Solder practice kits for technicians

[Pack34]

So... We hired a tech that can't solder or put cables together. Despite some loud meetings I've been able to force him to go to a soldering workshop. The downside is that it's only a one day thing but it'll be good to get his feet wet.

What I would like to do after that is get a handful of practice kits for him to work on. I've had some success with the kit below when I teach some high school kids but want a few more that would be a bit more challenging. I think some with QFNs or similar would be a good addition to get some exposure to reflow soldering.

Anyone here have some recommendations that may work? I can throw some money at this.

Gikfun DIY SMD SMT Welding Practice Soldering Skill Training Board Ek7028 https://a.co/d/apRUXjV

[Doctorandus_P]

I am wondering what the meaning of those "loud meetings" is in this context.
If people don't want to learn, then throwing money at it is not going to help. Also, soldering fine pitch stuff is quite accurate work and it's a skill that not everybody can acquire even if they try hard. Having good tools help though.

[xrunner]

Ebay has tons of those types of kits, too many to even list. Just search for SMD soldering practice ...

[Shock]

Gikfun DIY SMD SMT Welding Practice Soldering Skill Training Board Ek7028 https://a.co/d/apRUXjV

Please don't post short urls hiding affiliate linking tracking, etc. Easy to just chop off the trailing rubbish to sanitize it, thanks.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VWB8F8K?ref_=cm_sw_r_apan_dp_8QGEQJ2PJDZ8J7S6S8ZM 20

[DavidAlfa]

Soldering needs practice but learning the basic stuff and the good habits takes just 15 minutes.
I remember an electronics course I did back in 2010 when the global crisis and could't find any job.
To practice soldering, we were given a CAD drawing of a high voltage tower, solid AWG22 wire, and an entire week doing it.
I already knew soldering but enjoyed anyways! Netherless some people didn't even try, so their soldering was crap from start to finish.
There was model railroad enthusiast, we developed a healthy rivalry, "I'll put the official logo" "Ah, I'll make isolators" "I'll put a line transformer there".
In the end our towers were light years ahead of the rest and he won! But he really deserved it, he had no idea to solder at the beginning!
Later we got cats and sadly he liked chewing the wires, destroyed it in one day 

So give hime some professional advice at first, later a bucket of old boards to practice, remove everything and put it back!

[donlisms]

It's really cheap and relatively easy to design PCB's these days and have them made.  Choose what kind of components you think would be the most helpful, put lots and lots of 'em on a board design, and go to it.  Hundreds and hundreds becomes a simple thing.  Do a board, or part of a board, and evaluate it to see what kinds of corrections need to be made.  Then do some more, expecting it to be better.

If it's all about cables and connectors, maybe you get a cup of connectors, do 'em up, then undo them and go again.  If the connector is too melted from the first attempt... there's a problem to start with!

[Zero999]

So... We hired a tech that can't solder or put cables together.

Just one question: why?

It's possible to train him, but not quickly and soldering PCBs is very different to cables and connectors.

I would have thought it would be better to simply fire him and hire someone up to the job.

[tooki]

So... We hired a tech that can't solder or put cables together. Despite some loud meetings I've been able to force him to go to a soldering workshop. The downside is that it's only a one day thing but it'll be good to get his feet wet.

What I would like to do after that is get a handful of practice kits for him to work on. I've had some success with the kit below when I teach some high school kids but want a few more that would be a bit more challenging. I think some with QFNs or similar would be a good addition to get some exposure to reflow soldering.

Anyone here have some recommendations that may work? I can throw some money at this.

Gikfun DIY SMD SMT Welding Practice Soldering Skill Training Board Ek7028 https://a.co/d/apRUXjV

The very first thing I’d have him do is watch the Pace “basic soldering” video series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837&si=PEwppUZqyoqLG_vA

Despite being old as the hills, that series explains the actual soldering process better than anything I’ve seen before or since. Following those lessons WILL improve someone’s soldering skills.

Pace also has other video series, some available on the corporate channel, others on the personal channel of a retired Pace executive, Marc Siegel, that go into rework and stuff, which can give some more insight into soldering even if one isn’t actually doing that type of rework.

[Dan123456]

Massive props to you guys for giving him a chance mate!

I absolutely despise this world we live in where people believe you absolutely NEED 5 degrees and 30 years of on the job experience just to clean a toilet!

