Desolder Rig / Unbelievable Hamhandedness

Re: Desolder Rig / Unbelievable Hamhandedness

Lee Dickinson said:
That's a pretty good one.

In the last fifteen years, My favorites are either:

A tv truck pull away with the cameras still connected.

Or

A band truck that had the bottom of the backdrop tied off to its bumper pull away from an outdoor stage, taking the upstage 96k truss with it.

Neither were my gigs, so... Given the options, some busted speakons don't sound so bad!
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A few yeara back at a local festival the stage was on a city street. So a guy wire for the top was tied to the bumper of the PA truck.

The officials said the truck had to move-so the owner proceeed to move it (not knowing the guy wires was attached).

Down came the roof.

The worse that got tied to my truck was police tape-where they were investigating a murder. So I couldn't move the truck to start to load until they finished.
 
Re: Desolder Rig / Unbelievable Hamhandedness

Lee, this e-bay listing is identical to my unit. PACE DESOLDERING STATION MODEL PPS-5 | eBay

With a clear plastic hose from the hardware or automotive store and a plastic mechanical sucker from radio shack you can make a nice sucker. I wont have the heated tip that normally goes with it but you wont be faced with constantly replacing tips. Use a cotton ball inside the sucker to block solder from getting into the vacuum pump. For light occasional use this arrangement will last for years.

For you purpose. a 250W Weller gun is probably going to be needed for heating anyway.

As the sucker tip clogs up you can ream it out with an Exelite greenie screwdriver.
 
Re: Desolder Rig / Unbelievable Hamhandedness

I haven't seen the "circuit boards" the connectors are mounted to, but is it possible just to delete it?
I've serviced many cabs that just have simple little boards spanning the back of the two connectors with nothing more than just parallel traces and possibly a molex connector to the drivers themselves. Just replacing with fastons or direct soldering the existing wires to the connectors themselves has been much easier to accomplish and makes future repair easier. I've even bench-assembled the repaired connector input panels with pigtails that can be twist-solder-wirenut to the existing internal wiring if it isn't long enough -or even inline male/female crimped fast-on connectors for faster assembly.
-Much of my experience in this is going from EP to NL in large batches, or just upgrading worn-out original style NL's to newer metal-style ones

If the board has passive components or switching of some kind then its a moot point of course.
 
Re: Desolder Rig / Unbelievable Hamhandedness

OMG that is nuts, Speakons are not a favourite connector of mine (I had a power amp here for a while with them and found them annoying at least) sorry this guy was a complete numpty. Anyway I am using a Weller WHS 40 here and am happy.
 
Re: Desolder Rig / Unbelievable Hamhandedness

Best rig I ever saw was in school. It was an electric pump that sucks the hot solder through a clear plastic tube (like fish tank tubing). Looked like little solder balls flying through there. The tip of the iron was hollow. The airflow would cool the solder quickly I guess. Never saw a tube get melted. The solder collected and we would dump it into the solder pot which we used for tinning wires. Can't remember the brand but I've used a lot of stuff since and never been happy.

Lee Dickinson said:
Hi Guys - been too busy to post in a long time!

So, at a strike the other night, I had a new guy strip the cables from the speaker rig. Didn't even ask him to coil them. What could go wrong? Here's what: He could break EVERY SINGLE in and out speakon on EVERY SINGLE CABINET by using two hands to wrench the speakons out without pulling the release tab.

No one saw it happen; didn't discover it until the next gig when half the cables dropped out of the air during sound check.

These are old all-plastic NL4s, before Neutrik added little metal plates to the locking channels.

So, now I've got twenty cabinets that need new NL4 and NL8 jacks, times two. We have a nice Hakko soldering station, but would like to complement that with a desolder pump for this project. Anyone have a favorite? What do you think of bulb type vs. the electric pump type?

