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FrozenGate by Avery

Soldering questions

Honestly - for the BEST results, for those taht are not experienced with soldering, and even for those that ARE experienced - without spending an ass-load on specialized hot air guns, etc...

Use paste flux - put a tiny coating on each item to be soldered. Hold the iron in one hand, the solder (I prefer silver bearing solder, and the thinner the better ! ) in the other hand. Now, place the solder ON the item to be soldered - then touch the tip of the iron to it, the solder melts, and flows wherever the paste flux was applied - and it does that INSTANTLY ! I normally use several pairs of helping hands when soldering - you can clamp each piece in two hands, then manuever them together, so they make contact - so when the iron hits them, they are bonded for life. It is a super fast way to do it - and as long as you do not use too much paste flux, you will not have any issues. Using too much leaves a lot of super sticky goo behind that is no fun to try to clean up !
 





Oh well, to each his own.. you can use seperate flux if you need to, and it won't do much harm als long as it is (rosin) flux intended for electronics.

Never use the paste intended for plumbing though, that contains aggressive acids that will damage your components and circuit boards.

Hmmm...on the top of the spool is printed "Alloy SN60" and "Core 58".
Click to expand...

There is no clear universal way that solder content is indicated. For electronics, solder is tin/lead in 60/40 or 63/37 proportions, with some flux added (normally 1.5 to 2 percent).

Also, there is a lot of lead-free solder out there intended for RoHS compliance in europe, but it's rather crappy to work with for DIY. Working on parts covered in lead-free solder can complicate things due to excess tin getting in the mixture, raising melting point and causing a sort-of 'plastic' phase during solidification.
 
what does rosin mean?
and what about solder containing silver?
 
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Rosin is paste that burns to remove the oxidation layers over metal to allow you to solder to the metal.
Solder containing silver can be used, but it melts at a higher point so it can be a little harder to use.
 
Hi, I bought Rosin-Core Solder 60/40 from radioshack. i always clean very well and tin it and throw solder and tin it again to prepare it to be used. The thing is that when I use it on my soldering Iron to tin it first the Solder doesnt stick to the iron. when i try to tin it it melts and falls from the soldering iron in small balls.
what could it be?
if you know i appreciate an answer
 
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You need to either:

1) get a new tip
2) clean your tip
3) dip your tip in flux

and then try again. Always do number three after you've done either one or two.
 
That depends on if it is a Clad tip or a straight un-plated Copper tip...

If it is just plain copper and it is badly oxidized... you will need to file
off the oxidation and immediately add solder to the new surface tin it
for protection against oxidation...

If it is a Clad tip... you will need to do as GG outlined above...
(man... I miss my smilies)

Jerry
 
You will not need to file down any modern soldering tip though.

All soldering gear intended for electronics will work fine without mechanical abuse. Perhaps you will need to re-tin the tip and flick of the excess, but after that you sould be fine - or get better gear.
 
right now it looks like the tip is burned. but i just scratched it a little bit with my nail at the tip and it looks like im seeing copper that comes i think from the core of the tip. The tip is a pointed type.
 
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You should also apply solder to the tip when you shut it off. Once I'm done I will wait till the tip cools a bit then feed some until it won't melt. Next time you turn it on the tip will be ready. I picked up this habit many years ago from Uncle Sam's teachings.

Chuck
 
Whenever I'm not going to use the soldering iron immediately, but want to keep it on, I just coat the tip with solder and leave it in the stand. It protects the tip from oxidization. Then when I need to use it I wipe off the blob of solder and proceed with soldering.

To clean your tip, try feeding the soldering iron some solder so that the flux can burn off the impurities. If it's beyond help, this may be a good opportunity to buy a better soldering iron, since you probably bought one of those heated nails at Radio Shack.
 
I use 60/40 rosin core solder, and an adjustable temperature soldering station. Nothing resists to it.

The sponge pad of the soldering station is used to remove residual flux after every solder, so the tip doesn't coat with burnt flux, which is like a black coating where solder doesn't stick. Get some temperature tolerant sponges from dealextreme.
To remove the burnt flux when it gets stuck after some use, i use a Scotch-Brite and some dish washing detergent. It removes all the rests of flux in the tip without scratching it, and it looks new after that process.
It's also a good idea to store the tip when unused with a solder coat to protect from oxidation.
Quality tips are expensive, never scratch them.
 
I just thought I'd mention...(I'm pretty sure all of you know this).. the solder sponge
needs to be wet with water to do it's thing.

BTW... I have never needed to remove burnt flux from any of my soldering irons
except with a moist solder sponge..

Jerry
 
Everyone uses his own ways with soldering i suppose... A damp sponge can be good for removing excess solder and burnt materials from the tip. You can also tin the tip and gently scrape it off on a piece of metal (something like a spanner works).

If you see any copper on the tip you should get a new tip though. Pure copper tips are still sold, but really arent that convenient to work with since they dissolve in the solder over time. Any sort of 'longlife' tip has a much harder outer coat and is unlikely to give you that kind of problem.

Keeping the tip coated with solder is always a good idea - it doenst have to be much, but don't clean it dry after use and let it bake like that... even good tips don like that.
 
heres my 2 cents. seems everone is pretty much on the mark.
solder will stick to gold better than the base metal so don't grind it off, if anything just use a pencil eraser on it for cleaning.
the best solder I have found for electronics is ERSIN multi-core 362 SN-62 or 362 BN, 381 is new one but suppose to be very good also, I haven't tryed that one.
an other good tip was to use rosen or flux directly on the tip of the iron I use the DX sku 4697, just open the box and dip your tip (kinda sounds kinky) with the tip already tinned it comes out looking like mirror finish ready to solder.
the last would be practice, practice, practice, I can't say enough about that. also cleanleness, if it's not clean solder won't stick, clean off grease and oil with alcohol and any thing else with a craytex stick or a ink or pencile eraser. did I mention practice.

hope this helps, if not lessons start next week sign up now !

Best Regards Pyro....
 
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