Orange drops or Mallory 150s in 5E3 build?

[diydidi]

https://youtu.be/BnR_DLd1PDI keep this in mind!!!

[guitician]

Interesting, and now I'm checking the band on my orange drops for "outside foil", but axial leaded are the ones that lay on the circuit board and are more apt to couple.

[HaroldBrooks]

Neither M150 nor any type of OD will be challenged by the heat inside a tweed Deluxe.

What I'd be careful of heat wise, is soldering. I have mangled a couple of Mallorys with too much heat on a lead, close to the body of the cap. Now I use a heat sink, gator clip or whatever I can find, when soldering M150 in close quarters. And try to remember to remove the heat sink when done.

Yes indeed Leo, good point. I've trashed a few caps by cutting the leads short and getting a lot of solder heat transfer. Thanks for the idea using alligator clips as heat sinks. I never thought to do that, but now I will !

It may be just me, but I've had even worse luck soldering orange drop caps with short leads than with axial type Mallory caps. Could be the luck of the draw, but it's not fun when one end of the wire detaches from the new cap you just soldered in. Or worse yet, it looks ok, but then creates an intermittent open failure because it's heat fatigued.

But please take what I said regarding orange drop type caps with a grain of salt, as my soldering skills are still a 2.5 year work in progress, and I have gotten better over that time, honest !

Use what you like.

[Enzo]

I have no idea how you solder, but as a repair tech I have seen just about any kind of solder work there is. Some great, some awful.

My advice is learn to solder well. Solder with confidence. I have watched guys solder up a joint, then in doubt, maybe add some more solder, then dislike the appearance and reheat the joint trying to smooth the solder out. Then deciding it just sucks, removes all the solder and redoes it. Of course that meant a hot iron on the component lead for all those times.

Keep your tip CLEAN. A damp sponge, and wipe the tip before each use, each joint. Even a dry rag. Hell, I often just wiped my tip quickly on my denim pants leg. It won't burn me in that brief moment.. Some guys have this steel-wool looking thing to use. Whatever, keep clean. Your joints need to be clean too. If your component lead is not bright and shiny, use a piece of small grit emery cloth to shine them up. Or even just scrape it with the edge of an Xacto blade or a razor blade. Your solder needs to adhere to the surfaces.

Keep your tip hot and use enough heat. I used a 700 degree tip most always. Lacking that, I'd rather use an 800 than a 600. Too little heat means your iron must be on a joint longer to get it hot enough for solder, and any extra time is just more likely to lift traces and pads off the board. Or damage a part.

Remember to heat the joint, not the solder. Make the joint hot so solder touched to it melts into the joint. Solder is not hot melt glue to be dripped into a joint. It might stick to something that way, but won't make a good reliable connection.

MAke a good physical joint with part leads and terminals, we don't want anything to move while solder is hot. Move a wire in molten solder, and it results in a cold joint. Get the iron on the joint, heat it up until solder will melt into it, and get off it. Stop right there. That is soldering with confidence. Clean, plenty of heat, don't dawdle.

[Chuck H]

I have no idea how you solder, but as a repair tech I have seen just about any kind of solder work there is. Some great, some awful.

My advice is learn to solder well. Solder with confidence. I have watched guys solder up a joint, then in doubt, maybe add some more solder, then dislike the appearance and reheat the joint trying to smooth the solder out. Then deciding it just sucks, removes all the solder and redoes it. Of course that meant a hot iron on the component lead for all those times.

Keep your tip CLEAN. A damp sponge, and wipe the tip before each use, each joint. Even a dry rag. Hell, I often just wiped my tip quickly on my denim pants leg. It won't burn me in that brief moment.. Some guys have this steel-wool looking thing to use. Whatever, keep clean. Your joints need to be clean too. If your component lead is not bright and shiny, use a piece of small grit emery cloth to shine them up. Or even just scrape it with the edge of an Xacto blade or a razor blade. Your solder needs to adhere to the surfaces.

Keep your tip hot and use enough heat. I used a 700 degree tip most always. Lacking that, I'd rather use an 800 than a 600. Too little heat means your iron must be on a joint longer to get it hot enough for solder, and any extra time is just more likely to lift traces and pads off the board. Or damage a part.

