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soldering extensions onto a potentiometer

I have a potentiometer that I unsoldered from an old circuit board (from a junked appliance) & I'd like to play with it in circuits on my breadboard. The potentiometer has leads bent at 90°, with holes at the top, & looks close to this picture:

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The leads are spaced almost exactly 1.5 times the spacing of the holes in my breadboard, so I can't quite wedge it into them. I'm thinking of soldering a piece of hook-up wire to each lead, but I'm not sure how to make a mechanically sound connection, especially to the middle one, before soldering. Suggestions?

--
When Elaine turned 11, her mother sent her to train under
Donald Knuth in his mountain hideaway.         [XKCD 342]
Reply to
Adam Funk
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I'd probably take two pair of needle-nose pliers and carefully rotate the outer two leads by 90°, then you can bend them inward to make the spacing.

(Or drill two extra holes, plus some small bus wire to close the gap :-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
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I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson 

--
If you can solder properly, the solder joint will be strong enough to
use in a breadboard.

What I'd do would be to cut off the narrowed part of each lead, then
tin the pot leads and the wires and use a pair of long nose pliers to
squeeze the tinned end of the wire against the length of the lead
while I reflowed the solder.

Afterwards, I'd bend the free ends of the wires so they'd plug into
the breadboard nicely.
Reply to
John Fields

It won't matter one bit.

It's for breadboarding, if/when the wire eventually breaks off (and wire=20 thin enough to fit breadboards is likely to break when stressed before the= =20 joint breaks, you just resolder a new wire to the pot. It's not like it=20 will be in a box where access is difficult.

But "mechanically sound" is from the old days of tubes. Not only was the= =20 wire thick (and thus putting stress on the solder connection) but the=20 components were big too, meaning the joint had to support the extra=20 weight. Some of it was overkill too, wrap the wire through the hole on=20 the tube socket a time or two, then solder.

SInce semiconductors took over, wire is thinner (since generally it isn't= =20 carrying much current or voltage) and components are lighter. IN some=20 circumstances, like something used in a car or carried around a lot, it=20 probably makes sense to worry somewhat about being "mechanically sound".=20 But for the average home made piece of equipment solder is good enough, as= =20 long as it's a good solder joint.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Black

Adam Funk wrote in news:gggh49xmlm.ln2 @news.ducksburg.com:

use a piece of an old IC plugin adapter.

Reply to
Sjouke Burry

That works! I was thinking inside the box.

--
...the reason why so many professional artists drink a lot is not
necessarily very much to do with the artistic temperament, etc.  It is
simply that they can afford to, because they can normally take a large
part of a day off to deal with the ravages.          [Amis _On Drink_]
Reply to
Adam Funk

Great! Glad it worked for you! (I've done it before :-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

And it sits reasonably firmly in the breadboard so it's easy to turn the knob. Thanks again!

--
I used to be better at logic problems, before I just dumped
them all into TeX and let Knuth pick out the survivors.
                                               -- plorkwort
Reply to
Adam Funk

It wasn't useful then, either. A proper solder joint is stronger than the component lead. The only thing it accomplished was to make sure the component didn't move while the solder was fluid, causing a cold joint.

Reply to
krw

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