#TwitKH I am so frustrated!

[G+_T Burns]

#TwitKH   I am so frustrated! I'm trying to do the power harness mod from Ep 134 and either I'm not doing this right or my soldering iron is horrible (and I've done soldering before, just not in awhile). I've been holding the soldering iron to the male bullets for 10 minutes and the solder will NOT melt inside the cup. I can touch the solder to the iron and it melts almost instantly and I have the iron turned all the way up. I have the soldering iron from ifixit and I'm about to throw it through the window. Is anyone else using this thing? It's a Velleman 50W with a ceramic tip. Any suggestions on a better iron for less than $75? Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ  what do you use?

[G+_Rob Yesta]

The bullet connectors or the power connector? The power connector is a bit tricky. I just bought a prebuilt power distribution board since I am a newbie at soldiering . The bullet connector has a small hole in the side you can put the iron tip in.

[G+_Dan Salter]

If you can post a pic of your soldering setup that may help us diagnose. I found I lost a lot of heat to my helping hands if the bullet was griped too close to the clips. If your bullet cup is too close to the clip, you may be heating the entire helping hand frame wich will dissipate the heat rapidly.

Your iron tip may also be too big to make use of the holes in the sides of the bullets. I found holding the tip against the outside of the bullet cup was the best way to heat my bullets and get them hot enough to melt the solder.

[G+_T Burns]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. It is the bullet connectors and I got the female sides done with the hole in the side but the male  bullets I'm using don't have holes. I think Dan Salter may have hit the issue with having the cup too close to the clips because the aligator clips were getting pretty hot. Bottom line, though, is that I ordered a Weller WLC100 because this isn't the first time I've been frustrated with this soldering iron. .