the tip to help with heat transfer
• Maximize the surface area of the tip that is in contact with both sides of the joint - the component and the pad.

For more stubborn projects, preheating the work with a heat gun can help combat thermal dissipation - just be mindful not to scorch your project!

Tip: For many years, decades even, I thought I was bad at soldering. Sure, I got things done, but it was time consuming and ugly.

Then I bought a quality soldering station, and it was like night and day - I had my suspicions since I somehow did a better soldering job at work than at home.

Then I got myself a Weller WE 1010 and concluded that I wasn’t the problem. My solder joints come out so much better now. Oh, and of course, use solder flux.

Oh, and another tip: 3D printer is a really nice tool to have if you’re into electronics. The amount of stuff you can build suddenly seems unlimited.

I see you bent the pins to prevent the components from moving around. That helps, but makes soldering in tight spaces difficult and can lead to shorts. You could get away with less solder, and some parts look like they didn’t get hot enough.

A little dab on the iron for good heat transfer, warm up the wire and pad for about 3s and then apply solder to the opposite end. If everything’s hot enough, solder will wick away. After cooling you should have a little cone shape.

And congratulations! You have now unlocked “Repairing electrical devices”!

When optical mice were first becoming popular, I bought one which had a blinking red light very similar to this integrated into the box.

I setup the mouse and it was fine, but I was more excited about the light; I was young and it never occurred to me that this was something that could easily be achieved on one’s own. It looked very similar to your device.

I expected it to lose its blinkiness within a day or two. When it didn’t, I got some double sided sticky foam and stuck the gizmo to the wall by my desk. I don’t remember what happened to it, but it lasted a ridiculous account of time. I’m actually not sure I personally ever took it down, so it’s possible that it lasted until I moved out and my parents threw it away.

Anyway, for however long it lasted, it was a novelty and gave me more joy than was reasonable. I hope your new endeavor has results at least as positive.

There are a couple longterm issues I see, but if this is truly your first solder job, it’s phenomenal! I’m genuinely impressed

It’s ugly af but it works

One of us! One of us!

Good job :)

Now you can learn how to simulate this circuit in LTspice, then learn how to recreate this PCB in KiCAD and have JLCPCB make it for $2 plus shipping. Then you can make your own kits!

Are you fucking happy now? Asking for a friend

Edit: using a 25W iron whose tip wasn’t heating up properly. Had to use its sides to get the solder to melt, which affected precision.

IDK if it was a new iron or just your first time using it, but you may want to consider cleaning or replacing the tip (which is usually like a $2 part). You can clean it with like a 200+ grit sandpaper pretty easily, and just replace it if that doesn’t work.

I broke out my old soldering iron a year or two ago and thought I had forgotten some magic technique because I was having the same problems as you. Then I realized the tip of my iron was oxidized and caked with gunk. A 20s replacement job and I was soldering like a pro again.

The trick to getting the components to stay in place is to gently bend the legs outwards once they’re in place. If you start by installing the shortest components first, the board will also be a bit more stable, although a “helping hands” type clamp is really useful there.

A couple of the joints look like they might be a bit “dry”, possibly because you didn’t get quite enough heat into the component leg before adding the solder, but it works, so they’re goid enough for this circuit. Good work!

I also have a few velleman kits. They are cute.

good work

Not sure if heat was missing and/or flux, but there are a bunch of spots where it needed more.