soldering headphone socket

[greenglaze]

Hi,

I am putting together a signal generator kit. I've soldered everything to the circuit board apart from a headphone socket which has three 'legs' but they don't fit snugly into the holes on the circuit board because the holes are massive. What am I supposed to do? Try and fill the holes up with solder? I can see it going everywhere and creating a short. Is there a technique to this?

Any thoughts - or directions to appropriate posts/sites- appreciated.

[WRGKMC]

Fold the wire end over and solder it to the PC board pad without shorting to any other pads. Then loop the wire around back through the hole. This prevents the wire from being pulled or tugged loose from the board .

[Kazinator]

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greenglaze wrote:

Hi,

I am putting together a signal generator kit. I've soldered everything to the circuit board apart from a headphone socket which has three 'legs' but they don't fit snugly into the holes on the circuit board because the holes are massive. What am I supposed to do? Try and fill the holes up with solder? I can see it going everywhere and creating a short. Is there a technique to this?

Any thoughts - or directions to appropriate posts/sites- appreciated.

---

Always post pics. When you say "massive", are you saying there is a defect in the kit? Really inappropriately sized through-holes for the part's footprint?

Do not try to fill holes with solder: just make a joint from the jack's pin to the pads. Use flux on both.

The problem with generously sized through holes is that the part won't stay in place when you turn the board upside down. For many parts, such as resistors and capacitors, you can bend the pins so that the part stays in place. They have terminals which are long and flexible so it is easy to do.

If the part's pins do not bend easily (are too stiff, too short, or too prone to breakage or whatever), then tape the part down, or use a small drop of hot glue to hold it to the board. Headers are notorious for requiring tricks like this.

Sometimes it is possible to just hold the device in place with one hand and quickly solder down one pin, just to get the part to stay in position. Then solder the remaining pins properly, and finally return to that pin to re-flow to a proper joint.

Here is a diagram, not to scale obviously. This assumes a one-sided board, whose holes are unplated.

 

The solder will go into the hole, by way of flowing onto the pin.

A good Q&A site for electronic design which also takes assembly questions is http://electronics.stackexchange.com