February 1, 2026
Solder Wars are sizzling
In the Lab – Soldering Prototypes with Enamel Magnet Wire
DIY tinkerers split: genius hack or spaghetti fire hazard
TLDR: A maker shows a fast prototype trick using enamel magnet wire instead of breadboards. Comments erupt into a showdown: fans love the minimalist spaghetti, critics push wire wrapping or Kynar hookup wire, and a veteran recalls self-fluxing enamel from the ’60s—DIY reliability vs aesthetics debate
Forget the tidy plastic breadboards—this lab post goes full magnet wire: thin copper coated in enamel that you melt off in a blob of solder, then bend like tiny spaghetti from point A to point B. The creator shares a simple 6-step solder dance, swaps chunky resistors for tiny 0603 parts, and proudly runs the whole thing from a garage bench (with dreams of a hobby room). Cue the comments: the solder was hot, but the takes were hotter.
One camp says magnet-wire prototypes look cool but are risk-prone. User simojo argues wire wrapping—an old-school trick of tightly winding bare wire around a pin—gives bomber (read: ultra-solid) connections, warning that cold solder joints are waiting to break your heart. Another camp brushes off the enamel drama entirely, insisting Kynar hook-up wire (thin, everyday wire) is the real MVP—Animats even drops the mic with “Even WalMart stocks it.” Meanwhile, rasz points to a slick magnet-wire-heavy build, a 486-style FPGA computer on Hackaday, and ranger_danger shows off a photo bypassing UARTs (serial ports) with glorious spaghetti.
Best subplot: aurizon’s throwback that in 1968 there was self-fluxing enamel wire you could solder straight through. The thread turns into a meme war—artful spaghetti vs rat’s nest, garage chic vs lab snob—and nobody agrees, but everyone’s entertained.
Key Points
- •The author outlines a six-step process to strip and solder enamel magnet wire directly to PCB pads.
- •Enamel removal is done by inserting the wire end into a fresh solder blob on the iron tip, leveraging flux to boil off enamel.
- •Cleaning the soldering iron tip after enamel removal is necessary because enamel contaminates the solder.
- •Prototyping uses 0603 SMD resistors instead of through-hole parts, fitting between 2.54 mm pad spacing and handled with a magnifying lamp.
- •Tools include 26 AWG magnet wire (155°C rating) and a budget hot-air rework/soldering station sourced from Amazon.