Funny!
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On Sat, Aug 13, 2016 at 12:48 PM, Bruce via BVARC < bvarc@bvarc.org
[bvarc@bvarc.org] > wrote:
when i was little growing up, my mother did not allow us to eat paint on
the window sill or lick the paint on the walls. we were allowed to eat dirt
in the yard. so... now a days, they should not allow kids to lick circuit
boards or chew on a roll of solder thinking its candy. make it where you
have to be 21 to purchase solder and you have to keep your solder and
soldering iron in a locked box when not in use. then we can have our lead
solder back. :-)
73...bruce
On 8/13/2016 11:45 AM, Jon Livingston kb0mnm via BVARC wrote:
Folks-
Please note that some of the RoHS ( Reduction of Hazardous Materials )
solders *do require a higher temperature. Not all of the new solders
necessarily accomplish RoHS for the operator, eg. : AIM has one ( Apple IBM
Motorola as a memory aid ) which is supposed to be used in machines, which
includes traces of Germanium. Based upon past experience, this needs to be
soldered with a hotter iron ( closer to 800 F ) and with good ventillation.
The flux is Malic Acid, and a known irritant. All of the new RoHS solders
work with Tin and Silver, rather than Lead. Various oxides of lead have
been linked to brain issues in children, mostly 'Red Lead' primers. Mercury
is the heavy metal poisoning for which the character 'Mad Hatter' was
named. Mercury fulminate was used in tanning hair for felt in hats. Let's
all get along- and not get mad, rather more educated here... 73 KB0MNM P.S.
Have you found any bottles of Carbon Tetrachloride electrical cleaner
around? This is a known carcinogen ( may cause cancer ), as is burning
Polyvinyl Chloride. PVC insulation is the old soft one, and contains some
of that same PVC oil no longer installed in big transformers...
From: "Jonathan Guthrie via BVARC" <bvarc@bvarc.org> [bvarc@bvarc.org]
To: bvarc@bvarc.org [bvarc@bvarc.org]
Cc: ka8...@ka8kpn.org [ka8...@ka8kpn.org]
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2016 6:40:02 PM
Subject: Re: [BVARC] When all you really want is JUST A DROP!
I wouldn't worry as much about the diameter or making sure it's "eutectic"
as Mr. Crowell does. The rest of the world gets excellent results with
lead-free solders, as do I, and you can, too. I'll let you know if I see
any tin whiskers show up.
For my own part, I think Mr. Crowell focuses far too much on the solder and
far to little on the equipment and the preparation. While you can (as I
did) do excellent work with the kind of cheap crap you could buy at Radio
Shack in the late 70's, if you value your time at all, it's worth getting
good stuff, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
There are three rules for getting good solder joints. The materials to be
joined must be clean, they must be fluxed, and they must be hot. The
material
that is normally soldered is copper, but just about any pure metal is going
to oxidize when it hits air. For those PC boards that have been sitting
around in that ziploc bag for several years, you may not be able to see it,
but all those copper bits are covered with a thin layer of tarnish. Solder
will not wet tarnish.
Now, flux will deal with a little bit of tarnish, that's what it's for, but
a lot needs to be cleaned. Get yourself some Scotch Brite(tm) and get to
work!
You can (and probably should--I do) buy flux core solder, but it is often
handy to have extra flux lying around, so get yourself a bottle of liquid
flux. As Mr. Crowell says, only use rosin flux (acid flux corrodes a lot
faster) but remember that you should clean the flux off once you're done.
If you've ever read that you can't carry melted solder on a soldering iron
because it won't work, the reason it won't work is that the flux in the
solder boils off. Applying flux directly to the work piece makes that
technique work. (It's how surface-mount stuff is done with an iron.)
As far as getting it hot, well, that's where the iron comes in. The kind
of iron you want depends on the kind of soldering you're doing. Putting
together some kits? Get yourself a temperature controlled iron and set the
temperature to whatever the solder manufacturer recommends. You don't want
it too hot because the adhesive that holds the traces to the board can melt
and traces can lift and nobody wants that. I've heard good things about
the Hakko FX-888D, and it's under $100 from Amazon. While you're at it, get
some liquid flux and one of those hand desoldering pumps. Get too much
solder on the joint? (And you will!) You can heat the joint and suck
the excess away. They're cheap. You might also want to get some
desoldering braid. I don't use it, myself, but some people like it.
If you want to do surface mount, you'll need a setup that's different. I
know guys who do reflow soldering with toaster ovens or hotplates and
embossing guns, but I have an Aoyue 968. I solder with the iron and
desolder
with the hot air. Works a treat. Dealing with surface mount is not hard
but it's different from what most hams are used to, so you should probably
seek specific advice on how to do it if that's what you want to do.
If you're soldering PL-259's onto coax, you don't want anything like that.
For that, I have a 75-watt uncontrolled iron that's intended for soldering
stained glass windows. I use that because it has a honking big chunk of
copper at the tip. When you heat the soldering iron, the iron itself gets
hot, and when you apply it to the joint to be soldered, heat starts flowing
from the iron tip into the joint. Now, that causes a lot of things to
happen,
most of them bad. The iron drops in temperature and the copper of what
you're soldering starts to oxidize. The insulation that's near the copper
starts to heat and may melt. When you're heating coax, you want the heat
to flow into the coax connector as quickly as possible to minimize the
melting of the insulation. Since a coax connector is a fairly large thermal
mass, you need a large thermal mass to heat it quickly.
