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Vintage threads from the first ten years

5E3 Ground Plate Soldering

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10/26/2002 3:55 AM
Tweedy Bird	5E3 Ground Plate Soldering I see the comments about creating solder pools on the brass plate before installing and maybe soldering ground wires before installation as well. My question is "Where do you pu the solder?", maybe someone could describe the location for the grounds or post a pic of the best locations. Thanks, James

10/26/2002 5:23 AM
Mike P	Hi James,I just drilled two small holes in the brass plate, one under the input jacks and one at the opposite end. I connected all my star grounds to those two points. I don't know if this is the preferred method, but it's the one I used. Your main consideration is to stay away from your pots and jacks. Good Luck. Mike

10/26/2002 2:13 PM
Mike P	James, I suppose I should add that you don't need to drill into the brass plate. I did it so I could hook my ground wires into something while soldering them. Also, I use a 25 watt soldering iron, and had a very difficult time getting the solder to "take" to the plate. I switched to an 80 watt iron and it worked fine. You may encounter this as well. Mike

10/27/2002 2:22 PM
steve	I had a hard time getting the solder to adher to the plate with a 25 wt iron. I got a 40 wt iron & it works great.

10/28/2002 2:54 PM

Before you install the brass plate, blast it with a 100 watt soldering iron and put four blobs of solder on the bottom of the plate, evenly spaced. Once connected, you can use these blobs to solder the ground wires. With four blobs you can keep the ground wire leads fairly short.

Once the brass plate is connected to the chassis it is ten times harded to get the solder to stick. Believe me, I know from first hand experience.

This seems odd (or at least it did to me), but it works very well and is original to the design of the amp.

Rich

10/31/2002 8:31 PM
Bruce /Mission Amps	Take a look at this picture James... http://members.aol.com/deluxe5e3/brass-plate-parts.jpg Bruce

11/1/2002 1:56 AM
James	Thank You! Thats what I wanted to see. Are there other photos available that are not on the missionamps.com site? I've went to Tom's web site and printed off all of his photos already. By the way I am having a real blast putting this kit together. A big thank you for putting it together. This is my first build from parts and will certainly not be my last. Thanks, James

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