I’m sure someone will chime in, but in case not, ultimately I say bring spares.
I personally would hesitate to expect the space to have the things you need, through no fault of their own the area was recently decimated and so, when i tried to find things I needed I could not, but items have started returning and also area is being rapidly improved etc.
so if it’s time critical or you can’t plan for an additional trip to the space i would buy what you need and bring them with you - just in case.
i’d be surprised if there wasn’t a decent soldering iron though, that has never been an issue for me, i’ve always found reliable irons at the space.
In the case of consumables, I always think they are consumable and plan for them to be exhausted.
I’m sure you’ll find help, unfortunately I can’t make time to assist at the moment, but in terms of soldering I think the following will probably see you through.
Heat the iron up, melt some solder on the tip and then dunk it into one of the pots that look like they have a copper scrubber inside, this typically cleans up the tip nicely and puts you in a great position to work.
Every single time you intend on touching the iron tip to your wire, apply a bit of solder to the tip first, and do not linger just move straight to applying it to your wire. if you wait, youll burn the flux out of the solder and itll oxidise rapidly and give you ‘cold solder joints’ or in other words itll look like metallic bird poop.
the solder on the tip ensures that you get maximum heat transfer from the iron, to your wire, or connector, etc.
thing that i see most people get wrong, is they assume the molten solder on the iron tip is applied to the part with the intention of that doing the soldering. that’s going to give nasty solder connections. instead, just need to keep in mind the molten solder on the tip is there simply to convey heat.
with the iron tip pressed against your item, youll be able to poke with a bit of solder wire and if it’s hot enough it’ll melt. in many cases there is enough flux in the solder wire and so provided you have the heat, it’ll flow nicely and look shiny.
i usually tin (flow some solder on) the connector and the wire. if it’s a multi-strand wire, i twist it first whilst cold with my fingers to get a neat and tidy bunch.
with both tinned, making sure any shrouds or whatever are fed through the wire, i heat up the connector and bring the wire to it. if iron has enough thermal capacity and at a sensible temperature, the solder will melt on the connector and you can feed in the wire. the wire makes contact with the molten solder and subsequently follows suit and melts.
alternatively, tin only the wire and not the connector, feed the wire into the connector and apply heat and then feed solder onto the wire which will flow into the connector.
the latter may be better for you to preserve the connector integrity.
