In this video you remind me of the painter Bob Ross in the way he would happily encourage beginners and talk to them about "happy little mistakes"

Quote of the day: "It's so easy to drift out, It's tiny. It's just about 2 inches"

Hey Big Clive, just noticed that you've passed a quarter of a million subscribers. Congratulations!

Since watching your videos, I've embraced your soldering hand acrobatics that you do. It's actually been quite helpful and I haven't burned myself since I started using your technique. Thanks Clive!

I’m so glad you stuffed up your first ever monostable circuit because I did exactly the same thing some 25 years ago with one of my first childhood voyages into electronics

You should make a series of video tutorials on Electrical and Electronics right from the basics. Nice work!

Well, holding components with your finger is an excellent way to learn not to overheat the component. A first-hand (or finger) experience, if you will :)

I do love 3-band 33k resistors - they look really orangey :)

You are a good teacher Clive. I've been soldering for over 30 years and it's one of those skills isn't it. It's all in the feel.

Clive, I have been watching you for a long time. You are awesome!!! I have learned so much from you even though I worked for an electronics manufacturer for 13.5 years. But if I could try to return the favor in some small way I would say that 60/40 solder is not really ideal. 63/37 is what we use in electronics manufacturing. Its known as eutectic solder which means it goes directly from solid to liquid. this allows for lower solder temperatures to be used while soldering. If you want to get really picky. IPC 610 (Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies) states that leads should be cut before soldering not after. the reason is that some copper could be exposed after cutting. Alternatively, you could reflow the solder after the cut is made. I only mention these small points because you seem very concerned with reliability and longevity and these 2 small points may help. Sorry if I'm being to anal.

after watching the video I'm pretty sure that soldering would be MILES easier with 3 hands

Thank you for making this video, now I have a link to post in the RC aircraft groups when people ask about soldering. It never fails to amaze me when I see people attempt to solder 100+$ components for their planes when they have never held a soldering iron. I ALWAYS suggest buying a bunch of random eBay kits to learn, that way it doesn't matter when they lift pads or melt components. But all of the cheap irons on the American market (and most of the "good" mains voltage) are un-grounded, so I always tell newbies to buy one of the "portable" TS-80 style irons to learn. The temp control, and safety, make it a worthy purchase.

I had that exact red Soldering iron for the last 7-8 years. I got it as a gift from my dad, because I always loved to watch him solder, but he used a Soldering pistol, which 7 year old couldn't hold for longer than 5 minutes. He bought it in our local electronics store, in a kit with a holder and some tin for 15 euro. It's​ tip unfortunately broke a week ago and I couldn't buy a tip for it that was small enough for my needs, as I do a lot of smd these days. Now I bought one of the 936 Soldering stations. It will arrive in about a week.

"The best way to learn is to just start doing it"......Very useful advice ,Sir.......

There's something inherently calming and therapeutic watching a softly-spoken Scottish bloke carefully soldering small electrical circuits

Weller is a good, simple American iron. I still have my original Weller irons that I got from my father who bought them in the 80s, and they still work great. They are nice for a tool kit since you don't have to lug a big power supply around, and they have fantastic thermal mass, so they will actually melt joints my 936 clone won't even at a much higher temperature.

"Just start soldering" i wish i i had that advice when i first wanted to learn how to solder. But stupidly enough, i asked my father. He came up with completely weird and stupid soldering exercises. Like placing a huge blob of solder (size of a chewed bubble gum) onto a wooden board. And have me reflow it with a 10 Watt soldering Iron... I gave up at some point and called it quits. A decade later, i learned how to do it. Because i needed to to fix a guitars wiring and had no money to have it done. I borrowed a soldering iron and solder from a friend. He told me "heat up the wire, and then touch it with the solder, don't heat it on the soldering iron. And don't try to carry it over" That was all the advice i needed to fix that guitar. Later i found that if i slighty touch the soldering iron with the solder, so a small amount starts to melt, it will transfer heat to the parts much faster. And that was basically the only things i learned. Everything else is just routine. Getting used to it, and figure out which tip works best for you. I personally use only chisel tips unless its something really fine.

Really good instruction on how to start soldering. Thanks for going back to basics. 40 years spent showing folks how to solder and place components, very refreshing to see the correct technique.

Thanks, allways a delight to listen to your "zen" voice, talking about electronics. This one was very good. It made me feel quite relaxed.

Please do more of these "practice" videos! This was really encouraging and informative!

Love your tutorials , very easy and relaxed and easy to understand . You cut through most of the tech B.S and give straight information. Great tutorial on the basics of soldering

Hey Clive! Took your advice and bought some kits, they just came in the mail today and I sat right down and soldered it. I've done some minor repairs in the past but this was my first start to finish electronics project and it gave me great satisfaction when it worked and the lights started flashing! Thanks for your excellent channel, the great eBay find, and this Bob Ross esque video! Hope you are well!