You always want what you're soldering to heat quickly. If you're soldering
components to a board, they've got specified times and temperatures you can
apply soldering irons to them before they get damaged. It's usually like 10
seconds for like 500C. Now, 10 seconds is longer than it sounds when you're
trying to get the iron, the solder, the component, and the board all
together
where you can get the work done, but it is possible to damage components by
overheating. So, I recommend using the largest soldering iron tip that will
work comfortably with what you're working on and I like chisel tips rather
than conical because there's more area for heat transfer.
I basically have three chisel tips that I switch out depending on what I'm
doing. I have a tiny one for surface mount, a medium sized one for putting
through-hole components on boards, and a larger one that I think makes it
easier to solder to ground planes like for "ugly" construction.
Now, that's what I think is important about soldering. Note that you can
follow Mr. Crowell's advice and mine simultaneously. Maybe you even should.
I don't know. I do know it's one opinion, worth what you paid for it.
On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 04:45:39PM -0500, JP Pritchard via BVARC wrote:
> Great article. I'm on Amazon and I don't see eutectic diameter .46mm.
What
> brand sells that size?
>
> JP
> KG3JPP
>
>
>
> _____
>
> From: BVARC [ mailto:bvarc-boun...@bvarc.org [bvarc-boun...@bvarc.org] ]
On Behalf Of Rick Hiller via
> BVARC
> Sent: Friday, August 12, 2016 4:30 PM
> To: BRAZOS VALLEY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
> Cc: Rick Hiller; Bill Crowell, N4HPG
> Subject: Re: [BVARC] When all you really want is JUST A DROP!
>
>
> Iron wattage, temperature, tip shape, proper method, etc. also play a
big
> part in getting good joints. And......Practice, practice, practice!!!!
>
> Sent from my eye doo hickey
>
> On Aug 12, 2016, at 2:00 PM, Bill Crowell, N4HPG via BVARC
<bvarc@bvarc.org> [bvarc@bvarc.org]
> wrote:
>
>
>
> All,
>
> Hand soldering is very much an art form. I was pretty good at it, but
have
> been learning over the years. I have learned a lot from Brian, KF4VOO as
> well as watching NASA training videos on YouTube and from other sources.
> These topics I've discussed on the air, but putting them in writing for
the
> rest of the class <grin>.
>
> Let me give these out as a series of points:
> 1. Use Eutectic solder - 63/37. That's 63% tin and 37%lead. Eutectic
means
> that both components melt/freeze at the same temperature. This is
extremely
> important for hand-soldering. 60/40 is easier to manufacture, but gives
> poorer results because it was also designed for flow soldering. None of
that
> lead-free crap. My XYL, Dasha is an environmental engineer (and a
licensed
> Professional Engineer in the State of TEXAS). She's not worried about
lead
> contamination from our soldering leaching into the ground water and
killing
> kittens and puppies and that's good enough for me.
>
> 2. The flux should be rosin core. Period.
>
> 3. The diameter should be skinny. 0.46mm - the reason is that we don't
want
> too much solder in the joint.
>
> And for today's topic: Flux.
>
> In an ideal solder joint, there should just be the proper fillet of
solder
> where the junction is formed. Those of you who are welders understand
> fillets.
>
> The amount of flux inside even the best solder tends to cause the
operator
> to apply too much solder to the joint. The internal flux dissipates
before
> the heat-bridge gets the solder flowed.
>
> The answer - add flux to the joint. I suggest liquid flux where the
rosin is
> dissolved in alcohol.
>
> I got some good flux from Fry's and picked up a Weller squeeze bottle
with a
> needle in it. This dispenser SUCKS. Flux all over the work and the
bench. A
> waste of money and time in cleaning. Liquid flux is sticky until
completely
> dried out.
>
> The solution to the problem with the SOLUTION was to get a really good
> bottle+cap+dispensing needle. I found a deal on Amazon linked here:
>
>
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G2QZQG8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?i
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G2QZQG8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?i]
> e=UTF8
> <
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G2QZQG8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G2QZQG8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00]
?
> ie=UTF8&psc=1> &psc=1
>
> This kit is for "Vape" - whatever that is. It's an inexpensive kit of
> various bottles and dispensing needles. The needles are for syringes,
but
> not for the pokey kind - just a blunt tip.
>
> In the bottle with yellow cap and yellow needle is the flux. It's all
happy
> and drips out just the right amount. The black is even finer and filled
with
> lubricating oil for my guns. I'll use the other bottles and sizes for
> various glues and such.
> <IMG_0522.jpg>
>
> Here's a link to the flux I got at Fry's, but available on Amazon:
>
>
https://www.amazon.com/MG-Chemicals-8351-125ML-Halogen-Bottle/dp/B00S16UAGE/
[https://www.amazon.com/MG-Chemicals-8351-125ML-Halogen-Bottle/dp/B00S16UAGE/]
> ref=sr_1_4?s=industrial
> <
https://www.amazon.com/MG-Chemicals-8351-125ML-Halogen-Bottle/dp/B00S16UAGE
[https://www.amazon.com/MG-Chemicals-8351-125ML-Halogen-Bottle/dp/B00S16UAGE]
>
/ref=sr_1_4?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1471028240&sr=1-4&keywords=liquid+flux>
> &ie=UTF8&qid=1471028240&sr=1-4&keywords=liquid+flux
>
> Just a drop or 2 makes a big difference. Keeping 100 drops OFF the bench
> makes it funner.
>
> 73
>
> Bill Crowell, N4HPG
> Pearland, TX
> n4...@comcast.net [n4...@comcast.net]
> I prefer to live a life of galvanic isolation.
>
>
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