Marshall Jose wrote:
Marvin Dickens wrote:
Regarding water soluable solders, take a look at:
http://www.tselectronic.com/solder/solder.html?tse_Session=87ad1697d9d7666613a61c09428f3791
Water soluable solder paste is also readily available. In fact, water
soluable solder products are available in
any form factor you can think of.
I'm a huge fan of water-soluble flux, and prefer it when doing SMT
stuff. Of course, it's a little less reactive than rosin, so you need
to really inspect your joints after soldering.
My only complaint, and it's a small one, is that you really do have to
clean it off.
Those jobs that require a highly reactive flux, we use no-clean solder.
These days, that would be repair work involving pin and hole. The
residue is absolutely non-hydroscopic and it has been shown that
statistically it does not promote the growth of tin whiskers (Or any
other type of whisker...). You don't have to clean
it - You leave it on.
The flux is naturally hygroscopic and will, over time, increase its
conductivity to the point of affecting the surrounding circuit. This
is only a problem if you use the water-soluble flux on everything
including prototype boards you might normally leave uncleaned.
Fortunately, cleaning the flux off the board is such a trivial matter
there's no real excuse for leaving the flux on.
I totally agree with you - it comes off so easily.
Best
Marvin
