[sdiy] soldering bananas

[Mike Brown]

Hi Ruud...

y'know, I've had this problem also with some of the banana jacks I've
bought.  Amazingly, they seem to be almost "solder resistant".

I'd recommend the previous suggestions of sanding & more heat along with a
flux pen.  Tim Ressel turned me on to flux pens & I'll never go back....
makes the most difficult soldering job a breeze (except maybe enameled
aluminum).

BTW, can't wait to see the *rest* of your synth!

Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rude 66" <r.lekx at chello.nl>
To: "patchell" <patchell at silcom.com>
Cc: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 7:32 AM
Subject: Re: [sdiy] soldering bananas


> 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
> > *-----------------------------------------------
> >
> >
>
>