Soldering Station Watts

[AlessandroShinoda]

Hi everybody,

I'm about to buy my first soldering station and would like to ask a question:

How many watts do we need on a SS? I've read somewhere that 15W is plenty when working on guitar pedals. But what if I have a 65W? Will that be ok too?

Thanks!

[amptramp]

It should be OK.  Most soldering stations are 48 watts, including the Weller WTCPL that failed on me and the Ningbo Zhongdi one that I just picked up.  What makes a difference is the tip size.  I also have an old-school 100 watt iron from ESICO (Electronic Soldering Iron Company) and this can solder braid to a chassis in five seconds - my 140 watt soldering gun couldn't do that.  You may start collecting tools for various purposes.  It becomes an addiction.

There may be a number of situations where 15 watts does not work.  It may be OK for surface mount but there are a number of things like pots and jacks and switches where it just might be too little.

[mth5044]

I wouldn't do it. I had a 15W from Radio Shack or Lowe's, got me through the early days, but I wouldn't go back. My current wattage is 40W and I've had trouble soldering to the pack of pots, but that's likely because it was the wrong tip, per amptramp's.. tip.

[AlessandroShinoda]

Great!

So basically all I need is a nice tip and being able to change the temperature.

Thanks guys!

[PRR]

With tip temperature control, you only need "enough" watts. More watts may heat quicker but the temp controller will keep it at the right temp.

There are also "solder stations" which are just dimmers, don't actually control tip temperature except they run somewhat cooler at a lower setting.

15W should do all small pedal parts, marginal on some pot and jack lugs. And a "15W solder station" is either pretty specialized or pretty cheap (in all ways).

A good 45W with a good fat flat tip, well-tinned, "may" solder the back of a pot. IMHO this is more a job for the 150W solder "gun". And IMHO, don't solder to pot backs if there is any alternative. It's ugly, it cooks the guts, it annoys the next technician. Ground the metal chassis some other way, the pot bush and case will be grounded. In a tortoiseshell pick-guard, put a ring-terminal under the pot bushing.

[antonis]

don't solder to pot backs if there is any alternative.

Fixed.. 
(it took me over 2 hours to replace a guitar Volume pot using a 40W conical tip iron..)

[paul.creedy]

don't solder to pot backs if there is any alternative.

Fixed.. 
(it took me over 2 hours to replace a guitar Volume pot using a 40W conical tip iron..)

I repair guitars for a living and use an 18w Antex soldering iron with a flat faced tip for just about everything (including pedal building). The only thing it won't cope with is pickup covers, which needs something a lot hotter, but I haven't needed to remove one yet.

The trick with soldering (for me) is all about preparation and decent solder. If you want solder to stick to the back of a pot, scrape it with a knife blade and then apply a decent amount of solder direct to the pot. As long as you do the same to any wire you want to attach (known as tinning for those who don't know) all you need to do is melt the solder and the two will stick together - you don't need to get the back of the pot hot a second time.

Before applying solder the face of the tip needs to be clean (I once replaced a worn out bit of shredded sponge with damp kitchen towel and it worked fine, so I never use anything more fancy than that now) and a dab of solder applied to it as it transfers the heat much quicker that way.

Last of all, I use "proper" lead solder (as I'm not making things to sell I don't need to use lead-free and there's no problem still getting hold of it on eBay) which is way easier than the alternative

I'm sure that an adjustable solder station is a better option (I had one but it broke fairly soon after I bought it and they wouldn't take it back without a receipt which I couldn't find) but I can be a stubborn so-and-so sometimes which means I'm sticking with my old 18w until it dies

I could do with a smaller tip once in a while, but I'm so used to the one on there (and it can take a while to bed them in sometimes) that I haven't bothered. I've even managed to replace a couple of SMD switches on a car key with it, so it works ok for me.

[mth5044]

A good 45W with a good fat flat tip, well-tinned, "may" solder the back of a pot. IMHO this is more a job for the 150W solder "gun". And IMHO, don't solder to pot backs if there is any alternative. It's ugly, it cooks the guts, it annoys the next technician. Ground the metal chassis some other way, the pot bush and case will be grounded. In a tortoiseshell pick-guard, put a ring-terminal under the pot bushing.

Can't say I've ever done it to a pedal and not sure I'd ever see the need to, but the few amps I've built either had the ground buss running along the back soldered to each pot, or had one lug grounded to the back. Wasn't a fan doing it, but I figured it was tried and true method vs. me putzing around with an amp's grounding scheme.


Sorry, gone off topic here 

[antonis]

Commercially availiable back pre-tinned pots shouldn't be a bad idea, should it..??

[amptramp]

Commercially availiable back pre-tinned pots shouldn't be a bad idea, should it..??

For shielding, it would be a great idea because it would allow you to ground the backshell.  Unfortunately, some manufacturers use it as a tie point and ground the pots through a piece of foil, resulting in a connection that gets noisy over time.  On page 16 of the guitar pictures thread, I show How I modded a Cort guitar to connect the grounds through a wire where they had been grounded through a foil sheet before.  The contact through the aluminum foil was probably OK to begin with but deteriorated over time.

If back-soldered pots were available, they would be used this way and that is not something I want to encourage.