haven't soldered in years. never soldered any electronic anything, just wiring so i never had to worry about damaging delicate components. i can't get the solder to flow from the driver to the pill. i know i am just not getting the pill hot enough with my radio shack special soldering pencil. should i get out my soldering gun? will the excess heat damage the ak47 driver? tell me what i need to do.
thanks,
monty
It's easier if you use flux for soldering.
I have just held the point of my soldering iron a bit upwards, so that the most heat goes to pill first. After heating pill reasonably hot, I tilt the tip more horizontal, touch the driver, add solder and presto! (or not, but that´s still about the only way I´ve gotten it to work).
I believe many solders have some flux in them, no?
It sounds like youre not using enough heat. Put a generous amount of flux on the pill and driver contact area. Heat with your soldering gun from the pill side. If the flux burns off while heating, apply more with a toothpick or brush. Keep your work level at all times and do not bump it once it reaches melting temperature. Keep heating the pill and apply solder where the pill and driver meet. The melted solder will have a tendency to flow toward the heat source so angle the solder toward the pill as you apply it. Have a wet towel close by and place the work on the towel to cool it after the work is completed. Quality flux and adequate heat is the key to good solder penetration and adhesion.
Several factors,
Heat! - the only way for solder to want to stick is heat. You would want at least 50+ watts of heating power, Anything less just simply doesn't have enough power and cannot provide enough heat to reach the minimum temperature, you just end up warming it up enough to become very difficult to handle (melts through your table) but not enough to melt solder.
Clean surfaces - ensure the brass pill (it is brass right?) is free of oxide, grease, oil, fingerprints. Give it a scrub with some cotton wool or scotchbrite pads if its really tarnished and covered in muck. it doesn't have to be spotless, but shouldn't be really dirty either
Pre-Tin the parts - before you put it together, leave everything off the pill, and try to get some solder to stick to the rim first, being careful not to allow it to flow onto the fitting surface. Heat up the area you will be soldering, and just try to get the solder to stick first. Do the same for the rim of the PCB. Once you get this done, its much easier to simply re-flow the solder once the parts are together. Again, don't let the solder go where its not meant to.
I would leave the soldering iron to heat up for 5+ minutes to allow it to really get to temperature, and try to pre-heat the brass part first, maybe 1-5 seconds before try ing to apply heat to the PCB, depending on the power of your soldering iron. When you do the PCB, you don't want to be heating up the tracks too much as you may actually melt the tracks off the fiberglass! (thats if you don't kill the components first)
Ensure the tip of the iron is well cleaned and tinned. A clean tip is defined as one that is shiny and takes up solder readily, if the tip itself doesn't want to take the solder, its got too much oxide and needs a wipe/clean/gentle scrubbing. This all depends on the material of the iron too, Plated iron tips must not be filed/scraped through the coating (need a new tip), while copper tips can be filed/scraped a little.
So once you have pre-tinned both sides with a little bit of solder that is Properly flowed (so it looks like its got flat edges, not balls of solder) you then re-fit the parts and simply re-flow the 2 areas of solder together at the same time. Some extra flux here won't hurt, applied before you heat it up.
Clean the pill , remove oxidization .
If you have resin core solder , simply melt a blob onto the tip , then apply to pill driver edge , try to lay it across both pill + driver on the first application .
Lots of good advice here, soldering to the pill can be difficult. Make sure you have good solder with lead in it. Scuff the pill with some sandpaper wash with the pill with IPA. Use some solder flux and really get the edge of the pill hot. This is the mistake most people make is not getting the pill hot enough you really have to get it cooking hot before the solder will stick. Good luck it is not as easy as everyone thinks.
If you did all of this and are still having trouble strip the pill bare and presolder some spots on it. It is much easier to get the pill hot enough if it is bare with no emitter attached. Than once you are ready for final assembly it is easier to bridge the presoldered portion to the driver.
I use a 30w iron for most work but I have an older 80w iron that I use only for driver-to-pill work. I tried to do it once with my 30w iron - but never again - I found it almost impossible.
I have a 25 or 30 watt soldering iron and it is hard to do, but I get it eventually. I think it's not just heat but wattage will help you heat up the spot that needs the heat faster than it can dissipate.
thanks guys. i got out my solder gun and heated the pill and tinned and fluxed it. worked much better. 
Sorry to revive an old thread, But i’ve not for the life of me not been able to properly bridge the solder from a p60 pill to the driver.
I’ve read through this topic and others and still have problems. Does anyone have or could make a brief video or pictures of the actual process?
I Have cleaned, brushed, fluxed and tinned everything with still the same results.
Thank you
Use leaded solder as opposed to lead free solder as leaded melts at a lower temp. Clean and re-tin the iron as well.
I’m currently using 62/36/2 .022awg Rosin core silver bearing solder. It has lead in it.
If you are using a lower wattage iron then you need to preheat to the pill by some other means to allow the iron to finish the job. Hot plate, frying pan, toaster oven, or pencil torch, or pie tin set on the toaster or in the oven, the method is determined by what you have to work with. If you don’t have a high wattage iron you need to get the watts from somewhere else. Be creative but don’t burn down the house. Be aware though that if you have a 2-sided board and over heat it the chips could fall of the bottom side into the pill (potting with fujik might prevent this).
I’m using an adjustable 60 watt iron. I don’t really have a problem heating the pill more so with my technique i guess.
You’re right. Most things like this improve with practice. Keep at it and be sure to clean off old flux between efforts.
I have had problems too, since I have a 25 watt soldering iron. What I do, is to take a bare pill and solder a small piece of wire onto it first. That way it does not hurt if the pill gets very hot (I use my little soldering torch instead of the iron for this). Then I put the guts in and solder the wire to the driver. Works every time, when all else fails.
What a coincidence. I had to do exactly the same thing with the same tools on my cu 7135 sinks. Didn’t even think of that in this context.
I was hopeless at soldering until I starting using flux as well as resin core solder and a decent soldering iron.
Thanks for all the advice.
I have used a little bit of wire to bridge the p60 pill to the driver using a east 092 driver out of my HD2010 with great results.
Was thinking i might start filing down 2 flat sides on all drivers i solder.
I’m still working at bridging the solder on my own but with less favourable results.
I’m cleaning the pill and applying flux between each try but no luck yet.