So long as he is truely interested in what you do and has the drive to learn, you could end up with a kick ass tech in the not to distant future 

Plus you can train him up to do things exactly the way you like them rather than having to retrain the bad habits out of someone who has been doing it for year.

I really, really hope he works out for you guys! 

One recommendation I would have is e-waste. It literally costs nothing and you can give him a pile of scrap and ask him to desolder everything then solder it back on. You might also use that to train him some diagnostics as well (I.e. “ why is this in the trash? What died on it?) 

[BillyO]

Was this just an ad for a Amazon affiliate link?

If he has to do a lot of soldering of whole SMD circuit boards, just get a re-flow oven.  It will pay for itself in no time.

[Pack34]

I am wondering what the meaning of those "loud meetings" is in this context.
If people don't want to learn, then throwing money at it is not going to help. Also, soldering fine pitch stuff is quite accurate work and it's a skill that not everybody can acquire even if they try hard. Having good tools help though.

Older guy, apparently likes to yell a lot. It has to be reasonable to expect moving some 0402 jumpers and tagging on bodge wire for the software engineers. Larger BGAs of course send off to the CM to rework. Basic QFNs should be trainable since it's just reflowing the board.

It's really cheap and relatively easy to design PCB's these days and have them made.  Choose what kind of components you think would be the most helpful, put lots and lots of 'em on a board design, and go to it.  Hundreds and hundreds becomes a simple thing.  Do a board, or part of a board, and evaluate it to see what kinds of corrections need to be made.  Then do some more, expecting it to be better.

If it's all about cables and connectors, maybe you get a cup of connectors, do 'em up, then undo them and go again.  If the connector is too melted from the first attempt... there's a problem to start with!

It does look like I'm going to put one of these together. I grabbed a pair of kits that "should" be good for someone new to get their feet wet. Lots of 0805, 0603, 0402, some SOICs and TQFPs. I figure have him start on the larger ones and work his way down.

I think a good practice one would be some STM32 based design that just has an LDO, LED driver, and a lot of LEDs. Lots of discrete components, hopefully a QFN for the LED driver to get some reflow experience, TQFP for the STM32, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KDLR6P6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BNB2RXKX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00

So... We hired a tech that can't solder or put cables together. Despite some loud meetings I've been able to force him to go to a soldering workshop. The downside is that it's only a one day thing but it'll be good to get his feet wet.

What I would like to do after that is get a handful of practice kits for him to work on. I've had some success with the kit below when I teach some high school kids but want a few more that would be a bit more challenging. I think some with QFNs or similar would be a good addition to get some exposure to reflow soldering.

Anyone here have some recommendations that may work? I can throw some money at this.

Gikfun DIY SMD SMT Welding Practice Soldering Skill Training Board Ek7028 https://a.co/d/apRUXjV

The very first thing I’d have him do is watch the Pace “basic soldering” video series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837&si=PEwppUZqyoqLG_vA

Despite being old as the hills, that series explains the actual soldering process better than anything I’ve seen before or since. Following those lessons WILL improve someone’s soldering skills.

Pace also has other video series, some available on the corporate channel, others on the personal channel of a retired Pace executive, Marc Siegel, that go into rework and stuff, which can give some more insight into soldering even if one isn’t actually doing that type of rework.

Thanks! Hopefully should be a good one to get him started.

Was this just an ad for a Amazon affiliate link?

If he has to do a lot of soldering of whole SMD circuit boards, just get a re-flow oven.  It will pay for itself in no time.

No, posted from my phone. It's the link generated by the Amazon app while I was browsing.

[analogix]

Many of those SMD practice kits appear to concentrate only on the visual aspect of soldering (getting a nice joint, avoiding bridging etc) as the PCBs appear not to have any traces that connect to other components.

I've never soldered an SMD component before, so before starting to work on a "real" project I'd like to make sure I not only avoid the usual mistakes of bridging etc. but also not overheat the components (and likewise not solder with insufficient heat, resulting in cold joints), but getting a feel of what's OK -which is why a proper kits where you add a power source and make it actually do something is invaluable (plus it's way more rewarding!)-

Kits like that are found here and there on eBay etc. but to avoid excessive import duties, save on combined shipping and so on it would be nice to buy 4 or 5 (or more) cheap SMD based kits in one go. PS: they don't even have to be dedicated "solder practice" kits; just some cheap kits with as many SMD components (especially ICs) as possible.

Any suggestions for kits like that and places to order from?