Making a dry joint

[Bob Eager]

Pay a student to do them? :)

[whisky-dave]

yes I was thinking of that using a cig lighter or match, but nowerdays around here I'm more likely to find rocking horse shit.

[whisky-dave]

She most likely manages the soldering department/section as part of their equal opportunities dictatorship.

[whisky-dave]

and of course it depends on the tip and the job, we tend to use 1mm and 2.3mm bits the ones for lead free seem best even on leaded solder.

our stations

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes. A must have if you do much in the way of repair work. Once fiendishly expensive, though. Not sure about now.

One of those tools you don't know how you ever managed without. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You'd often see it round the PCB connections to a line output transformer on an old telly. Vibrated due to the line drive, and tended to get a bit hot too.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not a dry joint, though. A dry joint can be fixed by re-flowing the solder with added flux. Or just re-soldering in the normal way. A break in a track will require other measures to repair.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Interesting. I keep a pin drill to run up the orifice when that happens. And a bit of wire long enough to get into the chamber too.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Operate it a few times before using. Makes sure there are no bits stuck in the tube. But the way they 'jump' when used can be a pain. A proper de-solder iron is so much nicer. But almost certainly not worth the cost to most.

Solder braid is often easier to use than a sucker.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It's the primary reason for solder resist. Secondary would be to provide a degree of insulation to exposed tracks and to prevent oxidisation.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And may explain all the dry joints your students get. Is this figure checked with a proper bit temperature checker, or just what the station says it is?

[Bob Eager]

I'm probably going to get one of those next time round. 63/37 melts at a lower temp but I need to set it to about 290 to work properly. 53/37 had a faster transition from liquid to solid, which helps the joint if I shake a bit!

[whisky-dave]

starting from about 100 euros.

We have one of these

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and a rework station AM 6800 which isn't listed. What gest really xpensive are ESD protected stuff.

Our set of 6 tweezers were £160 and they weren;t the best we could have g ot.

[whisky-dave]

Our students aren't getting all dry joints.

Just teh solder station which is under a year old and as we have 11 of them...... And 12 antex versions which I set at 350C

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Excuse my stupid mistake. I meant 350C, not 450C.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Got that one totally wrong. Must have been worrying about my boiler. ;-)

I use 350C, not 450C. Sorry.

[Capitol]

Forgot to say, if soldering to nickel plate, I always use Bakers soldering fluid to tin it first.

[Sam Crean]

That's one of the reasons why the ones with a proper electric pump work a lot better.

Much more expensive tho.

[ARW]

vbg.

[whisky-dave]

Given the chance that's the 1st thing out studetns do and then leave them on !!!! We've had 3 bits destroyed this year so far.