The Jam Room Blog Thread.

[jibberish]

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=372-145&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pla

a small powerful tip is the secret to making soldering into monkey work.

I recommend the basic 60watt weller above.  60 watts dimed on that little fucker will catch shit on fire. you hear hear it going "tick tick tick", just pouring th eheat into the metal you ar soldering. big blocky tips have less watts per area/volume, whatever and just cant put a hot spot into a joint.

I solder all size crap with my weller.  and when you get a hot spot and put the solder to the spot, it just flows like magic and you like cant feed the solder into the spot fast enough. beautiful.

certain metals just wont take to rosin, forget it, un-solderable. stuff like cast white-metal and certain alloys, forget it.

anyway..
After you flow enough solder in and remove the iron, keep the joint still for a few seconds even if it is burning you, focus. BE the kung fu dude. then it solidifies shiny=perfect joint.  if it solidifies hazy or rough looking you moved and fucked up the structure or you cold soldered it. either way, the structure is weak and will break or not conduct well.  

to review:

get hotspot with good pointy iron tip.  flow solder into hotspot and it will flow all through the conductors as the heat flows outward.

hold joint steady after solder has flowed and iron has been removerd UNTIL SETS UP. then you still cant lick your burnt fingers because of the lead based solder.

(use ONLY LEAD BASED SOLDER. FUCK THAT ANTIMONY SHIT. that doesn't flow worth a shit.)

edit: try not to reflow the solder. the first flow is the best. second is eh, but then you are asking for a bogus crystallization after a bunch of remelts. just do fresh solder each time you flow it. that anyimony, if you don't get it right first flow, do it over, crystalizes right out on second flow. garbage I tell ya man,. garbage

editz: oh ya, don't put the solder onto the iron, put it onto the metal so the rosin flows along the metal. it will just flow up the iron and burn up if you put the solder to the iron.  it is tempting with a POS low powered one that barely heats anything just to get something melting, but that isn't the most effective way to flow the solder along the metal you want joined.

you want the metal to be joined to be grease/oil/dirt/oxidation/paint/alien non-solderable plating/etc  free

editzzz: if you are soldering semiconductor components, holding the leg with needle nose pliers between the device and the solder point will sink stray heat heading towards the device. a shitty iron is actually more dangerous since the long heatup gives more time to send heat up the leg. a really hot iron and a clean quick strike barely heats up the other end of the leg near the device. thee grand total of watts of heat with a tiny hotspot real fast is a fraction of a big long  slow heat (this includes diodes, op amps, transistors as the things we would be dealing with mostly)

[VOLVO)))]

Buy a metcal. Im gonna.

[Discö Rice]

Lumpy - That is so fucking cool! I think I just found a reason to sell my MS2000. Bass VI - holy gleaming red boners!!

In more bloggy news, my band is ready to start gigging. Hoo-fucking-ray. Fucking finally. Despite my bassist's protests, we'll have a Facebook page up by tomorrow night and rough demos up for your listening pleasure(?) within a couple of weeks. I'll post up the link as soon as I have it.

[jibberish]

Buy a metcal. Im gonna.

if you don't use one of those when installing the stereo into your Bentley, you void the whole warranty on the car. fact.

edit: the whole world uses wellers = best bang for the buck

[jibberish]

Lumpy - That is so fucking cool! I think I just found a reason to sell my MS2000. Bass VI - holy gleaming red boners!!

In more bloggy news, my band is ready to start gigging. Hoo-fucking-ray. Fucking finally. Despite my bassist's protests, we'll have a Facebook page up by tomorrow night and rough demos up for your listening pleasure(?) within a couple of weeks. I'll post up the link as soon as I have it.

bft hommes

[Discö Rice]

Yes, yes it is.

[RacerX]

Stupid accident at practice yesterday. I had my acoustic guitar strapped on & began a sideways step with my right foot before realizing I was about to step on my lap steel, which was in a soft case on the floor. All my weight was already shifting to the right, but I couldn't put my foot down, so I stuck my left arm with the acoustic's neck in it out and pitched almost to the floor before I saved myself with my right arm. Today my whole side is tweaked.

On the bright side, the guitar was completely unscathed.

[Discö Rice]

Here's the link, fellas (and ladies?)!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Leadbreath/409081935847936

Get some!

(music up soon)

[jibberish]

having a vocalist named laurie (or something close heh) has served other bands very very well.  you have my interest

hey gimperX, welcome to my nightmare. 

[Corey Y]

Finally, finally, finally...got a new stoner based band going. Been writing music and practicing on the regular, with motivated and cool people. Hoping to do a proper recording within the next couple months. There's a couple live instrumental practice demos I posted up on the page.

www.facebook.com/warprig

[Instant Dan]

So I was powering up my pedals with my Supa-Charger and I just heard a loud 'POP'. I thought it was my amp but I noticed my Tech21 DLA is not longer working and there are some burn marks inside it, hope it's not toast. Also, notice my hum/buzz is now worse with amp and pedals/supa-charger than it was with my one-spot.

Weird day.

