Beginner's guide to helpful mic building accessories

[Roman Beilharz]

Hi everybody,

as a former newbie with very little mic building knowledge, I have evolved to a more experienced builder with a lot more understanding of what's going on under the hood - thanks to this amazing forum. So it is time for a big THANK YOU GUYS and a series of posts to give something back to the community - and be as helpful as possible in times when more and more people seem to establish a solid "it's all about me" attitude.

So if you have cool tricks up your sleeve to share with beginners, that make your mic building life a lot easier and you wish you had come across earlier, this is the place to add them.

I'll make a start with a random collection of accessories I wish I had had right from the start:

1. Get a decent soldering station with controllable temperature and a hot air gun. I know the affordable ones are not always of great overall quality, but this is a game changer compared to the good old stick types.

2. Get a decent middle class DMM. I am happily using an ASTRO AI DMM, but I've heard that if you want to invest more, get a decent FLUKE
Astro AI DMM on Amazon

3. Get a goldsmith set of small pliers of all kinds: round nose, flat nose, long nose, bent nose... and clippers with small heads as well.

4. Set up a solid mic boom stand and attach a Manfrotto super clamp to it. This bugger is great to help you soldering cables, PCBs, or tampering around with parts and capsules:



5. Get a PCB holder like this one



6. Get a set of M3 brass standoffs in a variety of heights.

7. Get a set of M2, M2.5 and M3 screws and nuts in a variety of lengths.

8. Get a set of shrink tubing in a variety of colors and diameters.

9. For point-to-point building and as a general problem solver to reliably connect parts mechanically, a set of nickel plated single leader sleeves in a variety of diameters and lengths with a matching crimper wrench (used for leader bait building for fishing!) came in handy quite often for my builds:



10. Get a package of 0.25 watts resistors in a variety of values (10R - 1M).

11. Get a set of stranded wire (0,25mm diameter & 0,5 diameter) in a variety of colors




Alright, thats all that came to mind in a first go, feel free to add helpful stuff and happy building!

Ro

 

[Khron]

the good old stick types.

* fire-stick

I've heard that if you want to invest more, get a decent FLUKE

... Or a Brymen

 

[rock soderstrom]

Is this your soldering station?

https://www.amazon.de/Preciva-Lötst...b422d843a988a971bd3b4b61d70&th=1&gad_source=1

 

[Rob Flinn]

I've heard that if you want to invest more, get a decent FLUKE

... Or a Brymen

I have been repairing & building stuff for nearly 40 years & in that time I have never owned a fluke or other expensive meter. I'm currently using a multicom meter which cost me about £15 U.K I have never not been able to build or fix something because I haven't got an expensive meter. I do have a really good bench meter that will measure down to 1/100 of an ohm etc etc, but I rarely use it. Just saying....

One feature I find pretty useful is to have a 4000 count, or even better 6000 count meter. 4000 because when you are working on things like a Neve box which runs on 24v you get a more accurate reading of the 24v.

 

[Rob Flinn]

1. Get a decent soldering station with controllable temperature.

I've never had a temperature controlled iron & it's not stopped me building or repairing anything in nearly 40 years. I just use a weller tcp, simple & reliable. & easy to get spares. tips etc. In my view having a variety of tips is more useful than the iron being temperature controllable. YMMV.

 

[doorunrun]

Donegan OptiVisor!

I have 3 of them, picked up from various estate sales. I also have the one my dad bought in the '70s.
Their 5X is the most useful to me. A 10X helps with SMD and very close inspection work.

Accept no substitute!

 

[My3gger]

Some kind of bags for protecting capsules can be great investment. Don't ask me how i know

 

[frans]

I also use a very big magnifying glass to check small solder traces and the thinnest wires.

 

[Rob Flinn]

A good desoldering gun is very useful.

Donegan OptiVisor!
View attachment 139581
I have 3 of them, picked up from various estate sales. I also have the one my dad bought in the '70s.
Their 5X is the most useful to me. A 10X helps with SMD and very close inspection work.

Accept no substitute!

These are very useful with/or a magnifying lamp !

 

[Roman Beilharz]

Is this your soldering station?

https://www.amazon.de/Preciva-Lötstation-Entlötstation-Einstellbar-Heißluftumwandlung/dp/B08C51QRH5/ref=asc_df_B08C51QRH5/?tag=googshopde-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=696221651640&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1447647065052775808&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9043215&hvtargid=pla-948720016551&mcid=7bd8eb422d843a988a971bd3b4b61d70&th=1&gad_source=1

Yes! That's the one. It used to be on sale for like 50 Euros or so - a no-brainer. I have to say that after using it for a year, the plastic nut/ring holding the soldering iron together came off, because the thread was worn out - due to the large temperature differences, I guess. But with a slice of 1'' shrink tubing and some blowing of the hot air gun, I was up and running again - and I think this will never come off again

 

[Roman Beilharz]

I've never had a temperature controlled iron & it's not stopped me building or repairing anything in nearly 40 years. I just use a weller tcp, simple & reliable. & easy to get spares. tips etc. In my view having a variety of tips is more useful than the iron being temperature controllable. YMMV.

Hi Rob, thanks for chiming in! I guess as you have decades of experience with traditional/simple soldering/metering devices, this tells us how skillful you are. So sure: Your equipment does the trick, if you know how to do it.

But for me as a recording studio owner, musician and electronics enthusiast with much less experience, it turned out it was much easier for me not to burn up/melt styroflex caps or the like or to wait endlessly for the solder to melt while mounting heatsinks, when the temperature can be controlled. I just don't have your expertise, I reckon and make up for it with my station

This being said, I realize effective temperature control is counter-intuitive at the beginning:

It works much better to crank the temperature up to, lets say 380 C, when soldering sensitive parts - like solder lugs into acrylic PCBs, styro caps etc. - and be quick and precise and get it over with as quickly as possible, than to use a lower (you might think safer) temperature and poke around for minutes.

For heatsink mounting, you will want to crank it all the way up - 450 C if you can.

For very small soldering dots and thin part legs, 320 C will do.