Too much solder!

CHrisP86

I want to replace the pickups in my Mira but there is a ridiculous amount of solder holding the original braided pickup wire to the volume pot.  My 40W soldering iron doesn't even make a dent and I'm worried about damaging the pot.

Any thoughts on how to unattach it?  I would rather keep the pickup wire intact if possible although have already been very tempted to just cut straight through it!!

Thanks

steamabacus

Did you add a bit of fresh solder to it to get it flowing? I'd have thought a 40W iron should make easy work of that?

Danny1969

Why do they do that on pots, what is the point ?

If that's the only iron you have then all you can do is make sure everything's clean and flow a little fresh solder onto it to heat it up, bit of flux too if you have it. 

CHrisP86

Thanks, didn't think about trying some new solder on top.  Will give that a go.

 

octatonic

Do you know if it is lead free solder or leaded solder?

Make sure you don't mix the two.

chrisj1602

Mine were like that on my LP, I snipped the braid as close to the pot as I could and cut as much as I could off the back of the pot.  Not ideal but it worked.

dedekind

Fresh solder should work!

frankus

octatonic said:

Do you know if it is lead free solder or leaded solder?

Make sure you don't mix the two.

What happens?

octatonic

frankus said:

octatonic said:

Do you know if it is lead free solder or leaded solder?

Make sure you don't mix the two.

What happens?

The universe explodes.

They don't mix well and you can end up with with reliability issues.

4114Effects

Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

That's what happens if you mix lead free and leaded.

Oh wait, no ... that's crossing the streams in Ghostbusters ...

vasselmeyer

frankus;749343" said:

octatonic said:

Do you know if it is lead free solder or leaded solder?Make sure you don't mix the two.





What happens?

Don't cross the streams.

CHrisP86

More solder didn't really do anything but, after careful working, I managed to cut through the solder keeping the wires intact!

impmann

Lead free solder has a higher melting point - it could be that your iron has a temp setting for the older leaded stuff. I've found that whilst you can melt small amounts of RoHS (lead free) solder with an old iron, large amounts (with a large heat sink - such as s pot) become impossible.

For the record, RoHS solder is fucking awful. Due to the higher melting point, the flux boils causing bubbles in the solder and that leads to intermittency. My old company (or rather their contract manufacturers) had SO many problems post switch over due to bad flow... I'm not convinced by its longevity in high movement environments either (such as portable electronics).

But hey we're stuck with it. And all the fluffy bunnies can all hop happily in the fields. Until the Mixi gets 'em...

nutbox

Try a larger tip on your iron so you get more heat to the solder

Headphones

And of couse with lead free there's the time bomb of tin whiskers...

Maynehead

I find having a blob of solder on the tip helps to transfer the heat better as the blob will mould to the existing solder and increase the contact surface area.

Sarge

Nothing a bolster chisel and a 14lb mel hammer can't fix.




That's just for the dentists guitar you understand, a 60w iron will solve your solder problem

meltedbuzzbox

check that your tip isnt knackered

and the one on the soldering iron too :-P

FelineGuitars

nutbox said:

Try a larger tip on your iron so you get more heat to the solder

This is the correct answer.

I use a 25watt Antex with a huge #52 tip on it and it does well for this kind of job

The big tip contains a LOT of heat and is not instantly cooled when having to apply heat to a large area like that 

It works better than you think.

ecc83

AFAIK the only possible problem from mixing lead 60/40 and Pbfree is the fact that if you melt any two metals together the resultant melting point is always lower than that of either metal alone so in some, rare circumstance you could end up with a very easily melted joint. NOT likely to bother you in a geetar!

Yes, the first samples of Pbfree solder I got my hands on were truly horrible but the good stuff is ok IF you have a hot enough iron. And yes, "flood" the job with solder and use a good flux.

Dave.

ICBM

There's no problem with mixing leaded and lead-free solder, it simply creates an alloy with a lower lead content. All you're doing is mixing Tin+Lead+trace metals with Tin+trace metals, so the result is just Tin+Lead+trace metals, in a slightly different ratio. No practical difference to the melting point (unless you're adding huge quantities of the new solder) and no effect on reliability.

I have never had any problem mixing old and new solder, although I don't use the plain lead-free solder, I always use the stuff with added silver - it's more expensive but works so much better it's easily worth the difference.

Just a minor word of warning since it hasn't been mentioned yet - if you need to cut through an old solder joint, it's OK to use a knife etc, but do NOT ever use a Dremel or something like that if there's even the slightest chance there is lead in the solder. Fine airborne dust containing lead is *extremely* toxic by inhalation, even in miniscule quantities.