Fixing the bad soldering on my Arduino Nano Clone

A while ago I tried to solder some headers on my Arduino Nano Clone with limited success.

Since it was my first time soldering headers on such a small device, it's no wonder. Especially since I'm not really used to my new soldering iron just yet.

Still...it's rather fucking embarrassing... Look at that thing. It's pretty pathetic. I don't know how I even managed to get that one solder joint to stick up so far. There are of course a few bridged points, but that's mainly because I didn't bother to fix it when I got tired of trying to do it with limited materials. I should really get one of those metal solder ball thingies to make it easier to get excess solder off my solder pencil.

More than a bit of de-soldering braid later, and one burn due to accidentally touching the metal of the soldering pencil, and it looks a lot better!

I'd say that it looks a lot better.

With a bit of finagling with my needle-nose pliers, I even got it to fit into my stupidly small breadboard.

Of course, I also messed up and accidentally pushed some of the headers down a bit. But I think it will likely work well enough. If not, I'll put some new headers on it eventually.

After attaching on the connector on the back and cleaning it up with a bit of alcohol, sadly not the type you can drink, I think it looks pretty damn good myself.

After this enlightening experience, I now realize unless you're gonna be using something for a low profile application where headers will get in the way, it's better to just pay extra to get them already attached. It's a pain in the ass, but not impossible, if you are poor as hell. But then, the equipment to solder it properly is like $20 minimum, and you only save a few cents to maybe a dollar or two. You do get some experience soldering though, which is good.

I do need experience soldering again so there are fewer embarrassments like this, that I then pathetically share with the world for a Steem or two.