Electronic – how can I “ruggedize” a 3.5mm jack on consumer electronics

Are you going to have the AC jack (power entry module) on your new back plate? If so, what kind of terminals does it have on the inner side? A photo or a pencil sketch of your new back plate could help us visualize the problem.

Without knowing anything else, I would recommend splicing the wires with a crimped butt terminal (like this one or this one). It's a thin-wall metal tube inside of an insulating plastic tube. Each end of the tube can be crimped onto a wire. Here in the US, you can get them in any hardware store. Crimped connections are less brittle, compared to soldering.

Splicing plus soldering works too. Heat shrink is a more reliable insulation than tape.

In answer to your questions,

1. Remove the third lead, this will let you clear/prepare the pads for re-soldering.

2. It's probably best to flick the old solder off the leads; do this by heating and bending the lead with the tip of the iron and letting it spring back, DO NOT DO THIS TOWARDS YOUR FACE!

3. You can buy solder with a flux core. Also, if you can get it, buy lead solder, it is MUCH nicer to work with.

As regards the vid:

Yes the guy tins his iron to remove the leads, you should always tin (add solder to your iron tip) before you do anything, it stops the tip oxidising. It also helps when melting old solder.

To clean the pads generally I would put a bit of new solder on, then wick it off to give a nice clean and shiny surface.

He is applying flux, this will stop the solder "balling up" and sticking to stuff it shouldn't. You can do this, but if you are careful, and have flux core solder, you wont need to.

As regards the rest of your questions, this is just about technique. The guy seems to tack solder (a connection made to hold it in place) the leads at first. When the whole lead is tack soldered he goes around and tidies up the job.

So what YOU need to do.

1. Remove the lead - Tin and clean the pads and flick the old solder off the end of the lead (NOT TOWARDS YOUR FACE!)

2. Add a little solder to each of the pads

3. Place each lead above the pad and push down gently whilst touching the tip of the iron to the solder you placed on the pad. Make sure you remove the iron before removing the pressure.

4. When all connections are made, get some tweezers and push down on each lead in turn, melting the solder on the pad with the tip of the iron so the lead is properly flat on the pad.

Remember! Before you touch the iron to anything, make sure you have applied some solder to it and wiped it off on a sponge.

Also, if you are buying new equipment, when you first turn the iron on, keep adding solder to the tip and wiping it off. You need to thoroughly tin/protect the tip before you start using it. You can get little pots of hard flux, this is useful and it will help remove the crud on the tip due to oxidation. Also, tin it and DON'T wipe it off when you are done, the tip will still be hot for a while after you switch it off.