I hate soldering. Really hate and really terrible at it.
But after a long walk to rugby field. 1 hour round trip for 5 secs of flight, (Canopy facing incorrectly, zip tie failure and then power snapped) And then a long time cursing over soldering the power connectors (hours!)
I got a single battery pack in on nearest park. I called it a day at that, quit whilst ahead.
Posting for my pleasure - to forget about the soldering and to chalk the evening as a success. Not the best or exciting video but it counts as a flight.
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Soldering is inevitable.
It’ll get easier.
I spent an hour last night struggling over flight controller that was reporting no gyro after a flash.
I’d not noticed if it had been working before I’d soldered the new HDZero VTX onto it, replacing the old analog. I was watching youtube videos about bad flashing causing this, but those got me nowhere. (I did learn a few things however)
In the end I looked at the board closely and found the smallest solder ball on a trace next to the gyro. It must have been from a splatter from when I’d de-soldered the analog VTX and Camera. For the first time in ages I’d not covered the FC whilst doing it and it was not conformally coated. I had been overconfident.
Luckily the solder ball was not fixed in place and a careful nudge with some tweezers got it off the board. The gyro reappeared and the quad is now working. Boards are conformally coated as well. I do need to go back and put some E6000 on some nuts and connectors.
So, perhaps it doesn’t get easier…
Anyway, you’ll get used to it. The sort of problem you had there is why I have so many quads. So many spares, because you can guarantee that at least one of them will not work at any time.
Mate if you lived closer Id happily sort for you as love a bit of soldering, that said when I first started out I was horrendous at it I ended up reaching out to Steve as just couldn’t get to grippes with it at all.
At 1 one point I even contacted someone locally to solder a motor wire back on as I couldn’t do it. But I must agree it gets easier honestly it does, and if I can do you will in time 
As an ex electronic engineer working on military aircraft systems I spent a whole year in training school learning how to solder, we had soldering excersises every single day an work inspected and failed every day, can’t say I love soldering but I am bloody good at it.
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If anyone needs any soldering 
Soldering when you have tremors in your hands is even more fun.
I also hate soldering. I did look at one point to see if I could find anyone locally who could do it. I can fix wires that snapped off, but I have only successfully done one bit of soldering, connecting a VTX to an FC. All other attempts have failed. I’m told I need to spend more time on the pads as I am doing cold soldered joints. I need to try and get some better flux, maybe some Amtech flux. I use Kester flux at the minute, but it vaporises too quickly.
Thanks for all the support - glad I am not alone.
Soldering broke after one battery today. Count to t… e… n…
Will try another pack when it is cooler. Perfect weather of flying this morning.
Remember to put strain relief on your power cable, even if you just cable tie it to an arm or something else. Same with anything that’s flopping around and especially antennas. if it can get hung up on a branch or something else, add cable ties. Saves having to resolder stuff a lot of the time.
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everywhere