[Elecraft] Use of flux.. and another rant on soldering
Tom Hammond
[email protected]
Fri Feb 13 18:53:01 2004
Hi George:
>Tom, did you mean to say that a joint is heated continuously for *three*
>seconds? I use the .020 solder and the usual Weller soldering station at
>700 deg F and I would think that I would seriously damage a pad as well as
>the component if I applied the heat for that period of time.
>
>Most of my joints are soldered in no more than one second of iron
>application with an occasional touchup to reflow the solder it the joint
>doesn't look right. That is about 5% of the time.
MOST of my joints take about 1-1/2 to 2 seconds George, but sometimes I've
found that it will take the full three (3) SECONDS in order to have the
solder flow properly.. e.g. wet the pad AND flow into the hole.
When I solder to plated-thru holes. I'll apply a bit of solder and wait for
it to be sucked up by the hoel. Then, if needed, I'll apply a bit more,
trying to NOT apply so much that anything other than the hole is filled...
though I usually wind up with a very small amount on the pad itself.
Nothing that'd stick up over 1/32" at most.
I've NEVER lifted an Elecraft PC board pad with even up to 4 seconds of
application of heat. Though this is an exreme, I've had a couple times when
a pesky component lead just flat refused to take solder.
>It takes a long time to say "one thousand and one" or maybe that is
>because of my Texas drawl! <:}
That's it... I KNEW there was a reason... 5 seconds to count to "TWO".
73,
Tom N0SS