Provided by HOW To Church Sound Workshops.

 
This article is a the second part in a series on cable maintenance for worship. For part one on cable testing click here.

One of the major causes of audio glitches and complete failure during worship services is the broken microphone cable.

Churches spend a lot of time and money each year tracking down intermittent or lost audio signals due to cable problems.

We advise sound teams to separate damaged cables from good cables immediately. That way you won’t continually use those damaged cables just when you shouldn’t. Believe us, you will forget.

Plus, treat your cables tenderly; put them away after each service and rehearsal. That way they won’t be yanked out, stepped on or run over by the grand piano.

Of course, you can always buy new cables, but that’s not the best way to be a good steward of your church’s finances. You can save time and money by learning how to solder.

Chief Instructor (of the HOW-TO Church Sound Workshops) Mike Sokol is a whiz at soldering, and below, he offers 10 easy steps to give you the courage to leap in and fire up that soldering iron.

You’ll need:
—A 25-watt soldering pencil
—A roll of .032 diameter Rosin-Core 60/40 Solder
—A pair of diagonal cutters

Everything’s available at your local electronics store (such as Radio Shack) for about $25 total. With a little practice and a few dollars worth of tools, you won’t need to throw away those broken cables any more. You’ll be able to fix them yourself.

On your first try. give yourself at least 15 minutes to solder an XLR mic cable end. Practice makes perfect…

Soldering in 10 easy steps:

See next page for important notes.

Caution
If you’re going to be doing lots of soldering in a closed room, then you should consider a ventilation fan to keep the fumes away from your face and out of your lungs.

For instance, Weller makes a nice fume fan called the WSA350, which you can place on the table next to your soldering pencil.

It has an activated charcoal filter, which removes most of the smell from the smoke that will surround any soldering table. Available for $60 or so, it’s an important safety tool for any large soldering job such as wiring a patch bay or stage box.

Also be aware that due to recent EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) regulations in the U.S., lead is being removed from all solder assembly processes. What this means is that a new amplifier, mixer or even cable you purchase now or in the future may be assembled with the new lead-free solder alloy.

This shouldn’t affect small repairs made using standard 60/40 lead-tin Rosin Core solder as described above, at least for the time being.

But most gear that you purchase from Japan or Germany probably already adheres to these lead-free standards, and soon all U.S.-made gear will do the same.

If you’ll be doing new assembly of gear using these lead-free solder alloys, there is a considerable amount of noxious fumes generated by the more aggressive fluxes required.

In that case, a serious vapor hood and HEPA filter will be required to protect your work environment.

However, this shouldn’t affect you if you accidentally use lead-tin solder on a lead-free solder joint since these special fluxes have been washed away as part of the original assembly process.

Mike Sokol is the chief instructor of the HOW-TO Church Sound Workshops. He has 40 years of experience as a sound engineer, musician and author. Mike works with HOW-TO Sound Workshop Managing Partner Hector La Torre on the national, 36-city, annual HOW-TO Church Sound Workshop tour. Find out more here.