Little tip for people who are just getting into soldering (from experience), when you cut legs off components do NOT throw them away! Keep them because they make awesome little jumper wires!

After watching this video about a month ago, I ordered the same one from a chinesium supplier. Came in the mail today, following along with the video I was able to make sense of it since you broke it down so good. First kit was a success, thanks a lot Clive!

Four years later and I am watching this video for the first time ;) I like the way you hold the circuit board in your fingers when you are soldering, and with quite a steady hand I might add. No doubt that is practiced from many many years in the field soldering joints on-site without any clamping devices being available. Nice soldering technique, very impressive and a really good presentation for beginners, thanks for the video ;)

Just thought i'd say thank you for the consistently entertaining/interesting/informative videos. Love your work Clive.

I'm an electronic engineer, used to be a technician so am very competent at soldering. I have no idea why I sat here through all 22mins of this but I did.

Soldering instruction, electronics instruction, advice on starting out with economy equipment and even video production advice, this KZfaq has it all. I'm going to get going this way, thank you.

I'm taking your advice and I've ordered several cheap eBay kits with increasing component count and I'm going to learn how to solder before I tackle installing the header on my Pi zero.

Watching and listening to Big Clive solder is very cathartic. Thanks buddy!

That helped me a lot, thank you so much. Today I did my first soldering ever. 16 pin header strip on an LCD screen. I bought exactly the soldering iron you are using. Seems to do the job well.

I started doing kits like this in my early teens, clive is spot on, they are a fantastic learning tool, still love em

The Bob Ross of electronics, love it. Happy little solder joints.

Thanks for the video! This was my first time soldering anything today and the best part was it worked! Could not have done it without your help!

I love to hear Flux and Capacitor in one sentence.

I like how your camera setup let's you zoom in and doesn't loose details (no grainy effects) I have got a soldering iron as a Christmas present recently. At the the age of 14 turning 15, it was quite surprising :D

As an added idea for those trying to get into electronics and stuff: If you buy a few of those kits, add a simple breadboard and a few connector cables with male connectors. This allows you to quickly prototype/experiment without having to resolder components. You can just use the components and try new things (e.g. make the lights blink in a different pattern or even try to stack them to get a running light etc.). It's also possible to pick different circuits from Clive's videos and copy them (just be careful and stick to low voltage stuff for now).

I was really glad to see this video. I had picked up a couple of kits exactly like these a while back but hadn't goteen around to trying them.

I bought a 1$ soldering iron from ebay and I opened it up to see what's inside and basically it's a miracle I'm still alive

the best kit i got off of ebay has to be the component checker which tests everything except ic's well worth £10.

Clive is 100% right. Practice does help ALOT. In the last 2 years or so, my soldering skills have improved 10 fold. I do all sorts of game console mods for my friends now. Stuff that would make me cry a few years ago. I can do it now without a problem.

Clive, Once again, Awsome, Clear instruction. At some point you will start meeting people (if haven't already) who have started careers because of your instruction.

Oh, my. Better for beginners to solder the components from shortest to tallest, holding them in place by putting the board upside down on the bench. Unless they are practiced cooks, they won't have developed asbestos fingers yet. And even most of us experienced cooking solderers with asbestos fingers don't have Clive-sized hands and his manual dexterity, which is, I'll admit, always a pleasure to watch.

if clive were to do a series like "the joy of painting" but for electronics i would die happy. such a calming and relaxing voice.

Despite my advancing years I have never tackled soldering, let alone made a successful project - until now! Having purchased a soldering kit and been practicing just with blank pcbs it was great to find this and get hold of a couple of these kits - first one worked first time! Well, after I sorted the polarity of the yellow and orange leads into the power supply... :) Thanks Clive... 👍🏻 😎

As usual, another segment filled with enjoyment! Many thanks!

I was astounded a couple of years back when I was baking a simple twin BFY22 to latch a simple 12v light via a relay (To repair a 30 year old X10 experiment). Had a shit load of 22's so just wanted a relay so popped to the store. Young bloke looked at me like a I was moron - transistors can easily do 5-18v at 2A+ nowadays. What a time to be alive.

More kits please! Relaxing watching some soldering

I have to say that I love videos like this.

I got a 30W soldering iron from walmart. was like 9$ or something. I bought some new tips for it. and the new tips worked reeeeeeeeeally good. Taking solder like a champ and no tip erosion pretty good for a cheap iron from the store i got two pointed tips and one chisel tip. they work really great. I tend to use the chisel tip more though.

So I was supposed to wet the sponge. I have so much to learn! Thanks Clive, another great video.