Remember to heat the joint, not the solder. Make the joint hot so solder touched to it melts into the joint. Solder is not hot melt glue to be dripped into a joint. It might stick to something that way, but won't make a good reliable connection.

MAke a good physical joint with part leads and terminals, we don't want anything to move while solder is hot. Move a wire in molten solder, and it results in a cold joint. Get the iron on the joint, heat it up until solder will melt into it, and get off it. Stop right there. That is soldering with confidence. Clean, plenty of heat, don't dawdle.

All this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

But I will say that there are times when breaking these rules is practical or even necessary. You figure it out as you go.

A couple more tips. Get a soldering iron with some decent tip mass. It may not look like a delicate, fine instrument, but it'll have heat inertia to more effectively transfer that heat. Especially for bulky contact points like turrets.

If you buy PVC jacketed wire spend a little extra and get the "irradiated" stuff. The jacket won't shrink back from the joint near as badly as the plain stuff. Still much cheaper than fancy alternatives like Teflon and silicone.

If you have a pair of pliers with serrated jaws on your bench you can pull component leads between the lightly clamped serrations to expose a shiny surface. Also good for straightening bent up leads.

OOoohh! One of my favorites. Other's may not think this is a good idea, but I bend my iron tips. Just a gentle, rounded bend of about 50* or 60* makes it SOOOO much easier to get into tight places sometimes.

And I set my iron at 715*F. It's possible that it's temp gauge is off a bit because 700* wasn't quite getting it done. It's not an expensive iron.

[Enzo]

Yes, rules are made to be broken. For example I might melt a little fresh solder into a joint first to "wet" it. Then I can solder properly and the wet joint will take solder more easily.

[Justin Thomas]

That "irradiated" pvc insulation I think is sold as "Tefzel." Tube Depot has it in stranded, anyway. Lots of colirs. Good stuff!

Justin

[Helmholtz]

Tefzel is a variant of Teflon, not any PVC. So should be more expensive.

[Chuck H]

Tefzel is a variant of Teflon, not any PVC. So should be more expensive.

Right. I like the irradiated PVC jacket because though it's a bit more costly than the plain PVC it's still cheap. No where near the expense of the fancy jackets. My soldering skills are just good enough that I can get acceptable looking results with it. It's also less likely to char through when you accidentally touch it with your iron

[Justin Thomas]

Tefzel is a variant of Teflon, not any PVC. So should be more expensive.

Oh, cool. Thanks for clarifying. I do know it's a lot cheaper than Teflon & stays in place better to boot, though.

Justin

[Chuck H]

I've bought both Teflon and silicone jacket wire "by the foot" for a couple of projects. Fun to work with. Nice to have no fear of shrink or fouling a lead with the tip of the iron. But so expensive!!! I decided that I'd be better off improving my soldering skills and paying better attention.

I don't think even major amp brands that use PVC use plain PVC. The first lead wire I ever bought (some twenty five years ago?) was plain PVC and it was awful. I used it for two short mod projects and then replaced it.

Did I mention irradiated PVC is damn fine stuff and cheap? Don't let the interwebs sell you on Teflon lead wire. It's not necessary in guitar amps.

[Chuck H]

Yes, rules are made to be broken. For example I might melt a little fresh solder into a joint first to "wet" it. Then I can solder properly and the wet joint will take solder more easily.

Sometimes, if a component is old and I'm in a hurry, rather than buff or clean the component lead I'll just melt a little flux core onto it. If it flows I know I'm good to go.

[soundmasterg]

You will find that your soldering will be 100% better with a temperature controlled soldering station rather than the 40 watt iron or 60 watt iron or whatever. Leaded solder is also much easier to work with. I usually pre-tin my tip with a little blob of solder then put that on the joint to help heat transfer quickly. If you can get a good mechanical joint before soldering that really helps too. Some of the old military tube equipment would have to be full power tested with no solder or very little solder in the unit, then after passing that test, they would put solder in to hold the parts in place. You can really only do that with terminal strips and turrets with the wires wrapped around them. If you try it with eyelets it doesn't work nearly as well.

Greg