Soldering?

[Irish Pennant]

I don't know anything about soldering so I have a few basic questions. What brand/type of soldering iron is good for working on cables, patch chords and the likes. Also which solder and if flux is needed would be good? What about surface preperation and cleanup?

[Doubleneck]

When I wanted to solder a second pickup to my Lyric circuit board I went into a local Radio Shack and they had a kit that was very reasonable with everything you need. Flux is in the solder.

[rb1591]

There are numerous YouTube videos that address your questions, but I found this one especially helpful. As you will see, the guy is making an instrument cable, so maybe this will be helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smg68qgJa-I

[Mobilemike]

Yup, I've used regular Radio Shack brand soldering irons and solder for years and they works great. I would definitely recommend soending a few dollars more and getting the soldering iron with adjustable temperature settings - a higher wattage will work fine for larger things like mic cables but if you get into more intricate soldering situations you will benefit from the lower temp option.

As far as solder goes, I believe the only thing they are allowed to make now is lead-free solder, but if you can find some of the old stuff with lead in it that seems to flow a bit better. A spool lasts a long time. Flux is in the solder as a previous poster said, but when you are learning to solder at first it may be helpful to have some extra flux paste to help the wires bond without burning. As you get more skilled you will find yourself using it less and less (at least I did).

One more tip - a clean tip on your soldering iron is key. Dirty tips make you work a lot harder to get anything to bond. Definitely keep a damp sponge there to wipe it on after every use, and one of those wire soldering iron cleaners is very helpful too.

Have fun!
-Mike

[Earwitness]

Here's a tip about soldering (from an amateur): put the tip of the gun onto the target wires or metal piece, long enough to get it hot. Then, leaving the gun tip right next to the target, have a straight piece of the wire ready (a couple of inches of straight), and pretty quickly push it into the hot tip in such a way that it will be melting right onto the target. Maybe a half inch of wire or so, but do it all at once in a quick motion, not a little at a time. It will crumple into a little pool, creating the connection you want; then pull away the gun tip and the unmelted wire. For just a moment, you have the chance to tease the little pool into a better shape with the gun tip before it dries, if necessary.

Safety tip is that you very well can or will burn yourself if you do not take a lot of precaution; do not lose awareness of where the hot element is, especially if you drop something, or hit the cord or whatever. Lots of times the heating element is very light and bouncy and ends up moving off its little stand somehow.

Good luck!

[zhunter]

Two principals:

You are heating the work not the solder. Once the work is hot enough, the solder, when placed in contact with the work, will flow out and cover the work.

You can heat the work much faster if you have a solder bridge between the iron and the work. When you have the iron in as close contact as you can maintain with the work applying a small amount of solder at the contact point and bridging the air gap will speed up heating the work. Then apply solder to the work.

There is more but this will get you started. I am sure the videos will provide better insight.

hunter

[ricdoug]

Everything needs to be clean (sponges and flux paste) and a good physical connection of the bare wire to the joint. If this is not possible, "tinning" the wire before soldering to the joint helps. The object is to heat the wire and joint and apply just enough rozin core solder to the opposite side to create a shiny, concave fillet joint after the heat is released. I find a 20 to 40 watt soldering iron enough for most jobs. I have a temperature controlled soldering station and a 100 watt soldering gun for other applications. For plumbing I use a butane torch. Horses for courses. Ric

[Spook]

- Definitely review the youtube videos
- Recommend a few tools to make the whole thing easier:

• Inexpensive wire stripper tool
• 'Third Hand' clamp to hold work pieces in place
• Solder remover (wire mesh that will absorb solder for do-overs)
• Better than a POS soldering iron. Swappable tips are also good.
• Decent lighting for your work space
• An inexpensive ohmeter to check your work

You'll find with a little practice on wire scraps, it really isn't very hard but can be frustrating getting things to stay in place. Just takes patience. It's a great guitar skill to have.

[tuneitfred]

Use 60/40 solder. I use the type that comes in a 6" tube that you can get from stew-mac. I have a 40 watt Weller iron and it's good for everything I do. As stated previously radio shack is a great source for supplies. I use an electronics supplier called Altex here in Texas that has everything the electronics/computer geek would ever need. It's like a Radio Shack on steroids X10.

Make sure your work is clean before you start. The real key is to resist the temptation try to use the solder like its a glue. Also make sure that you start out with a longer stick of solder than you think you need. Once it starts melting and you start feeding it in to the connection it goes pretty quickly.

Practice on some scrap parts first. It's not a hard skill to learn. You will find yourself repairing and modifying all kinds of electronics.

[sam.spoons]

Originally Posted by Mobilemike

As far as solder goes, I believe the only thing they are allowed to make now is lead-free solder, but if you can find some of the old stuff with lead in it that seems to flow a bit better. A spool lasts a long time.

You can still buy lead based solder, they make it for reworking and repairing old equipment. It is much easier to work with than lead free. I have a couple of spools of different gauges and will never run out. Available in the UK/EU from Radio Spares.

[Irish Pennant]

Thanks for all the replies, I do plan on looking at youtube but I also wanted to compliment that with some real life practical knowledge from as many experienced people as I could gather. I value experience and skill.

[RogerPease]

Lots of good advice here.

My only addition is: do NOT get a soldering gun.
A good quality inexpensive soldering pencil is the way to go.
Weller is a good brand and you can get replacement tips, which wear out.
That's all you need to work on cables.
That skill is well worth having and might even make you a hero to your band mates.

When you want to work on circuit boards you'll need a thermostatically controlled
pencil. They cost more $$$ and are not needed for cables.

Cheers,

_Roger

[zhunter]

Originally Posted by RogerPease

Lots of good advice here.

My only addition is: do NOT get a soldering gun.
A good quality inexpensive soldering pencil is the way to go.
Weller is a good brand and you can get replacement tips, which wear out.
That's all you need to work on cables.
That skill is well worth having and might even make you a hero to your band mates.

When you want to work on circuit boards you'll need a thermostatically controlled
pencil. They cost more $$$ and are not needed for cables.

Cheers,

_Roger

I learned to solder in e tech school many years back and one of the base recommendations from the instructor was no soldering guns. But I still used one if it was what was available. Being very poor or at least cheap, I soldered for many years using a wood burning iron I got for Christmas when I was even younger. As long as I kept the tip tinned, it did a decent job. The R Shack has usable irons for low cost.

A few years ago I broke down and bought a real Hakko 65W soldering station and I seriously kicked myself for not doing it a long time ago. But you can get it done with much less.

hunter

[ricdoug]

There are jobs a pencil won't handle. A Soldering gun has it's place. If you've ever had to solder a ground to a steel chassis, this makes sense. There are inexpensive alternatives. If you live close to a Harbor Freight:

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalog...lt?q=soldering

If you're willing to wait (look for free shipping) over a month:

http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?...soldering+iron

[tdunster]

I work in the electronics and camera repair industry and at work we use Hakko soldering stations. Sure they cost a few dollars more but they last a long time and give pro results even in the hands of an amateur.

I would also recommend people buy some flux [the gel type in a syringe], a solder sucker, 60/40 solder, and some soldering braid / wick for de-soldering purposes. Also, some kind of small vice or 3rd hand tool and some wire strippers will come in handy as well.

Lead free solder is just plain terrible. The reason it is terrible is that it requires more heat than most budget irons can provide and the other reason is that the joints turn dry in no time at all and require re-soldering.

My boss jokes around saying were it not for the failures of lead free solder we probably would be out of business. - It's that bad.