leftybill
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 2
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Post by leftybill on Aug 27, 2007 20:53:05 GMT -5
Maybe this question has come up before, but in Mr. Atchley's excellent article on shielding, which method should I use to remove the ground wires from the volume pot? That is, should I cut them, since he not recommending the use of a 30 w solder iron on the pot? thanks in advance
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Post by jmartyg on Aug 27, 2007 21:50:18 GMT -5
cutting looks messy. i guess it all depends on how well you can desolder. if you can quickly heat it up, pull the wires and let it cool, you should be good. if you dont tihnk you can, i guess cutting is good too. In 10 years of messing with guitars, I think I only fried 2 pots. Both were small dime sized ones.
One trick I used when I had low watt soldering pencils handy was to cut off as much solder/wire as I possibly could. the less mass I had to heat, the less damage would happen..
other times, with stock wiering, I've found i had to go up to a soldering gun(iron) to actually melt the solder. (not that there was much of it, but the type of solder on it) so some of those things out there have been soldered at high, high heat and still work.
but I could also be completely wrong since I'm 90% self taught.
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Post by UnklMickey on Aug 27, 2007 23:11:07 GMT -5
I would never try to solder or desolder anything on the back of a pot with an iron of less than 45 watts. That way the area locally gets up to temperature quickly. Believe it or not a very hot iron will cause less damage than lingering for a very long time with an iron that is barely hot enough. If you can heat things up in a hurry, get the job done, and get out of town quickly, that's the best approach, imho.
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Post by sumgai on Aug 28, 2007 2:31:50 GMT -5
........ although you should remember, there isn't anything connected to that pot shell, it's simply a piece of metal that covers the innards. The small tabs at the open end of it wrap around a piece of bakelite, and that's what holds the resistance element, as well as the bushing for the shaft, etc. While UnklMickey's correct, a hotter iron will do a better job due to getting enough heat into the joint quickly, the fact is, it's the heat, and not the wattage that counts. My ancient Weller TCP had an 800° tip, but it operates on only 40 watts. For those jobs where I need to keep the heat down, I simply change to a 700° tip. Or you could just use a more expensive iron that varies the temperature from almost unable to melt solder, up to burns a hole in the chassis in 10 seconds - that'll cover just about everything a hobbyist might encounter. Try this one, it's top-shelf quality. A cheaper one from the same company would be here, and a really value-priced on would be here. A very good variable-temp iron can be found on eBay right now, here. HTH sumgai
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leftybill
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 2
Likes: 0
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Post by leftybill on Aug 28, 2007 7:42:40 GMT -5
I can probably borrow a higher power solder iron for the volume pot, since I don't need two. Would the higher power iron be better for the desoldering at the volume pot?
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Post by sumgai on Aug 29, 2007 14:10:24 GMT -5
lb,
Short answer, yes, the borrowed high-power iron will be fine for de-soldering too. Same rules apply, it's get the heat in it quickly, remove the wires, and remove the heat ASAP. Use a solder sucker to clean off the majority of the remaining solder blob, but wait a few moments for the pot's shell to cool down a bit, before re-applying the heat.
Borrow the solder sucker, if you don't foresee much of this activity in your future. But they're less than $10 at Radidio Shack.......
HTH
sumgai
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