[sdiy] soldering bananas

[Rude 66]

thanks for all the tips. heating about 5 minutes with the soldering gun
combined with grinding/sanding seems to do the trick. it's still not a very
good connection, but the solder and wires stick and the cable seems to work.
i'm using dutch cfs 60/40 rosin core solder which generally does anything
for me. i'm really starting to admire you people who have to solder bananas
on a daily basis..;-)
the remaining question is why is a connector designed to be soldered fitted
with an unsolderable layer? what is the difference with something like a
jack plug chassis that you only have to touch with your iron for a few
seconds?

r./



----- Original Message -----
From: "patchell" <patchell at silcom.com>
To: "Rude 66" <r.lekx at chello.nl>
Cc: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 4:03 PM
Subject: Re: [sdiy] soldering bananas


>     Have you tryed sand paper?  It may be that there is plating on these
> that is difficult to wet.  I have had a few cases like this in the
> past...my solution is to never purchase those parts from that supplier
> again.  Also, if you have Kester Rosin Core 44 and it doesn't work, I
> don't know what will.  Kester 44 will generally solder anything that can
> be soldered.
>
>     Worst case I ever had was my arc welder.  I purchased it mail
> order.  When it arrived, it was DOA.  Shipping back something that
> weighed in at about 50 pounds did not appeal to me, so I damned the
> warrenty, and went full speed ahead and took it apart (arc welders are
> not very complicated).  I found the problem pretty quick.  The wire nuts
> they used to connect the primary winding to the line wires were not
> making a good connection....so, I decided to solder the wires
> together....I tried and tried....I could not get the solder to
> stick....finally, I took a knife to rescrape the wire...what I took to
> be copper wire turned out to be enamel (which explained quite quickly
> why there was no electrical contact), and underneeth that enamel was
> "ALUMINUM WIRE"....but, after scraping the wires and doing all the
> things that should have been done at the factory, the arc welder
> worked...the moral is...you might have to do a bit of experimenting to
> determine exactly why the solder won't stick...or I should say wet...
>
> Rude 66 wrote:
>
> >    mornin',
> >
> > working on my new synth, i came across this weird problem. i'm having
> > a hell of a time soldering my banana inputs. it just seems the solder
> > won't stick to it, sometimes i can pull the wire right off. i'vew used
> > differenmt types of solder, with and without s-39, cleaned the things
> > with 96% proof alcohol first to remive any grease, etc.
> > i'm a little baffled, i've soldered jacks and all kinds of other stuff
> > for 20 plus years and have never had this happen. any ideas from you
> > people who work a lot with bananas?
> >
> > thanks!
> >
> > r./
> >
> >
>
> --
>  -Jim
> ------------------------------------------------
> * Visit:http://www.silcom.com/~patchell/
> *-----------------------------------------------
> * Come to the Pacific Southwest DIY Meet
> * April 12, 2003 10am-5pm
> * Santa Barbara, CA
> * http://www.silcom.com/~patchell/synthdiymeet.html
> * for details
> *-----------------------------------------------
>
>