heat sinking a solder joint

[kevner21]

As I could call myself a veteran kit builder , but im not ..... although I built kits back in the 70's  I  always wonder which component should be heat sinked when soldering , diodes, certain capacitors , the transistors in the stereomour power supply??? never was told . being a pipe welder for some 38 years , tells me heat can destroy very easily , my stereomour turned out excellent , and know you must use finesse with these small components, maybe builders that are new to this , would like to know also.......? Thanks

[butchbass]

I built the Extended FP III and the Paramours with with C4s upgrades which required soldering the LEDs and voltage regulators to the circuit board. I did not use any heat sinks. I use a variac to control my soldering iron temp, some folks have soldering stations. As long as you do not camp out on the solder joint and remove the iron as soon as you get a good flow of the solder there should not be a problem. If you want to use a heat sink I would heat sink the LEDs and voltage regulators on the circuit boards. You could buy some inexpensive parts and terminal boards from Parts Express and practice to see what your preference might be.
Happy Soldering

[Grainger49]

I heat sink transistor leads.  SS devices, junctions, can be susceptible to heat.  I use either a heat sink (clip) or a pair of forceps. 

[Doc B.]

Around here we almost never use heat sinks to solder. And at least I don't even touch the temp knob. My own station is an Ersa 2000 that has a very fast recovery time and I usually run it all the way up.

The trick is to get the heat on and off the component quickly. When you watch someone solder who has a lot of experience one thing you will note is that they move pretty quickly, that is the tip does not stay on the joint very long. With practice you get a feel for it. A lot of it has to do with learning exactly where the tip should be applied, for example if you are soldering something fairly massive (t-strip) to something fairly small (LED) you want to inject the heat primarily into the massive part.

.

[kevner21]

Thank you and just thought this subject should be discussed, so people know not to spend too much time on a solder joint thanks