Correct solder to use when replacing parts

[Bortron]

Thanks for the responses. Given my total inexperience and lack of knowledge, I might just pay a professional £50 to do it for me. A soldering kit and other materials would probably cost the same anyway!

 

[Paul New]

Thanks for the responses. Given my total inexperience and lack of knowledge, I might just pay a professional £50 to do it for me. A soldering kit and other materials would probably cost the same anyway!

It’s not that hard and a good skill to know. Watch a couple of videos and you’ll be fine.

A soldering iton and solder will still be there the next time you want to try some pickups, change to a different cap, etc…

 

[logdrum]

Precautions with lead are well founded and for me the biggest difference working with unleaded solder is that you need to use more heat so I prefer being careful and using the leaded solder. Some components can be ruined with too much heat so there are various things to consider to do the job safely and also correctly.

What components would these be? My previous job during first power on required constant engineering changes on boards. So we were soldering tiny components, ICs and memory and storage devices next to CPUs , RF devices and other prototype fragile devices and we had to use ROHS solder and those need 430 to 450 The components used on bass guitars including these preamps are 50 times more robust.

Our techs were so good and can solder 10 to 20 components on an area the size of a stamp. These were mostly women with eagle eyes and excellent surgical finesse and of course they used Hakos pens where the tips only got hot in about 2 seconds and can be switched quickly also The right tip shape make a lot of difference.

Damage usually occurs from removing solder and heating the devices too long. that's iwhat a solder suck and braided copper tape is for. I will remove lead solder with a solder suck and tape and just start everything lead free. So the comment about not using non lead iwhen the previous material was lead is also a head scratcher to me. It is the disposal of lead that really is what we should think of and where they eventually will end up in.

 

[fdeck]

Just from my recollection, film caps can be damaged by too much heat. Also, printed circuit board substrates, and the glue that holds the copper foil on the board.