Reliability of shitty soldering?

horse

I've replaced pickups and pots a few times in guitars that don't get gigged - I'm not very neat at soldering, but things seem to work ok.

I'd like to replace the active pickups in my bass (which gets gigged) with passive ones.

Is it likely that if my soldering is secure to begin with it will stay put, or should I really just pay someone to do a better job seeing as it needs to be reliable for gigs with no backup?

Danny1969

If you make sure the joints are clean before you start and you heat the joint so the solder wants to flow onto it then you won't have an reliablity problems. Most problems are caused by people trying to use solder like blobs of glue. Heat the joint, touch the solder to the joint and your be fine

Sporky

What Danny said.

Also to expand a little the solder is there to reinforce the joint, so you should make a good solid physical joint first, the solder just holds it together.

There are some metallurgical effects fromt he soldering too but they're minor.

horse

That's helpful thanks guys. Any tips on making a good physical joint on to the back of a pot before soldering?

ICBM

horse said:

That's helpful thanks guys. Any tips on making a good physical joint on to the back of a pot before soldering?

First solder ('tin') the end of the wire, then scratch the back of the pot clean in the spot you're going to solder to, then *just* add solder to the pot, then while it's still hot, add the wire and reheat the solder with the iron in contact with the wire and the solder spot. That should produce a decent joint even with a fairly low-powered iron.

horse

Great - I think I have been using the 'blobs if glue' approach tbh.

So if I give the bass a good shake after doing the work, if the soldering survives that then I should be good to go?

Sambostar

I used to be shit at soldering until I learnt that the idea was to heat the thing you are soldering first and then melt the solder into it.  Obviously the more powerful/hotter the gun, the less damage you do to pots and stuff.  Be that a wire and pots held down together or two wires or whatever.  A hot iron helps as does rosin core solder as it does to hold both things down together with something (A third hand?) and use flux paste on the thing you are trying to solder, although you can hold them down with your left hand and also hold and feed the solder into the hot things with that too.  The solder should spread out and flow on it's own.

I still forget though and try blobbing solder on to cold things for a few goes until it comes back to me though every now and then.

If you solder properly the solder joint will be as strong, if not probably stronger than the wire itself.

normula1

Ignoring the soldering issue, aren't the exiting pot values for Active pickups unlikely to be compatible with passive pickups?

ICBM

normula1 said:

Ignoring the soldering issue, aren't the exiting pot values for Active pickups unlikely to be compatible with passive pickups?

Yes. Usually actives use 25-50K rather than 250-500K. If you use those with passives you will get a very dull tone.

I assume he would be changing the pots as well though.

OilCityPickups

Some pots, like the CTS pots I sell are pre tinned on the back, these should not be scratched or abraded to get contact, or you lose the very stuff that will aid in getting a good solder joint. Use a good iron, not under powered ... good and hot, and use high quality flux core solder. 

horse

ICBM;1003484" said:

normula1 said:

Ignoring the soldering issue, aren't the exiting pot values for Active pickups unlikely to be compatible with passive pickups?





Yes. Usually actives use 25-50K rather than 250-500K. If you use those with passives you will get a very dull tone.

I assume he would be changing the pots as well though.

Yeah, planning on keeping the old harness intact so I can swap back easily if I want. I like the actives live, but find them tricky to mix when recording via zoom b3 as they sound so big

drwiddly

I found that, if the pot isn't pre tinned, after scratching the back, give it a clean with some switch cleaner. The lack of grease seems to allow the solder to flow more easily and you don't have to heat the area as much.