|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
129.96.251.124
I bought a pair of Cardas GRFA (http://www.partsconnexion.com/catalog/connectors.html) for a project.The signal wire is easy to solder. BUT I'm having a hard time soldering the ground wire.
If you look at the PCX website, it contains a photo of the connector. I'm trying to solder it to the "groove". I tried 63/37 solder and silver-content solder.
any tips?
Follow Ups:
...that very job a chore when I used those a few years back. Recently I soldered a set of Vampire OFCs and I couldn't believe how much easier it was. I thought I had lost my touch when I was working with the Cardas. Just different materials; same solder station both times.
've soldered to these with a 35 watt iron. first, remove the connector from the chassis (to prevent the chassis acting like a heat sink) and tin the soldering flange. When you tin the flange, hold as much surface area of the soldering tip against it as you can to get good heat transfer. Then tin the wire. When you solder them together, heat the flange as before and press the wire into the solder on the flange. When it melts, the solder on the wire will follow quickly.That said, silver solder requires higher temperatures and have only done this with the lead-tin variety.
A couple of things.
The rhodium plating is a bit difficult for the solder to 'wet'. Use a bit of external flux, Rosin type, and that should help nicely. If you do not have access to it, then try filling a small amount of the rhodium off till you see the base copper plating. The regular solder will flow to that surface.Good luck,
You need to use a soldering station that can actually develope some real heat for more than just a few seconds and you will need a large surface area tip. Some of the big irons with serious elements are best for this kind of job. Remember you are better off with a large iron that has considerable thermal mass rather than a small one. The issue is not the temperature so much as the thermal mass. With a small iron you will take far to long in sinking heat from the iron to the part in this case one with substantial mass in itself. So bigger is better and faster, you want to transfer as much heat as you can as fast as you can to heat the part to a high enough temperature to melt the solder. You need to get the part hot enough to melt the solder on, dont melt the solder onto the iron tip. Also the more silver content you use the hotter things will have to be. Finally flux is your friend. With big parts like these you may well be better off pre tinning the part first and also per tin your wire. Dont try to do both at the same time you will just be increasing your overall thermal mass and heat transfer will be harder to achieve on the two pieces at the same time if they are not pretinned.
With large connectors such as these you might want to use a very small quantity of acid flux on the ground section of the connector rather than rosin flux. Acid flux is far more agressive and usually permits the solder to wet very quickly. Please note that after you have tinned the ground lug (using acid flux)you will need to completly wash away all the remainder of the acid flux residue. You can use laquer thinner for this. Then you can install the pre tinned connector to the chassis and then install your wires (which were also pre tinned with rosin flux. At this point in time (actually soldering the wires in place) you can use rosin flux to finish the job. I hope this is helpfull. Regards Moray James.
moray james
What is the wattage rating of your soldering iron? U may not be getting the connector hot enough.Cheers,
.
OK, so what is it that U are having trouble with?U say soldering the center pin is not a problem BUT that soldering to the GND barrel has proven to be an issue.
This shouldn't be an issue as they are made of the same metals BUT the outer barrel has more mass to it and thus my suggestion that the iron is not hot enough.
Also, the Cardas connectors, depending on model, will achieve the circuit GND connection thru the chassis, if the circuit is not
balanced, and if this is the case with your particular circuit, the GND connection can be made elsewhere assuming one has a very solid electrical connection to GND via the GND connection on the RCA connector to chassis.Use a DVM and measure between the circuit GND and the chassis. If U have zero ohms, U only need to connect the circuit GND to the chassis some way or thru the circuit. If not, and the RCA connectors GND is isolated from the chassis, U will then need to find a way to connect the circuit GND to the GND connection on the Cardas RCA connections.
Let us know your scenario and we can go from there.
Cheers,
You need to get the connector quite hot before putting the solder or wire on. Heat the connector until solder melts and then place the wire in. Tin the wire first also. Your average soldering iron may not supply enough heat.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: