I am converting a 15" RK car to LEDs with Gunrunnerjohn's lighting board.It looks like I could easily screw it up with soldering it the wrong way. I am looking for the proper method to solder wires to those tiny terminals without too much heat or solder ruining the whole thing. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
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Go to the 'Electrical' forum and do a search for LED lighting.
There is a wealth of knowledge on those pages.
Bruce
I just insert the wire into the hole and solder it using a soldering station at 650F temperature setting. The important factor is not to use higher temperatures as they tend to separate the copper from the board pretty quickly. In truth, I could use 600F, but I don't have any issues with 650F and things happen quicker for me at that temperature.
In a nutshell:
--You'll see the terminals have metal-trimmed holes through the circuit board.
--Twist the wire together (if necessary), and 'tin' it with solder. "Tinning" means pre-coating the exposed wire with solder from a hot iron tip. Melt some solder onto the tip, then rub it on the exposed wire. When the wire heats up enough, the molten solder will form a smooth coating on the exposed copper.
--Let the solder cool, then hook the wire through the hole in the circuit board.
--Touch the hot iron tip to the wire where it passes through the hole. The solder on the wire will re-melt and bond with the solder pads around the holes in the circuit board (this should only take a couple of seconds)
--Remove the iron tip, make sure that the wire stays still for the second or two it takes the molten solder to harden.
--Done 
---PCJ
Thanks, John. Does it make a difference which side the wire enters? If the wire is tinned does it require more solder than that? I have a Weller Station, but the scale is 1-10, not temperature, so I'll have to figure that out.
It makes no difference which side the wire enters, the electrons find their way from either side. I would probably use a bit more solder with a tinned wire, you want to fill the hole around the wire. As for the Weller station, I'd find the lowest setting that melts your solder, then go up one or two numbers.
GRJ,
Does it matter which AC terminal is attached to the pickup roller for operation with DCS?
Success! Thanks for all the help. The only problem is that no one can use the bathroom anymore.
ctr posted:GRJ,
Does it matter which AC terminal is attached to the pickup roller for operation with DCS?
No difference at all, I don't even think about it. Just don't wire track power to the DC outputs, that's bad. 
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