After looking recently (in person and at pictures on the forum) at many wiring jobs in guitars with problems, I felt the need to give all of you do-it-yourselfers a little practical advice/information that (hopefully) will help you along the path to becoming soldering gurus. Or maybe at least to have more successful wiring jobs with fewer problems. Most wiring problems are due to making incorrect wire connections...a hot wire to ground, a ground wire accidently touching a hot lug, a wire to the wrong lug on a 5-way or a pot, or a totally missed connection. I'm not going to say anything about that. But a lot of problems I have seen are because of that notorious "cold solder joint".
"Cold" is a relative term. 350 degrees F is hot enough to give you a nasty burn, so you can consider THAT "hot". But it's not hot enough to melt 60/40 solder, so you can also consider that "cold", (you need a sustained temperature of at least 370 degrees F or 188 degrees C).
There are two main ways to create a "cold solder joint".
1. An iron that just isn't hot enough to melt the solder;
2. A large heat sink which "pulls" too much heat away from the joint. This is the intended purpose of a heat sink, to protect delicate items from getting too much heat. But it is not good when it robs the joint of getting the heat that it needs to melt the solder and to heat the metal hot enough to make that solder flow like water onto it.
Ultimately those two really amount to the same thing, but they can be resolved in two different ways.
Obviously, #1 can be resolved by getting a more powerful iron. I consider 40 watts to be a minimum when soldering multiple wires to the back of a pot.
#2 is related to #1 in that the more metal you have (many individual wires, large gauge wires, large metal surface like a pot, and a large amount of solder necessary to cover all of that metal), the more powerful/higher-wattage your iron needs to be in order to maintain the necessary heat at the joint.
When you try to create a neat uncluttered looking job by putting many wires together into one large joint on the back of a pot, you are inadvertently creating a heat sink preventing the metal from getting hot enough. Then to make matters worse, you add more solder (more heat-sucking metal) to the joint in an attempt to make sure you have a "good" connection. This is actually defeating your purpose, and assuring a cold, ineffective connection.
Unless you are soldering very thin wires, like the ones that come from pickups, it is best to have multiple joints of just one or two wires on the backs of pots. OK, I admit that it may not LOOK pretty to have 5 or 6 solder "blobs" on the backs of your pots, but "pretty" is NOT what our objective is. The correct electrical functioning of our guitars IS. Oh, and make sure you heat the pot (and the wire) primarily, NOT the solder. When the pot is hot enough, IT will melt the solder onto it and the solder will flow like water creating an intimate electrical connection between all the parts of that joint.
No more cold solder joints. No more frustration trying to figure out what's wrong with your wiring when "everything is correct". No more wasting your time posting multiple threads when you could be playing your fine guitar.
But be assured, the good members of this forum are here to help if you need it. We actually look forward to helping you whenever we can.
OK, I'm done.
"Cold" is a relative term. 350 degrees F is hot enough to give you a nasty burn, so you can consider THAT "hot". But it's not hot enough to melt 60/40 solder, so you can also consider that "cold", (you need a sustained temperature of at least 370 degrees F or 188 degrees C).
There are two main ways to create a "cold solder joint".
1. An iron that just isn't hot enough to melt the solder;
2. A large heat sink which "pulls" too much heat away from the joint. This is the intended purpose of a heat sink, to protect delicate items from getting too much heat. But it is not good when it robs the joint of getting the heat that it needs to melt the solder and to heat the metal hot enough to make that solder flow like water onto it.
Ultimately those two really amount to the same thing, but they can be resolved in two different ways.
Obviously, #1 can be resolved by getting a more powerful iron. I consider 40 watts to be a minimum when soldering multiple wires to the back of a pot.
#2 is related to #1 in that the more metal you have (many individual wires, large gauge wires, large metal surface like a pot, and a large amount of solder necessary to cover all of that metal), the more powerful/higher-wattage your iron needs to be in order to maintain the necessary heat at the joint.
When you try to create a neat uncluttered looking job by putting many wires together into one large joint on the back of a pot, you are inadvertently creating a heat sink preventing the metal from getting hot enough. Then to make matters worse, you add more solder (more heat-sucking metal) to the joint in an attempt to make sure you have a "good" connection. This is actually defeating your purpose, and assuring a cold, ineffective connection.
Unless you are soldering very thin wires, like the ones that come from pickups, it is best to have multiple joints of just one or two wires on the backs of pots. OK, I admit that it may not LOOK pretty to have 5 or 6 solder "blobs" on the backs of your pots, but "pretty" is NOT what our objective is. The correct electrical functioning of our guitars IS. Oh, and make sure you heat the pot (and the wire) primarily, NOT the solder. When the pot is hot enough, IT will melt the solder onto it and the solder will flow like water creating an intimate electrical connection between all the parts of that joint.
No more cold solder joints. No more frustration trying to figure out what's wrong with your wiring when "everything is correct". No more wasting your time posting multiple threads when you could be playing your fine guitar.
But be assured, the good members of this forum are here to help if you need it. We actually look forward to helping you whenever we can.
OK, I'm done.
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