Soldering question regarding turrets

[Platefire]

I've been building turret boards a while but there is still one thing I have a problem mastering. I love the nice shinney round dome on top of my turret. I still have a problem accomplishing that. The solder tends to sink down into the center opening and run out the bottom before building up on the top. I maybe using too hot of iron? I do use a Weller S200 N 100/140 watts with a trigger for most of my soldering. I hate waiting forever for a joint to heat up. I do have plenty of lower power pincel types. So is overheating my problem or is there other tricks I might be missing. Got to have that shinney dome! Plate 

[EL34]

Too much heat
tip = Hit the top of the lug with the iron and solder at the same time

It takes two passes to do it nice.

pass1 =  Hit the top of the lug with the iron and solder at the same time, once the solder goes inside - stop

pass2 = Wait a second and do it again to make the dome

the first pass just plugs the hole
the 2nd pass makes the dome

[Fresh_Start]

Doug - how long were you planning on keeping that secret???

Seriously, some day you might want to add that to the short blurb on soldering down this page.

Thanks,

Chip

[Boots Deville]

Great!  Thanks for asking this Plate.  I've had trouble achieving that dome too, and thought it might be because the turrets Doug sells have a bigger hole than the commonly available Keystones. 

I *really* like the bigger hole in Doug's turrets, in fact I ordered another batch of 500 yesterday, and now I know how to get 'em to look nice up top too!

[phsyconoodler]

The gun style soldering iron is best left to anything other than an amp.I only use mine for large jobs these days.I use a Hakko 936 soldering station with adjustable heat range.Been using it for years and it's easy to get really neat solder joints with it.

Plate, Put the gun down!

[Platefire]

Thanks a bunch! Doug

I'll be looking forward to giving it a whirl. My Son gave me a Weller Pencil WPS18MP/18 watt a while back that has an on/off switch, has a red light while warming up, green when ready and also has a vision light(flashlight)---pretty cool. I'm trying to break in to that. It's not easy. So maybe I can cool it down a bit---behave Physco! Platefire

[FYL]

Too much heat

Yup. You should use a 40/50w iron set to slightly below 800°F - works very nicely for most quality eutectic solder formulations, leaded or not.

[LooseChange]

My question is... Is this all for looks or does it provide a better connection?

[rafe]

  A dome question ! Couldn't resist......

[FYL]

My question is... Is this all for looks or does it provide a better connection?

I'd say both. A nice dome means that the component and the turret are properly soldered and looks better.

[Platefire]

I've been soldering with my Weller 18 watt mentioned above, working great. 18 watts seems low but it is heating up the joints and melting the solder pretty quickly. Actually seems to be working better than some of my 30 and 40 watt pencils irons.

Yeah those fine looking domes on those turrets should be shinning like diamonds. When they take the cover off and see that board will think they struck it rich! 

[The_Gaz]

I've just gotten the dome thing down. I always wondered how it was done as well; the solder would always sink into the turret. There's a balance between using enough heat to make a good joint , but not dwelling long enough to let the solder go down into the turret. 

I like to flood the turret with some solder before making the purty dome, like Doug suggested, just make sure there's a good connection. I'd say that the dome is just for looks because not dwelling long enough to let the solder sink way down into the turret may cause a bad joint, however it's fairly easy to tell, and add some more heat and a dash of solder make it nice and shiny.

In general I like to just wrap around the turrets because I'm paranoid about solder dripping onto the chassis and shorting something, which I did on my very first build (and it was the B+ too!). Since then I always check under the board with a dental mirror - great tool to have in general.

[EL34]

It looks great and really pro is all

plug the hole, add the dome

sorta like measure twice, cut once