I was thinking of repeated soldering, ( beacause no one can leave their pristine builds alone ) on a hollow turret lug causing stalagtites of solder to hang down from the circuit board, ( with no backing board , as in a Hoffman -style board ).. so I thought maybe one end of Hoffmans' turrets was closed.
This boils down to the level of your solder technique.
If you solder properly, you apply the iron to heat all parts being soldered together, and apply the solder to the parts, opposite the heat. The solder only melts when the parts are hot enough to melt the solder. This avoids cold solder joints.
When you have enough solder applied (and it's a fairly small amount to form a proper fillet), you remove the solder and the heat a near-instant after the proper fillet is formed. The "fillet" is the smooth filling of solder between the parts joined. Done right, very little solder was actually used, and with turrets you have a component lead filling much of the opening, so little solder is wicked down into the turret.
So, with proper soldering technique, you shouldn't be applying enough solder to fill the turret opening to the extent it runs all the way down out the bottom. A more likely issue is an under-board wire coming loose. Again, this is mitigated with good, clean soldering technique. It takes time for the heat to be transferred through the turret from top to bottom. If you're exhibiting the proper technique soldering the component on the top end, the heat won't be applied long enough to transfer through the turret to make the bottom of the turret hot enough to melt the solder.
You'll actually notice this last effect more often with the buss-wire lacing that Hoffman uses between B+ and ground turrets. This wire runs along the bottom end of the top-side of the turret. Again, since the lacing is done first, then any under-board wiring, you'll find that with clean technique, even the solder for the lacing doesn't melt when you solder components through the top hole. If it does, that's telling you that either you're using a too-big iron (60w when only 25w is called-for) or you're staying on the turret way too long when soldering.
Early on, I used to notice solder wicking down into the turret holes, but came to realize I just needed to refine my technique. Ever since, I've had zero problems with soldering turrets. Remember, the insulating board under a normal eyelet board (while necessary because of how the eyelet board is typically mounted) often leads to sloppy soldering habits. eyelets shouldn't have half as much solder as many folks apply.
Topic: stupid turret lug question (Read 3372 times)