Thanks. Keep an eye on your newbies.
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Tim, if I have to make a speech on how to plug in an XLR or NL that person is relegated to lifting heavy things. I assess the crew I am given pretty quick and usually get at least one of them I can trust not to completely f it up and then I put he or she in charge of the others. I often won't even really talk to the rest of them in that case. In the cases where I can bring my own A2, I put the A2 in charge. Everything goes through my A2. I am polite and respectful but if they start asking me questions I ask them where is the A2 and tell them he knows what's going on. I am very specific to my A2 and I don't like to give the same instructions twice. I can work with just about anyone but if I have to plug everything in myself it's going to take a lot longer.
As for wrapping cables, I find the guys that can and send the rest to lighting. One thing that really annoys me is when the guys try to fly the rig or take it down without me or my A2. They are 99% likely to screw it up. In many cases the A2 is busy getting work done (for me) and so I'll fly the PA myself, particularly with the smaller rigs. It's actually easier! I'm not opposed to teaching but when I'm loading in or loading out, class is not in session. When all the real work is done and there is some down time I'm happy to answer questions or show someone around a console, or whatever.

Lee Dickinson said:
That would be cheap and quick probably, but on my Nexos the NL4 are soldered to the input panels with huge globs of solder. I think I'm going to go through a mile of braid.
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It would be a lot easier to just order the panels. it's just a few screws and a molex connector (or similar).

Lee Dickinson said:
Because on the Nexo Alphas, the NL4 are soldered directly to PCBs on the back of the input panel. The PCBs link the speakon jacks (nl4 and nl8) and hold the Connectors for the drivers.
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There is more to it than that. There is also protection for the high frequency drivers on that board IIRC. It's not "just" a pair of speakon connectors.

Lee Dickinson said:
Chris, Yeah, pretty much. The guy came in as a camera operator after being recommended by one of our usual guys. Cameras got packed up quickly, so I gave him a list of simple tasks.

I purposefully broke one yesterday to see how hard it was. It takes two hands, but isn't too hard after that. It just sheers off about 2mm of plastic, and the connector never locks again.
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In my experience camera ops almost NEVER touch anything else so maybe he was just pissed off that you were making him touch audio gear? I'm always amazed when the camera guys pack the cameras up and walk out of the strike.
 
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Re: Desolder Rig / Unbelievable Hamhandedness

harrybrilljr said:
In my experience camera ops almost NEVER touch anything else so maybe he was just pissed off that you were making him touch audio gear? I'm always amazed when the camera guys pack the cameras up and walk out of the strike.
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I'll admit I'm a little jealous of camera ops that show up to a setup camera, do the show, then go home without striking.
 
Re: Desolder Rig / Unbelievable Hamhandedness

I have to agree with Silas, Many shows with 4-5 hands its actually just quicker for me to unplug and wrap the cables myself, the way I want the first time than to try and show them. During this time I can have them breaking down mic stands, doing this and that, seeing what the bands need on/off stage and ESPECIALLY removing any open drinks from the stage ASAP. Plus it saves time when I get to the next show and 50% of all my cables are not tangled beyond belief. Nothing frustrates me more than pinning a stage and having to untangle every other cable I pull out.
 
Re: Desolder Rig / Unbelievable Hamhandedness

Lee Dickinson said:
Hi Guys - been too busy to post in a long time!

So, at a strike the other night, I had a new guy strip the cables from the speaker rig. Didn't even ask him to coil them. What could go wrong? Here's what: He could break EVERY SINGLE in and out speakon on EVERY SINGLE CABINET by using two hands to wrench the speakons out without pulling the release tab.

No one saw it happen; didn't discover it until the next gig when half the cables dropped out of the air during sound check.

These are old all-plastic NL4s, before Neutrik added little metal plates to the locking channels.

So, now I've got twenty cabinets that need new NL4 and NL8 jacks, times two. We have a nice Hakko soldering station, but would like to complement that with a desolder pump for this project. Anyone have a favorite? What do you think of bulb type vs. the electric pump type?

Thanks. Keep an eye on your newbies.
Click to expand...

Hi,
If you use the vacuum, plunger type buy two (at least).
Otherwise the solder goes cold before you can clear the plunger from the solder you just sucked out. You should be able to use bother plungers before the solder goes cold.
It takes two hands to clear the solder. With two you can keep the iron on the solder.

If you can audition one before you buy or they have a money back return policy check how strong the vacuum is on your hand.
It should make a loud snapping sound and really hold on to your skin.
If it is not strong, return it and try someone else.

If you use a weak one the job it will take 2 or 3 times as long.

NOTE: Never had any luck with using the braid...
 
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