Help with soldering

[Pwn3d]

I make connections, but they arent shiny, what gives? Help a newb out. And sometimes when Im soldering a wire to the back of a pot the solder wont stick to the pot. (and I did put flux on each.)

[44ofjuly]

i will usually scratch the surface for soldering with a penknife, the lead should flow smoothly and stick

[Brian Marshall]

what kind of solder are you using.... flux should not be needed....

sounds like the lugs might be dirty.

[shepherdspy]

For the back of a pot you need a hotter iron. For pedals lately I have been using a Weller WP-25 25 watts, but for a pot I would say use something over 40 watts.

The idea behind it is, the iron has to be hot enough where just touching the connection for a nanosecond melts the solder and it stays shiny.

If you have to hold it on their for a few seconds then the iron isn't hot enough and you can damage the parts.

using sandpaper to scuff the back of the pot helps too.

No need for flux, use 63/37 rosin core solder or 60/40 if you can't find the other. Sometimes it says Electronic solder on the label.

[Mesabooger]

A lot of people dis flux, but if you apply it right and use alcohol to clean afterwards it's perfect. If you want really shine connections, tin your braids. I usually apply a little bit of flux to my wire braids (twist them tight if you need to) and then smear (solder) some solder over them so they have a nice coat. It's a little more time consuming, but the chances of getting cold solders are slim to none.

[m-theory]

The backs of most parts are coated with a substance that makes them nearly impossible to solder to. You have to remove that coating with a fine grit sandpaper first.

Secondly, the suggestion to go to a higher wattage iron is correct, for this particular case. You're probably not generating enough heat to properly melt the solder across the pot. The pot will act as a heat sink, drawing heat across it, rather than allowing it to concentrate. If the pot is still connected to a ground source, this effect is magnified.

Finally, you will nearly always get "cold solder joints" (this is what you have when your connections aren't shiny) if you don't heat the substrate, rather than the solder. If you're merely heating the solder and expecting it to flow onto the substrate, especially when soldering large surfaces like the back of a pot, you're going to get these clumpy looking joints, because the substrate has to be hot enough to melt the solder on its own in order to get it to flow properly.

Remove the coating from the pot with sandpaper, use a higher wattage iron, get the pot hot and touch the solder to the pot, not the iron, and you'll get shiny connections. Btw, your cold joints are worthless. Get rid of that excess solder and start over.

[JandG]

Do yourself a huge favor & buy a small amount of "Cardas Quad solder, finest & most user friendly solder in world IMO, I use it on all my Tube hi-fi gear & yes it even makes a differance on sonics, but lets NOT go to that...........flows very easy & sets shiny as heck, stay away from high silver content, it means nothing anyway..........

[Pwn3d]

Originally posted by m-theory Get rid of that excess solder and start over.

 

 

Thats what I did, for both of my guitars. Im going to completely rewire my strat so I thought I'd at least learn to solder correctly.

 

Thanks for the tips guys, any more would be appreciated.

[archiemax]

Knowing how to solder is important, but as I've found out, knowing how to UN-solder is important too if you're going to be doing rewiring and keeping some of the original components. I got a desoldering iron from Radio Shack for $9.95 a while back that's made my life a lot easier--It's a 40-watt iron with a suction bulb and tube attached, and a metal nozzle where the tip would normally be. When you go to unsolder a joint, you squeeze the bulb, touch the nozzle to the joint for about one second (40 watts melts the solder real fast), then release the bulb so it sucks the solder right off the joint. Then just squeeze the bulb to shoot the solder out into a metal container of some sort. As you'll see, it very effectively removes all of the solder off the joint in a jiffy, no dicking around with a bulb in one hand and the iron in the other or using that desoldering braid that's a real pain in the ass. Works well on pots, switches, jacks, PC boards, etc. Try it, you'll like it.