I have a soldering question.

  • Thread starter Thread starter MatchBookNotes
  • Start date Start date
M

MatchBookNotes

New member
I want to learn how to do soldering of guitar electronics so i was wondering what is the difference between a soldering iron and a gun, can you use both?
Do you have any suggested readings?
I intend to learn how to do a decent job before i hurt myself or any guitars.
thanks!
 
I use soldering irons for guitar and any light work. Don't want the pots to overheat. 20 watts is plenty;)
 
Slowrider said:
I use soldering irons for guitar and any light work. Don't want the pots to overheat. 20 watts is plenty;)
Click to expand...

while i agree with the premise, actually, a higher powered iron or gun will be *less* likely to overheat a pot than a 20 watt one. the reason is that the pot case acts like a heatsink, and as such, the longer you have to apply heat, the more it is being soaked up by the pot case. with a 150 watt gun, the working area gets to flowing temperature a lot faster, which allows heat to be removed much faster. if you were trying to solder a ground lug to an amp chassis, you would be there a long time with a 20 watt iron, and if you did get the solder to flow, the chassis is going to be pretty warm. also helps with cold solder joints. the flip is that it will be exponentially easier for someone to get their work too hot with a big iron, melting insulation, scorching pots, etc, so reasonable care must be used.

the 20 watter is what you need for PCB work, though i have done that with a gun too
SaiyanSmilie.gif


a
 
Agreed with what toobalicious said. Iron for PCB stuff, gun for everything else. Since a gun gets hot faster, I've also been known to use my gun to heat up my iron when I'm in a hurry.... :D
 
toobalicious said:
, actually, a higher powered iron or gun will be *less* likely to overheat a pot than a 20 watt one. the reason is that the pot case acts like a heatsink, and as such, the longer you have to apply heat, the more it is being soaked up by the pot case.
a
Click to expand...


i'm betting you've never had to work with resistive plastic????

an adjustable iron is the best way to go...
 
thanks for the tip, so the higher power, means i should be able to the job faster without prolonged heat exposure.
forgive me, but what is pcb?
 
dementedchord said:
i'm betting you've never had to work with resistive plastic????

an adjustable iron is the best way to go...
Click to expand...

+1 the faster you can get the solder to take the cooler the piece will be after soldering.
the longer it takes for the piece to get hot enough to take solder the hotter the whole part will be.

I hope that made any sense at all:confused:
well.... at least I understood what I was talking about:D
 
dementedchord said:
i'm betting you've never had to work with resistive plastic????

an adjustable iron is the best way to go...
Click to expand...
Yep thats what I use.. Plenty of heat for jobs where heatsinking is an issue and less for the fiddly stuff.

PCB = printed circuit board.
 
MatchBookNotes said:
thanks for the tip, so the higher power, means i should be able to the job faster without prolonged heat exposure.
forgive me, but what is pcb?
Click to expand...

Printed circuit board.

The temperature of the iron/gun is not necessarily related to the power. A low power iron takes longer to heat up, but when it gets to temp it's all the same. A gun heats up quickly, but it's pretty unwieldy, and when the connections go bad (and they always do, IME) the light comes on but the tip stays cool. I haven't messed with a soldering gun in many years; an adjustable iron does everything I need a soldering tool to do.
 
I have found that, although they do have they place, soldering guns are almost useless. A quick job on 16GA. wire and smaller are just about all their good for. So, what about irons? An iron's wattage is almost secondary to the size of the tip. The wattage of an iron will give you an idea of the temps it will achieve and the recovery time (or heat up time). What an iron does is to heat up the tip to a temp that will melt the solder. When it is placed onto the surface that you intend to solder, the heat in the tip will transfer to that surface. If the tip is to small, you will have to hold the iron there for an extended amount if time, regardless of the wattage. A higher wattage iron will be able to recover and reheat faster but, it will still damage insulation and other plastic parts close to the area that you are soldering. You can use a 20 watt iron to good effect with the proper size tip. A larger tip will hold more heat than a smaller one will. When this larger tip is placed in contact with the surface you are soldering, there will be plenty of heat there in reserve to get the surface hot enough to melt the solder. Then you are able to remove the iron from the surface quickly to avoid damage to other thing that are close to that surface. You can solder all the electrics in a guitar with a 20 watt iron with the proper size tip without any problems. The only real down side to having a tip that's to large is that it can be rather awkward in trying to not touch something you don't want to or to be able to get into places that are rather small.
 