[mortlock]

my band is on tumblr now..follow me and ill follow your band..dont be a pussy about it..
http://footandmouthdisease.tumblr.com/

[VOLVO)))]

Buy a metcal. Im gonna.

if you don't use one of those when installing the stereo into your Bentley, you void the whole warranty on the car. fact.

edit: the whole world uses wellers = best bang for the buck

I use a Weller, haha. I'm just upgrading to a Metcal just because I'm a tool whore.

[jibberish]

Buy a metcal. Im gonna.

if you don't use one of those when installing the stereo into your Bentley, you void the whole warranty on the car. fact.

edit: the whole world uses wellers = best bang for the buck

I use a Weller, haha. I'm just upgrading to a Metcal just because I'm a tool whore.

ahh ha I see, heh that's pretty good.  well, those are really nice. I wouldn't complain.

are you planning on doing hand-smd work or sneaky reverse engineering or something requiring tricky disassembly?
solder removal and unsoldering is the bullshit. you can have every solder sucker, vacuum thing, braid etc and sometimes it still just sucks getting that shit out of a board. sucks as in blows.  I think... anyway, are you getting some world class de-soldering deal with that.  I will build a little temple in your honor and burn incense in front of it if you do.

ps, you newer solderers: If there is a chance something will need to be removed via unsoldering in some circuit you are assembling or modding, don't twist the wires all up so that they hold themselves with no solder when you first go to solder them. you will have to cut that piece out if you need to unsolder it or get really rough when melting and sling solder splats everywhere when you yank the wires to separate them. you can trust a good solder joint with the conductors side by side. then when it comes time to replace that part, the solder joint just falls apart when melted. less heat into your semiconductors or your fingers, or lifting traces etc etc, just all good and no bad.

edit: I mean be clever, like a hooked wire can be popped off easily and maybe holds via linear tension for hands free solder on that joint in a certain situation. I always look for the cheat that holds itself but pops apart easily if I have to undo it. but I do tack many joints nice straight side-by-side. and do the kung fu burning my fingers waiting for it to set. no time for dicking with pliers wtf.

the upper cool part of the iron near the handle is nice for shrinking shrink tubing btw. just knock all that shit out holding your iron vs swapping for a hyper-hair dryer between solders to shrink tubing. I never put the iron down when i'm jamming. hold it like a cigarette, which comes with the instinct that there is a cherry on the end of that electric ciggy. stripping wires, trimming, stringing tube, and even soldering. just goes so mch faster especially when i have lots of solder joints to do.
have I fumbled and done the electric ciggy boogie and gotten burned a few times? heh, ya.
what doesn't kill you , only makes you faster.

[Jake]

There's no way to make this sound polite – so, sorry – but do you use methamphetamines?

[jibberish]

meh, that's good info and it takes some explaining.

besides, why should you care? do you like being an ass just to be an ass? idc what the reason is, i just don't see it being necessary.

if someone never soldered or is buffaloed by the mechanics, what i babbled could be of some good use. i have a feel for a couple things of use around here, and that is one of them.

btw, maybe you will zapped by a reversed neutral someday. you can think about that thread i had to remove due to bad attitudes vs just moving along. 

i mean, i try to pitch in info or get into discussions, and you seem to think you are the judge of what or what is not to be mentioned in the jam room.
why is this? you think you have it all covered a->z?  i have news for you, you can always learn something except when you are making too much noise to hear anything.

i really don't get it

[Jake]

Without regard to the content of your posts, it's more of your stream of consciousness delivery that makes it hard to follow. And not just this in this thread.

I'm certainly not judging lifestyle decisions. To each his own. Truly. But I'm just curious to know the level of tweak that is getting peppered in with musical instrument-related advice is all.

[VOLVO)))]

Newsflash, people are different!

Jibberish is solid, I understand his posts, and they are indeed full of useful information most of the time. So what if he's spazzy, he isn't disruptive, aggressive, and he isn't even really a dick compared to most of us.

Carry on.

[liquidsmoke]

4 bands, starting at 10pm. Half hour sets sound about right?

[VOLVO)))]

Yup, depending on volume of gear coming on and off?

[RacerX]

So what if he's spazzy, he isn't disruptive, aggressive, and he isn't even really a dick compared to most of us.

I resemble that remark: disruptive, aggressive dick. 

[VOLVO)))]

I was thinking about your grumpy ass as I typed it. :-D

[liquidsmoke]

Yup, depending on volume of gear coming on and off?

Normal/average I guess but most/half(?) of the bands have 4 or 5 members. Hopefully half an hour will be enough time between. Only the vocals and keys will go through the PA so that should help.

[VOLVO)))]

Should be good

[Lumpy]

Yup, depending on volume of gear coming on and off?

Normal/average I guess but most/half(?) of the bands have 4 or 5 members. Hopefully half an hour will be enough time between. Only the vocals and keys will go through the PA so that should help.

That means the show ends at 2:00 AM (I'm not good at maths, so check my work). That's too late for Grampsters like me. Can't anybody share equipment/hurry the fuck up? With 4 bands, the show should probably start earlier.

/audience member