Tom,
There is no one universally 'good' solder. Each builder has what is
familiar to him and has worked well in the past. I offer my own best
explanations below:
I do know of one expert builder who uses .031 diameter solder for
everything, including SMD construction - but he is an exception, I
certainly could not properly control the solder amount on SMD if I used
that diameter. I personally choose .015 for thru-hole work and .010
inch for SMD because I can control the feed rate, so that is what I
recommend only because I have found it easy to work with.
Also I like the 63/37 alloy better than the 60/40 alloy. It has no
plastic state and has a much better chance of eliminating 'cold solder'
connections that can result from movement of the connection while the
solder is cooling.
I do not clean my soldered boards, but I like them to not have a heavy
flux buildup - flux usually does not hurt, but it just looks messy IMHO.
So I use a mildly activated rosin core solder. A more active rosin
core is not needed when using fresh components that have not yet
developed a significant amount of oxidation.
So if you like my reasons, you would choose something similar to Kester
285 flux in a 63/37 alloy and a diameter of either .015 or .020 for
construction of Elecraft kits - I actually prefer MultiCore solder
because it wets easier than Kester, but is not as readily available. If
you have good experience with something else, it is not wrong as long as
it does not have a flux that will void the warranty.
That being said, I can add one more thing - I simply hate doing rework
on a kit that has been soldered with one of the lead-free solders.
There is really nothing 'wrong' with it, but it certainly makes rework
very difficult because it does not conduct heat very well and requires
higher temperatures than the lead based solders.
If you have good experience with one solder and know its characteristics
and can produce good results, there is no reason to change - but if you
are new to soldering and have to ask which is 'best', I can only give
you what works best for me - others may have great success with
something different because their technique is different - you must
develop your own techniques and in the process you will discover what
works best for you. If you do not know what a good solder connection
looks like, I encourage you to read the soldering tutorial on the
Elecraft website, it has several good illustrations.
73,
Don W3FPR
Tom McCulloch wrote:
I haven't been following this thread, but the poster seems to make a
valid point.
I built K2 #1103 several years ago and the thinking at that time was to
use an alloy of silver solder. So that's what I did. Once my kit was
built I more or less ignored the posts regarding solder, but about a
year or so ago (I could be wrong here) I thought I read that using
silver solder was a bad idea.
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