There was a clearance a few weeks ago at La Source (What used to be Radio Shack in Canada). They were practically giving away all electronic tools they had left. I got a soldering iron (looking a lot like yours but with temperature adjustment) 3 spools of lead based solder and a reel of desoldering wick for less than 10$

My daughter wants to be an electrician when she finishes school. I'm gonna buy a few of these kits to let her practice. Cheers Big Man (yeah, fellow Glaswegian here)

Clear, concise instructions. Excellent video.

Great video, and this explains soldering better than other videos I've watched on KZfaq, which quite frankly, have made me even more hesitant about soldering.

Truly the Bob Ross of soldering.

One amazing tip that nobody ever told me is to not give up on soldering. Once you have the fundamentals down and learn how to do what you want, if you plan to do plenty of soldering, get a good soldering station like a Hakko FX-888. You come to find that you don't actually still suck at soldering, it was just bad equipment. Good gear and good solder go a long way to making you a truly proficient solderer.

I really enjoy soldering. It's like knitting for guys !! You can drift off on some tangential thought whilst making something.

Great videos Clive, keeps me entertained for hours! need to get back into electronics, last thing I built was a Nixie clock kit 4 year's ago.

I've just randomly ordered a bunch of these kits, along with two kit clocks. It's been over 15 years I last touched a soldering iron, so this should be fun.

Great video as usual. From my own mistakes I've started ordering extra kits - normally wrecking the pads on some of the cheaper kits so it's handy to have spares.

This video is so relaxing to watch. Thanks for the knowledge friend.

I just finished one of those and unbelievably it actually worked. Admittedly not first time - there were a couple of bad solder joints I had to redo, but given I've done hardly any soldering for about 20 years (and not much even back then), not bad at all. I was expecting to have to do several before I got one that worked.

This reminds me , my very 1st electronic project in 1982.Clive has used every 5 fingers in his left hand in the most efficient way according to the present job.

Nice video Clive. The closeups were really helpful. Thanks!

good starter video! will get my grandson to watch! he loves building kits.

Soldering is so therapeutic :)

Good evening Clive As a kid, I tried electronics. Got an 'Electronic lab 300' with 300 electronic projects. It uses components on a colorful cardboard base, with springs to connect wires as well as a breadboard to add or experiment with other valued components. Never got my head around how it works though. Put it away for several years until I saw your electronics-for-beginners videos. (BigThanks from me) I got the lab out of the darkest corner of the basement, dusted it off and ordered some of those kit's to learn to solder. And just this weekend I made this blinking led kit. I used the supplied wires to power it from the lab. The 'power rail' of the lab's breadboard delivers 1.5 to 9 volts in 6 1.5v increments. I tried the kit at 1.5v at first. Both LEDs came on with no blinking. Suspecting a fault I examined the soldering joints and found no problems, neither on the positioning of the components. At the second power-up, I used 3v. The LEDs blinked but I noticed just as in your kit they flashed on, but dimmed off. Also tried 4.5v and 6v. Blinking seemed not to speed up or slow down. (Testing if the 1.5v made the blinking as fast so it seems not to blink) As I do not remember this happening when I made this kind of blinking when I was a kid I first thought it to be a bug in my kit. But when I saw the same thing in your kit It made me think maybe it's the LEDs to blame. Decades ago I made the vibrating thing with incandescent bulbs. Question: Is it because LEDs needs less voltage or current they seem to dim out slowly in compare sense with the tungsten bulbs?

Re direction of electrons, my first landrover, was positive earth, something not seen these days, it was from the mid 60's & obviously then the debate was raging, didn't cause any issues apart from i couldn't fit a stereo as they were all negative earth. I could've changed it & added an alternator instead of the dynamo,but I liked the novelty, & I sold it after a couple of years...for a 24volt ex military radio version landrover...a glutton for punishment...

This was really therapeutic, can't wait to try myself!

OMG! That was the first thing i made, when i first started my interrest in electronics some 38-something years ago. But i build mine on a small piece off wooden board with copper nails at the joints. I actually stil have the booklet i used as a guide. 🤗

I like your channel because unlike other people you explain everything for us simpletons (btw I am 15 and live is Australia so I know nothing about electronics)

Cheers for this Clive, ordered a couple of the kits and battery holders after watching your vid. Just made a working kit this morning. Need to get better helping hands though, I don't have your multi-finger dexterity. Thanks.

Hey Clive, I'm not a subscriber but I've seen a few of your videos. They are really good and I really liked this video! Keep up the good work!

Thank you for the excellent tutorial! I really wish I could learn that skill one day.

Great video for beginners, this is the other side of taking thing to bits.

Thanks Clive. Very well explained.

