Re-soldering?


jacon12

Member
Last night I was soldering track at the joiners and this morning I noticed one or two that I'm not all that happy with. It looks like the solder flowed down into the joiner ok but I'm not sure about the electrical connection of it.
Is it ok to simply resolder those areas, i.e. flow some more solder into the joint? When do you have to completely unsolder a soldered connection?
Jarrell
 
Sounds to me like you did not have the rail hot enough. If the rail was clean before the first soldering you should be able to re-solder it. I would hold the tip of the iron against the RAIL and then apply solder on the rail/joiner.
 
caellis said:
Sounds to me like you did not have the rail hot enough. If the rail was clean before the first soldering you should be able to re-solder it. I would hold the tip of the iron against the RAIL and then apply solder on the rail/joiner.

Ok Charlie, thanks.
Jarrell
 
Jarrell,
If the solder flowed down into the length of the joiner, that's great; you don't have to see a shiny glob anywhere for it to be a good connection (It wouldn't flow if it was "dirty"). When in doubt about it actually flowing the length, just take your soldering iron tip with a little more solder and run it down the jointers top length. It will pull the solder and you should be able to see a little bit of shiny along the top. But, to answer your question...sure add a little more solder if you want to.

The only time you should have to unsolder regular track is for a change in your plans (adding a turnout somewhere, re-route, and etc.)

From my experience, there are only two ways to go about this:
1. Use a Dremel and cut at the joint, then clean the old joiner off (may require a spliced in piece if reconnecting same),

2. ...or heat the joint, pull track apart and then clean the joint. Trying to use a "solder-sucker" is not that efficient and is time consuming. Just heat, pull joiner off with pliers taking most solder, and clean up with file. Most solder should come off easily.

I wouldn't solder turnouts which are more likely to have a maintenance problem. My 2 cents.;) :)
 
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