> Testing hardware and extracting firmware is VERY likely to require soldering skills.<p>Yeah, headers will be removed, etc. You may not have easy access to the pins you need.<p>This is a useful collection of soldering/desoldering tips for those that don't do it much.<p>If everybody should learn to code, maybe everybody should learn to mod hardware without destroying it or hurting yourself.
> Some people swear by PTFE insulated magnet wire. This should be “stripped” by the heat of the soldering iron… I just can’t get comfy with it.<p>Magnet wire is enamel insulated. You can burn it off, but scraping it with a scalpel is probably better.<p>You can buy PTFE wire. You should not attempt to burn off the insulation. That would release harmful smoke. PTFE wire is a good choice for a beginer because the insulation is harder to burn and it doesn't shrink back with heat, unlike PVC. It's a bit harder to use otherwise - it's harder to strip, and the insulation is a bit stiffer than PVC.<p>Source: I used to build "chock control interfaces" that were full of PTFE wire looms.<p>This is a nice article with some useful advice for beginners. I think most important is to just get junk PCBs and practice taking things off, or putting things on. You really need to get some familiarity with how solder flows on different types of board or different components.<p>> Decide if you want to remount the component or re-use the rest of the device. We will take more care if we do.<p>When I was doing it we'd only ever remove faulty components. Often it's safer to chop the legs off, remove the body, and then you can use small amounts of heat to remove each pin. This protects the PCB, which is usually the expensive bit. (Especially if it's populated with components.)
Using metcal and 60/40 is an odd recommendation. Metcals are great for reproducibility since they don't have arbitrary tip temp choices, but for exploratory work I like using a quality iron like Pace..<p>63/37 is way easier to deal with when soldering since it's harder to create a cold joint with it.
To me, the testing demarcation would be packet sniffing, not soldering. Too many IOT devices are sending hundreds of kilobytes of data home for no reason.
Just FYI, I've worked with this "security" company a year ago and they suggested in one of their pentest reports that a password field not explicitly disallowing autofill (built-in browser password management and iCloud Keychain) is a security risk, against all advice that password managers are a good thing and their use should be encouraged.