Thanks for all the explanations in this fine video.

CPC is a superb supplier. I have used them for over 20 years for all sorts of items. Our Apple computer supplier in the 90’s charged £10 plus VAT (then 15%) for a single mouse ball. They added delivery and VAT on delivery on top of that. It was expensive because the pupils would remove the mouse ball from the mice and the computers would not work. CPC sold 10 mouse balls for £5 and if you spent more than £50 in the catalogue, delivery was free of charge. And it was easy to spend on their catalogue. I bought LEDs, resistors, switches, battery snaps, all sorts and more for classroom projects. CPC are part of the Farnell group and some viewers may know them better as Element 14, esp from The Ben Heck Show.

Since you mentioned this, I always use solder which has no flux in it. Not so sure if I'm already in any hell, but I like soldering so far. And your videos I like too.

My first kit was DSO128 Oscilloscope, and it works :D

You gave an awesome soldering class. Thank You

This is the first beginner video where the first thing you do is to try to instill confidence. If a beginner stumbles on your show they will watch it until the end.

Thank you Clive, great stuff!

Thank you for making this video. You inspire me. Thanks

This was the first transistor circuit I built back in 1974 or so, when red LEDs just became cheap. I was about 12 years old.

I too have this kit, not only can you vary the component values to alter flash rates and duty cycle, you can make a two stage audio amplifier for very low level signals without cutting tracks, or use a centre-tapped primary transformer for a step-up converter (at higher frequency) Or even a low power 'royer' inverter. Fun PCBs

Since watching Clive for the last few years, my soldering has definitely come a long way, and part of that reason was finding these cheap little kits.

Nice little vid clive, will get a few of these for the kids to practice with.....nice

Here in the USA the "Weller" brand soldering iron is a good choice for a (relatively) inexpensive iron and usually can be found for around $20 US. The only thing I'd add is that "practice makes perfect" isn't accurate.... "perfect practice makes perfect" but I'm splitting hairs ;-) Enjoy the videos and now my 12 year old son solders better than I do! I've ordered dozens of kits (suites) and in a few weeks time (usually after I've forgotten I've ordered them) they show up and makes for a fun few hours with no TV or video games involved - another win.

I’m pretty new to soldering and videos like this are very helpful. Luckily i own a soldering station which i can adjust the temperature and have different sizes of tips which makes it easier to solder

Multi Vibrator? *Clive you planning on making a "personal massager?*

Terrific video Clive. Watching your channel has really sparked my interest in electronics (sorry for the pun) and I've been putting together a number of kits starting with a simple flasher kit and working up. I've been putting together kits by a company called Velleman (other kits suppliers are available) and I'd love to see you do something with one of them. My soldering technique has improved quite a bit and the last kit I put together had 60 LEDs, and my kids now have flashing stars and hearts. I'd love to see more on your channel deals with how stuff works.

Great video!

Watching up close I found myself blowing the smoke away. 30 years of soldering, old habits. All that lead, delicious!

I was just listening while cooking and several times heard kids instead of kits. At first I was thinking it‘s about learning kids how to solder. 😅 But finally I got it. BTW, I had a Kosmos Elektronik Box 50y ago, a kind of early breadboard, and was creating a simulation of the sound of my Guinea pig with 2 such multivibrators cascaded. Obviously no LED (already invented, but unaffordable), but a speaker output and much smaller caps in the second stage. Not that I did know too much about why it did what. 😎

Love your comment re, electron flow : vis : conventional current flow. I am an old electronics technician (trained in the late 1960's) and yes we were taught "electron flow" who cares if it goes against the arrow on the transistor or diode symbol. It makes a hell of a lot more sense since it is after all the "Free" electrons which flow from one atom to the next

This was one of the first projects I purchased to build for practice. It turned out quite well considering at the time I was using a butane soldering iron that got extremely hot, in fact on subsequent projects I managed to burn off several soldering pads, giving me practice at scraping off the solder protect and making a spot to connect leads. My next iron was a USB, then another Butane, and at long last I found a cheap aqua blue soldering iron with easily replaceable tips, and a tiny wheel that had numbers on it to tell me the approximate temp. It has been a Godsend, and after purchasing that iron, and a large spool of American Solder Rosin Core Solder Wire in 0,08mm size made by TMI I have been soldering like a professional. Of course I have built dozens of different kits, I have all sorts of clocks and flashing lights, FM radio transmitters. I have been having a blast soldering up projects, I do my soldering while reclined in my electric recliner, and occasionally a drop of solder makes it's way to my shirts, so now I have a drawer my wife calls my soldering shirts, which I try to wear on days when my soldering iron is going to be put into play, which can be almost any day.

Soldering is one of the most therapeutic activities I know.

Those snips are actually really good tho!