All good advice, but seriously just get a good variable weller iron. Thats what all the pro makers and repair shops use and a good deal of the big makers too. Can't go wrong. Oh and learn to solder correctly. I was shown once and it saved me a lot of fiddling and heart ache. I'm no expert on that one so I'll let some one else fill you in. But it IS important.
 
thanks for the knowledge, guys.

would something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Weller-Watt-Soldering-Iron-Kit/dp/B000HE5BZS
be good for swaping out my pickups and pots?
also, caps are resisters? and they need to be soldered in the circuit as well?
how does one incorporate a 5 way switch?
Should i just go get the how to build an electric guitar book from the library and leave you guys alone?
 
I use a Weller soldering iron for my work-tuning and repairing very high frequency tracking receiver equipment. I use a 700 degree soldering tip which works quite well for repairing traces on circuit boards, solder wick for removing bad components and keeping circuit boards intact, and regularly use heat sinks for parts like frequency crystals that are easily damaged by excess heat.
Weller solder stations are for professional use like repair work where they are in use all day long-at home I use a 20 to 30 watt iron for wiring up pickups, switches, and other electronic wiring.:)

As for the 5 way switch question, I have found Seymour Duncan's website an excellent source for common and not so common wiring schematics-here is a link that will probably address the questions you have.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/
 
To each their own. I have both.

The thing with a gun is typically they're larger, bulkier and you've got to pull the trigger and hold it while working. I also don't like using them when working with fine gauge wire. If you're not careful, it will heat the finer materials very quickly and melt back the insulation. In tight spaces maybe not the best tool for the job either. On the upside, they usually get hotter for those bigger jobs and when you're not using them, the tip isn't glowing red waiting for you to bump into it.

As for an iron, a variable unit is nice. They're usually light weight and you can reach into tight spaces. The down side, they're always hot and if underpowered for the job, you tend to put too much heat to the project.

If I had to pick one over the other, I'd go with a hefty adjustable iron just because of the ease of use but, it's all in what you're used to working with.

Good luck.
 
ggunn said:
A gun heats up quickly, but it's pretty unwieldy, and when the connections go bad (and they always do, IME) the light comes on but the tip stays cool.
Click to expand...

I used to have that problem constantly with my Weller soldering gun. I finally gave up on it and concluded it was junk. I've also had that problem with a soldering pencil... I think also Weller, but I could be remembering wrong. Not too impressed with Weller, or at least not with their low end products....

I now use a Radio Shack 150/230 Watt gun. Since getting that about three years ago, I haven't had a single problem with the tip losing power. If I ever need new tips, they're a special order, so I hope I never burn one up.... Other than that, it's the best soldering gun I've ever used. The defining feature of this gun is that it has two screws holding each end of the tip in place. :D

After a little searching, I think the Rat Shack gun is an ATD-3740, built by ATD tools. That still doesn't help in the tip hunt, though. :D
 
Last edited:
It's the mass of what you're soldering that determines the power you need to heat it up to a temperature to take solder, in the 350F degree range for 60/40 solder. If the temperature is too high it can oxidize the tinning and destroy the flux, making the parts difficult to impossible to join.

In any case, you should match the size of the iron to the mass of the component. A soldering iron of 25-50 watts should take care of almost all electronic work, including the lugs on pots. Soldering to the case of a pot or a metal chassis will take the higher powered (100W+) gun.

Here's some reading:
http://www.elexp.com/t_solder.htm
http://www.talkingelectronics.com/projects/Soldering/Page1.html
http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/how_to_solder.htm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top