ok so I fully admit that this may be the most boring/stupid question that this forum has ever been subjected too but I didn't know where else to go. soooooo right I'm very new to this but I wasn't having many problems till I bought 1/4" jacks from maplin. Why can't I solder to these jacks. the solder just wont stick at all it just slides off the surface. I think that there is a very easy answer to this question but I don't know it. so I'm pleading for help. pleaseeeeeeee
Iain
« Last Edit: August 23, 2006, 02:34:05 PM by Circuitbenders »
hi. just to make sure, you are applying solder to the right part of the jack aren't you?
it's the 2 eyelet bits, rather than onto the tip (upper left of the diagram)...
Sorry if my question offended you, it's just that i was looking to solder my 1st jack a couple of weeks ago and it took a little while before i realised where to solder!
best thing to do in my experience, is to apply the tip of the iron to the lug of the jack/switch/whatever for a few seconds and then apply the solder to the lug until it melts. Some components react differently to how you use your soldering iron. Good quality components are ready tinned which make them easier to solder to. Lesser quality components need a little more work to solder to. I found this with certain jacks and switches that I bought cheap. It makes bending 10 times more frustrating
sometimes it helps to clean the surface of what your soldering to as well. Use isopropyl alcohol and let it evaporate before soldering.
be wary about holding the soldering iron onto your components for too long... i've melted switches like that
another thing to check is the state of your soldering iron. a messed up tip will be useless for getting a decent join. it's all about quickly transfering enough heat to your join before conduction channels that heat to places it shouldn't.
Also make sure you tin your soldering iron tip before you use it - otherwise you will be there forever! Also what type of tip do you use? I started with a real fine pencil tip, but it simply didn't transfere the heat enough so I use a chisel-shaped tip that is quite good.
My soldering Iron is only 18 watts, and whilst I have never fried any components using it, it struggles a bit on things like Jack sockets.
It's really important to warm the solder tags a bit first, otherwise the solder won't "wet" them properly and you'll get it beading up like you have at the moment. Quite often this is because the tin plating on the tags is a bit too shiny, but once you melt that it'll be easy to solder.
You might also find useful a little tin of tip tinner which i find helpful and some solder wick for desoldering is so much better than a sucker,
When soldering you should be able to melt the solder on the tag/pin rather than on the iron an letting it run down, and withdraw the iron up the wire/pin rather than taking it off at a angle, you avoid little spikes this way.
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