soldering technique, frying components

Hi, noob question here.

just soldering together my first project; a paia stompbox. Basically my soldering techique is, for example with a resistor, put the wires thru, bend them back, hold the iron against the wire at the joint (one one thousand, two one thousand) then apply solder until the joint is cooled, then clip the wire.

My question is, what components do you want to be careful of frying? I ask because I did the above with a capacitor, and then noticed a black mark at the top.

thanks.

bp

Most standard audio components such as transformers, capacitors, resistors, dides, swtches, etc. will withstand quite a bit of heat before breaking down. That said, you still want to apply the minimum heat to get the job done.

I use .2 mm diameter 63/37 (eutectic) solder. It is very thin, and has the lowest melting point. It also goes directly from a solid to a liquid and back again without entering a "plastic" stage. Other solders go through an intermediate stage where the solder resembles "ice slushy". During the plastic phase if any movement between components occurs you will get a dull gray cold solder joint. No good.

Use 63/37 solder for best results.

Also, use a good iron. No need to count 1-100 2-100, etc. Apply heat, and gently tap the solder on the opposite side of the lead from the iron. When the solder melts instantly you're hot enough. Also, it is a good idea to add the solder with successive gentle taps like this. It helps to avoid applying to much solder, allows the flux to do its' job, and makes it easier to solder all the way through the holes on double sided boards.

By the time you're done with that Paia kit you'll be so hooked you'll be sending out for a DIY space shuttle! Have fun, good luck, and spend lots of time here! Members like Kev, Gyraf, PeterC, PRR, and countless others are so helpful you'd think they were relatives or something!

Good luck, and enjoy!

Shane

thanks!

also, sometimes when two joints are very close together, a new solder joint will glob onto the adjoining one. I'm trying to avoid that. I don't want a short circuit, but if they're that close, aren/'t the circuits touching anyway?

bp

don't apply too much solder at once. i had the same problem when i started.
I always clean the tip of my soldering iron on a wet sponge in between touching the wires and pcbs. This makes it very easy to solder them. After a while you're so maniacal touching the sponge you wont notice it anymore. It really makes all the difference for me.

I also apply a little solder to the iron before touching any components, that way i avoid heat buiding up on the components and the heat is nicer dissipated (spelling?) into the component.

Good luck and be prepared to get hooked on DIY, i started with Paia too and have litterally 10's of projects (api, ssl, gyraf g9,... ) in front of me now! on my desktop i mean :grin:

Cheers,

Tony

my first soldering iron burn!!!

i'm about to tear up! **sniff** this is the happiest **sniff, sniff** moment of my life..... :twisted: :twisted:

when two joints are very close together, they can be shorting connections in the circuit, or they might not be, spacing is no way to tell wether or not your joints should have continuity. You really have to look on the board and follow the traces and see what is supposed to be touching what. If you have a meter with a continuity beep and you are sure, you can always put your leads on the two places in question, if they beep continuity, then its probably ok if you have a solder bridge, but you should get in the habbit of making the neatest solder you can. There are certain types of greyhill PCB mount switches, for instance, which have pins VERY close together and of course you cant bridge any of those, soldering those can be very time consuming taking almost as much time to clean up the bridges as it did to make the original joints in the first place. A good thing to have is a little braid of solder wick, which you can order at digikey or mouser or get from radio shack. If you have a bridge, just put the wick on the bridge, heat it up and it will soak up the solder there and you can redo the joint. Pretty helpful tool to have!

dave

Well, I put everything together, plugged in, and ***drumroll*** the envelope please.......



nothing.


Nothing.

More nothing.


so I screwed something up.

Potential causes (in order of likelihood, imo)

1. faulty wiring between jacks, pots and pcb
2. short on pcb causeed by two solder joints touching
3. The on/off switch (the one you step on) has three lugs that aren't marked or indicated by an illustration in the manual. I just guessed.


any ideas? I got no signal at all. No sound thru the amp.

bp

does it pass signal when the switch is bypassed?

nope.

thanks.

If you are sure of the orientation of all your components, try re-heating your solder points. Maybe it's a cold joint.

Or that cap with the black spot on the top that you mentioned earlier.

thanks for the replies.

Tomorrow I'll go thru the whole thing step by step.

I'm virtually 100% sure on the placement of components.
a couple other things I forgot to mention, I fogot to heatsink the diodes when I installed them. Another thing about the diodes, the diagram on the pcb showed a filled in white spot, I lined that up with the black band on the diode. I think that was right. I think I have a couple caps, I can replace them. I had one cap leftover when I was done, but didn't see a place to put it.

It's possible that some of the wires didn't actually go thru the hole on the lugs on the switches and jacks but was just soldered to the metal. Would that matter?

Also, I think I mentioned this before; the bypass switch (that you step on) didn't have the lugs numbered on the switch or anywhere in the manual. I may try that first.

Despite this setback, I think I'm hooked on diy. 6.5 hours flew by while I was working on this.

Thanks for all the help.

bp

could you post a picture of your project?

don't feel embarrassed (sorry spelling?) to do so, i'm sure we could help you out way faster and efficient if we could see what you're doing.

Cheers,

Tony

Hmm,

So how much "nothing" are you getting?

IOW, is it absolutely dead, or are you getting hiss/white noise and any clicks or changes in signal when you fiddle with the stomp switch or controls?

Which project is it? Can you point us to the schem/layout? A pic would be good.

One thing to check- I'm presuming it's a stompbox with a "passive" effect in/out switch- i.e. a DPDT footswitch wired to pass your signal thru the effect or straight thru the switch for "bypass". If you're not getting any signal at all, even in bypass, then it must be the wiring from the input jack, to the switch, to the output jack.

:thumb:

Mark

Hey, thanks for the replies.

No digital camera, so Ican't post any pics.

the project is the Gator(tm) Noise Gate/Envelope Controller
shown halfway down the page here.

If I dont' get it to work today I'll scan the schematic and see if someone at work has a digital camera.

thanks!

bp

get yourself a Highlighter pen and trace out every wire on the schematic and report your findings at nine oclock sharp tomorrow morning.
cj