I cant do it!!

[rbcguitar]

Whats the DEAL with soldering switches, I cant seemed to do it, solder wont stick, very frustrating 

I have no problem soldering on circuit board, but cant even get one wire on a switch

Please someone help, any tutorials out there

[gez]

Use a big(ish) tip with an iron that has reasonably large wattage.  Also, use flux on the contacts before you solder.

[Focalized]

Maybe your iron isn't hot enough?

Maybe you could clean your switch contacts/pole.

The metal needs to be clean for the solder to stick. Some cheap switches will be hard to solder to.

[LEON.01]

Hi mate,
These are pretty useful!
I just go over whatever i'm going to solder with it! Magic!

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=3932

[tednet]

The poles on the switches oxidize while being stored a long time. I personally clean it with sandpaper (around 360, or 600) prior to soldering. It does the job perfectly

[Pedal love]

The most common thing I see with builders with less experience soldering is not using enough time with heat on the component during soldering. The component needs to get to a certain heat for the solder to flow well. I have talked with many inexperienced techs/builders about this. The most common answer is less contact is better for the components. The truth is that unless you are using static sensitive componets , or old preused /malfunctiioning components, there is little chance that if you hold a soldering iron against it for just a few seconds, it will harm any component. It takes a lot of heat for most components to fail, except Ic's, polystyrene capacitors and a few others. I am not talking about keepng the iron right on the component for minutes, but a few seconds here and there doesn't usually make much of a difference in whether a component will fail or not.

[arma61]

but a few seconds here and there doesn't usually make much of a difference in whether a component will fail or not.

+1, and what I do is to solder the lugs alternatively, so not on the same contact (lane/row), so to give sometime to the soldered lug to cool down; if you open a broke switch then you can see what I mean !

Cheers
Armando

[MKULTRA]

A clean and properly tinned tip on your iron is the first step towards good solder joints.

[liquids]

All of the above is useful and good info.  I'm a newbie so forgive my ignorance...but I'm giving a +1 plus for flux - even your local radio shack brand.  $8 or so for a supply that will last a long long time.  A very little applied with a small brush goes a long way for those connections on switches, jacks, etc. It works like magic.  If you can get it elsewhere do so, but I was desperate and got the RS stuff....and it's worked well enough for me.

And make sure your iron is hot enough...if it's taking 10 second for solder to melt after doing all of the above, the iron is too cool...  I kept mine too cool at first because I wanted to avoid hurting anything...but if it never reaches the right temperature, solder is just not going to melt, etc.   

[MikeH]

A clean and properly tinned tip on your iron is the first step towards good solder joints.

+1,000,000,000,000

[blueherdim7]

I'll add one other thing that I have found helpfull as a relative newb.  Try presoldering the lugs.  I place a little bit of solder onto the lugs first and tin the hookup wire.  Then, I have solder already on the site and only have to reheat the it.  The other thing is that solder tends to flow towards the heat source, so strategically placing the solder iron tip to allow that is helpful.  Only other thing is that for small lugs holes, you may not want to tin the hook up wire because you could enlarge the wire with the solder and make it too large to easily fit in the lug.  Finally, patience...with that and experience you will get it.

Jon