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I'm gearing up to replace the pickups and the pots/caps/wiring in my SG.

Looking at the pre-wired kits from Mojotone, and am trying to decide between a solderless connection vs. one where I'd have to connect the pickup wires to the lugs myself.

What do folks think about the whole solderless thing for pickups? The convenience of it is obvious in terms of swapping things in and out quickly, but has anyone encountered problems with them over time? I don't have a soldering iron and have no experience doing this, but I'm not averse to learning. I work with all sorts of tools, do my own setups, etc. But the solderless plug appeals to my lazier side. It basically saves me the step of buying a soldering station and spending a bit of time learning up on it.

New pickups are gonna be Railhammers, probably a P-90 neck and humbucker bridge. Tried a bunch of Reverends last year and loved how they sounded.

I've not checked into the plug in pickups a lot, but I'm guessing they are proprietary or highly varied among connector types, this seems like it would be a pain in the ass in the future if you do decide to change pickups. Soldering is very easy and soldering irons are cheap.

I haven’t used the ghs system but I wouldn’t be opposed to it if I felt like swapping pickups a lot.

Another, more generic way, is to use 9v battery snaps. Takes up a bit more room, but still works. I’d recommend using the snaps on the ground wire so it’s easier to take the guard off too

I just picked up a harness from Obsidian Wire for my olympic. I'll post pics when I get around to doing the install, but if it's as good as it looks I'll be picking one up for my p-bass

Six weeks later I’m using the gfs qwikplug system. Quite easy and simple. Still a pain to change pickups but I don’t need to solder

I love the smell of solder in the morning.

anybody got tips on wattage / temperature for soldering to pot lugs? rookie question
i've got a station that allows you to set the temperature....it says the power ranges from 25W (rated) to 120W (max), which I'm assuming means the power varies as it pushes the temperature.

thanks for any help

When I had a variable temp iron, I just used it at the hottest setting all the time. It did burn out after a while though. Hmmmmm. Now I just have a simple Weller with no settings. I think it's 25W, and it's more than enough for all guitar component soldering that I need to do.

kosta wrote:When I had a variable temp iron, I just used it at the hottest setting all the time. It did burn out after a while though. Hmmmmm. Now I just have a simple Weller with no settings. I think it's 25W, and it's more than enough for all guitar component soldering that I need to do.

thanks. i'm thinking maybe to get a simpler iron, i'm not sure what the actual wattage on this thing is and I don't want to fry a pot.