The D.I.Y. FX Pedal Building Thread

[wokkaboy]

which one did you get Dedman ? I got one from Alltronics about 1.5 years ago and would never use a non temp controlled soldering iron again

[DrNomis_44]

Doc, I took your recommendation and got a solder station the same as yours from Jaycar, what a ripper!

Awesome mate, yep, I reckon they are good, they are described as a Soldering Station recommended for soldering with Lead-Free solder, but, I found that they work equally well with the Standard 60/40 Resin-Core Solder as well, the pricing is pretty reasonable at about Au$160.00 or so.

[DrNomis_44]

which one did you get Dedman ? I got one from Alltronics about 1.5 years ago and would never use a non temp controlled soldering iron again

He bought a Duratech TS-1390 from Jaycar Electronics, same as the one I use.


Note that Jaycar Electronics may have increased the pricing of the Duratech TS-1390 a bit, when I bought mine brand new it cost me about Au$160.00 all up.

[Dedman]

yup, I 've only used it once and that was with lead free and it was great to use, warms up real quick too

[DrNomis_44]

yup, I 've only used it once and that was with lead free and it was great to use, warms up real quick too

Which is what you want, you also want something that's going to stay heated at a constant temperature, which is what it does, and the generous 60 Watts heat output-capacity means that you can easily do the earthing of the tone and volume pots in guitars without getting cold solder-joints.

[DrNomis_44]

As a little bit info for anyone interested, I've mentioned two basic types of solder-joints in at least one of my previous posts, there's the "Good" Solder-joint, and then there's the "Dry", or "Cold" Solder-Joint, so, what's the difference between the two?


A "Good" Solder-joint is one where the Solder has properly flowed onto, or wetted the two pieces of metal being soldered together, by wetted, I mean that the solder has properly fused, or stuck, to the pieces of metal being joined together, a typical "Good" Solder-joint will have a Shiny, Silver-appearance, it will be Electrically-strong, that is, it will form an electrical connection which will present a very low resistance path to an electric current-flow (usually much less than an ohm, I have measured a known "Good" Solder-joint and found it to be about 0.1 of an Ohm), on the other hand, a "Dry", or "Cold" Solder-joint is one where the Solder hasn't properly flowed onto, or wetted the two pieces of metal being joined together, this can happen for a few reasons, it could be that there is some oxidization contaminating the surfaces of the pieces of metal being soldered together, normally the Resin-core Flux inside the Solder used to join the two pieces of metal, will clean off the oxide contaminants as it boils from the heat, and the solder will properly wet the pieces of metal, but sometimes it doesn't do that due to insufficient heat-transfer from the tip of the Soldering-Iron, a "Dry", or "Cold" Solder-joint will have a Dull, or, Crystalline-appearance, you might even see a fracture-line in the Solder-joint too, a "Dry", or "Cold" Solder-joint is not an Electrically-strong joint because it will present a high-resistance path to an electric current-flow, I have measured a "Dry", or "Cold" Solder-joint and found it to be anywhere from a few hundred ohms to as high as one Mega-Ohm (one million ohms, which is virtually an open-circuit), the tell-tale giveaway for a "Dry", or "Cold" Solder-joint is when a circuit exhibits intermittent operation (randomly works, and then doesn't work, like for example an intermittent volume-control on a guitar).


A "Dry", or "Cold" Solder-joint can also be caused by too much heat for too long, especially where the Solder-joint has been disturbed before the Solder has solidified, another rare cause (and it has only ever happened to me once) is where the Solder has had no Resin-core Flux put in it to begin with, right from the time it was manufactured.

This one time, I was about to run out of the usual 60/40 Resin-core Solder I used when I did my soldering, when I remembered that I had bought a spare roll of 60/40 Resin-core from from an Electronics shop...or so I had thought...it looked identical to the usual stuff I use except that, try as I might, I could not get it to wet the pieces of metal I was soldering together, the solder looked a bit strange, and tended to form small dull-grey balls, so I stopped using it, it turned out to be Solder that had not been properly fluxed when manufactured.


I must also add that I have tried soldering with Lead-Free Solder, and found that most "Good"Solder-joints made with it also have a dull appearance too.

[DrNomis_44]

Here's some more info on Solder for you, have you ever wondered why the Standard Electronic 60/40 Resin-core Solder has the numbers 60/40 in it's description?, those numbers refer to the relative percentages of Tin and Lead used to make the Solder, 60/40 Solder is actually an alloy of Tin and Lead, with Tin being the greatest percentage, there's a reason for that, and it all has to do with the way the Solder changes from it's liquid-phase to it's solid-phase as it cools down, there's also a so-called plastic-phase too, for Electronic Soldering-applications, you want the time that the Solder spends in it's plastic-phase as it cools down to be very brief to ensure a good solder-joint, this brief plastic-phase is controlled by the relative percentages of the Tin and Lead, it also controls the temperature at which the Solder melts, which helps reduce heat-damage of electronic components, 60/40 Solder tends to melt at around 280 Degrees C, on the other hand, Plumber's Solder (which is also used in making Car Engine Radiators) tends to have a period of time where the Solder stays in it's plastic-phase before it changes to it's solid-phase as it cools, it also tends to melt at a much higher temperature, because the relative percentages of Tin and Lead are different to the Electronic 60/40 Solder ( I think Plumber's Solder is something like 35 % Tin and 65 % Lead, but I could be wrong).

And the newer Lead-Free Solder, has been deliberately made without Lead in it (Lead is actually a poisonous heavy metal, hence the reason why we have Lead-Free Solder), I think it has a certain percentage of Copper in it along with the Tin, and some other trace metals to prolong the life of the soldering-tip.


By themselves, Tin and Lead melt at much higher temperatures than about 280 Degrees C, but alloy them together and you can bring the melting-temperature down, or up by varying the relative percentages of the two metals.

[Dedman]

FINALLY got the stickers printed and painted the Doc Fuzz (big muff style)

[Andy40]

Thats soooo cool!

[DrNomis_44]

I'll second that, in fact I'll go so far as to say that the Dr Fuzz pedal is looking uber-cool with that sticker on it, I like the paint job that you did on it Dedman, I'll have to give my Big Muff pedal a new paint job too, I'll see if my local Big Green Shed has a can of green paint, or I might go for a lime-green just to be different.

Cheers for posting the pic Dedman, a great example of what you can achieve by building a DIY pedal.