soldering coil leads without an eyelet - what's the secret technique?

[Rodent]

I've been using eyelets on all my bobbins for the simple ease of soldering the leads and having good certainty that I burned thru the shielding on the 'solderable' coil wire

I see many pickup makers forego the eyelets on their lead connections. I've tried this a few times, but I always seems to get some contamination 'boiling' off of the flatwork. Is there a method/technique I'm missing that I'd know about had I worked in an electronics shop at some time?

Thanks for your thoughts

[David King]

Rod you bring up a good point. Eyelets are a PIA to deal with but they do ensure a solid physical connection/termination. Other than using a different bobbin material that doesn't bleed oils when you heat it up I don't think I'd risk it. You best option might be to make wire to leadout connections like they do on Humbuckers and tape them down to the coils.

[big_teee]

I either use eyelets or 28awg pigtails.
T

[J M Fahey]

I put a piece of regular printer paper between the stranded wire and the thin enamelled one wrapped around it for soldering, which takes most of the gunk (mainly rosin residue) and minimizes heat transfer to the surface below it.
Then junk the dirty/soiled paper.

That said, I don't like it, there's the possibility of pulling and breaking the very fine wire and having to rewind: not worth the risk, so unless very hurried (bad combination) I try to put those d*mn eyelets somehow.

[cbarrow7625]

I'm not a pickup maker, but the question makes me wonder if it would be possible to tin the ends of the enameled pickup wire using a tinning pot prior to soldering? Of course, I would also tin the lead wires. With both parts tinned and the enamel already removed it should take very little heat-time to make a good connectio . With todays low rosin ROHS compliant solder there should be little flux residue leftover as wel .

I know most folks don't have a tinning pot, but assuming one does, would this suggestion accomplish the requested results?

[Joe Gwinn]

Tinning pots are faster than hand soldering, but are high-maintenance and so only make sense in high production.

When soldering #44 wire, one must ensure that the copper doesn't dissolve in the hot solder, weakening the #44 and causing the wire to break off. There are a few threads on this. Search for Sav-A-Bit Solder.

[David King]

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t24670/

[DialtonePickups]

Our connections are a little different because we're soldering our wire to a circuit board, but we have the same issue with getting shielding off. We actually use a couple of eyelets and instead of heating the wire itself, we just heat the solder that fills the eyelets the wire passes through - threading two eyelets is a pain, but since changing over to this method, I'm not sure we've had a single break, and the connection is always really stable. When we first started, we tried anything from sanding to soldering to solvents, and broke wires all the time.

[Zhangliqun]

Eyelets are pain? Why? I never have a problem with them.

[DialtonePickups]

Eyelets are pain? Why? I never have a problem with them.

With where ours are in relation to the coil, things are really tight. I do a lot of sewing/crocheting/knitting/other crafts, and usually don't have an issue with small pieces, but getting this ultra-thin wire I can barely see through tiny hones a few times without knocking something out of place while I'm doing it is a challenge... at least for me! But it's well worth it for the added stability.

[big_teee]

I keep a pair of strong reading glasses by my mini vise for putting small wire in the eyelets and soldering.
The real strong reading glasses is like using a magnifying glass, but to me easier to use.
I just put them on for a small close up job, then go back to my regular glasses.
T

[Lollar Jason]

I dont remember ever seeing someone solder to fiberboard without eyelets and cant imagine why you would solder directly to a hole in fiberboard. Circuit board connection is a different issue. Strain relief is a huge deal to me, if I dont have strain relief I dont build it but then I try to build to last 50 years or longer which may not be best in every situation- if for some reason I didnt want to set an eyelet in I would use some sort of mechanical connection probably screwed on but setting an eyelet should be far easier, quicker and less expensive. You can set eyelets with something as simple as a center punch if you are careful not to peen it over too fast. The residue is from over heating or heating too long. We used 40 watt chisel tips for well over a decade rather than 20 watt pencils. 40 watts you can get on and off really fast and you always get a reliable clean well finished joint. If you sit on it too long you can burn the coil wire but arguably with a 20 watt it takes longer and you can get a crappy joint where the ohms read correctly but the henries will be way low. Now we use these really nice soldering stations JBC makes that you can program- expensive but tips last months now instead of going through 2 a day. I found hooking a cheap weller up to a variac and lowering the voltage so the tip only heats up to about 650 increased tip life 5 or 6 or 8 times. The JBC units we have you can program three different operating temps for instance soldering bucker covers on you heat it higher so you can do 20 or 40 at a time without loosing heat then they put the iron into sleep mode or hibernation mode as soon as you set it down, sleep will ramp back up to temp in seconds, hibernation takes longer. keeping the tip cleaned and tinned, lowering the voltage and keeping it at operating temp for the minimal amount of time you really need it saves alot of money in tips which you all know what those cost. I never had good luck with the cheaper soldering stations either- were not soldering transistors to circuit boards- different deal. sorry to get off topic but I dont remember anyone talking about soldering practice recently

[spichael]

Hey buddy! I usually use caution with enamle wire I first sand off the enamle coating by using a small price of 800g sand paper and then hold one length of pre tinned wire with one hand pressing the tinned end against the index finger of my opposite hand guiding the wire with my thumb and ring finger (the same hand that has the tinned end in it) and roll it I do this daily it works extreamly well if you take caution making the p/u wire inline with the the lead

[David King]

Hi Spichael,
Welcome to the forum. I've been reading through your description and can't quite visualize how the wrapping action happens. Presumably you solder at the end of the process?

[spichael]

Hi Spichael,
Welcome to the forum. I've been reading through your description and can't quite visualize how the wrapping action happens. Presumably you solder at the end of the process?

Yes you do solder the wires together at the end I won't be at work untill Monday but I will set a reminder to take a picture sorry for the poor discription I know its a confusing process to explain