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And now.......how NOT to solder !

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protokatie:

May I ask a seemingly stupid question: Why do they not make copper coated solder-heads? Copper would have less of a corrosion problem and is much better at conducting heat. Is there a reason why it isn't used?

FTR: I suck at soldering, as the only tools I had to do it with was a wood burner and an "industrial" soldering gun (and this as a kid)

Ummon:

Man, seeing that solder flow brings back memories of smoking rock. Next I'll start smelling and tasting it.....anyways, I'm no expert, but I didn't think that first vid was bad. Certainly the second vid was very good, and I don't know why I didn't think of twisting wires that way for an 'inline' joint...jeez.

Flux and stuff: in junior high industrial arts class, we not only had to use flux, we had little gas furnaces that we had to heat up our irons in. Man they sucked.

MaximRecoil:


--- Quote from: protokatie on September 02, 2009, 04:50:36 am ---May I ask a seemingly stupid question: Why do they not make copper coated solder-heads? Copper would have less of a corrosion problem and is much better at conducting heat. Is there a reason why it isn't used?
--- End quote ---

Metcal tips have a copper core with an iron plating, which is commonly done with high quality tips. Here is a brief explanation from one of Metcal's patents:


--- Quote ---The main body 21 of tip 20 is preferably made from copper, or any other suitable thermal conductor. Preferably, at least the distal end of main body 21 is iron plated. Such iron plating protects the copper core of tip 20 from dissolving in the solder during use. Iron plating a copper core soldering iron tip is common in the art.
--- End quote ---

Here is an explanation and illustration (also from Metcal) of how a tip can fail if the plating cracks and the solder reaches the copper core:





Blanka:

I use the ERSA tips/irons on the RS station. ERSA makes the stations for RS. Just need to hack a little thing (i made a din-din adapter, so that both irons work), but internally they are the same (except the power is a little less, but that only affects heating time). Great deal if you had the ERSA for 80 euro. It now costs 155 at Conrad. For 80 bucks I would have got the original too I guess.

ChadTower:


Don't fling the solder if you keep any other boards on your bench... wouldn't do to fling solder blobs all over a PCB.   ;D

Also don't fling it where it might land on you.  It burns right through your pants, shirt, skin, pretty much whatever it lands on. 

I have never had an issue with using a sponge.  Wipe it quickly as described above and unless you have a true garbage iron, or if you need to do 20 joints a minute, you're fine for what we do.

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