10 ms·
If you have that many stripped wires to tin, you can use a tub of flux and a solder pot. Dip the wires into the flux, then quickly dip it into the solder pot.
by Whitespace 4y ago
If you have that many stripped wires to tin, you can use a tub of flux and a solder pot. Dip the wires into the flux, then quickly dip it into the solder pot. Perfectly tinned end with no plastic melting. Really hard to mess up vs a soldering iron, a wire, and solder wire.
You can even dip multiple wires into the flux and solder bath at the same time, as well as use the flux tub again before you solder the tinned wire to the contact.
- bsder 4y agoYeah, every time I see a soldering "tutorial" that doesn't use separate flux--I facepalm. Flux is probably more important than the solder for good joints. A syringe of paste flux makes life ridiculously easier.
- gw99 4y agoI did several years in production engineering. We never used flux. Not once. It’s a crutch for people who don’t know how to solder. What we did was use solder that wasn’t shitty. Big fan of felder 62/36/2 but it ain’t cheap. We also cleaned stuff properly before soldering it. The reason people tend to flux things to death is that they didn’t clean the oxide layer off before soldering. Or used shitty solder.
- linker3000 4y ago"It’s a crutch for people who don’t know how to solder." This needs shouting from the rooftops. So many people get sucked into the groupthink on this; yes it helps with less-than-perfect beginner's soldering skills, but it should not be normalized. Flooding every joint with extra flux is unnecessary and a waste of money. /Pet peeve (well, one of them!)
- randombits0 4y agoWe all don’t get to work on nice, new, shiny PCBs. Sometimes other things get in the way. I have three different kinds of flux, two types of solder, copper wick, three solder suckers, two guns, and a scratch pen. I’m not out to practice the art, I just want to be effective.
- bsder 4y agoSorry, I'll fight you very strongly on this. Most soldering that relies on effects from solder surface tension simply will not work without quite a bit more flux than you can get from the core of a solder wire. Drag soldering, for example, won't work on quad flat pack chips without quite a bit of flux. And while my techs will absolutely back you up that my soldering skill sucks, to a person they ALL use solder flux for their soldering. Not even a single exception. And they're all trained to NASA aerospace standards. Now, maybe you can be more skilled than they are and get away without using solder; however, back down here in reality, the rest of us punters will just add flux when soldering stuff, thanks.
- bitdivision 4y agofelder 62/36/2 [0] is a flux-cored solder. So you were using flux every time. It's also a leaded solder, which is much easier to get nice joints from than lead-free. Flux is great, adding some before you solder is a good tip, and will likely help you make better joints if as you said, you haven't perfectly cleaned everything. The only downside is perhaps some more cleanup afterwards. There's no reason to disparage it's use. 0: https://www.felder.de/products/electronic-applications/manual-soldering-mechanical-soldering/solder-wire/loetdraht-iso-core-ra-18641030.html https://www.felder.de/products/electronic-applications/manua...
- gw99 4y agoYes it’s additional flux that you don’t need.
- randombits0 4y agoDepends. New work versus rework versus what-is-this-piece-of-crap?
- exmadscientist 4y agoDing ding ding. Production soldering isn't easy, but it's much easier to dial in than rework jobs. It's definitely a desirable goal to not need flux for production work. Rework... good bloody luck.
- lightedman 4y agoI most certainly do not use flux in my rework. I am in a zero-clean facility, the only flux allowed is that which comes with the solder paste for stencil and SMT placement - on initial production work. Fluxless rework isn't difficult at all. I do it dozens of times a day.
- exmadscientist 4y agoI'm having a little trouble believing you unless by "rework" you meant "reflow". Production reflow without extra added flux is normal. It's the goal for every assembly line anywhere and is almost always achieved. Rework of existing joints after assembly without flux is just about impossible. The oxidation of the joints guarantees it. Many times the flux in the paste or wire is sufficient, but this is more true for through-hole than for surface-mount, mainly due to joint geometry and available volumes. If you are regularly reworking old fine-pitch surface mount joints previously assembled with no-clean flux, without flux of your own... then I'd like to know what materials you're using, because that is not possible in general. The "no-clean" fluxes are notorious for causing rework trouble, and they are difficult to clean off once reflow temperatures have been achieved (that's why we call them "can't-clean"). They are never active twice, so they must be removed and replaced once heated the first time. We have to use special solvent flux removers around here (based on DuPont's hellish Vertrel XF) to get the crap off just to be able to access joints again. (This is on assembly work done out-of-house or on COTS devices, made with who-knows-what.)
- buescher 4y agoI agree up to... new parts shouldn't need cleaning. And cheapo hobbyist-grade RF and audio connectors often have a weird chrome + some kind of oil or varnish surface finish that just won't clean off or solder and flux is a godsend for those. That said, I let someone borrow my bottle of liquid flux about a decade ago and have never bothered to replace it.
- wolfendin 4y agoYeah, I’ve been soldering for something on three decades now and the only time I need flux is removing parts on ancient boards. More flux that what comes with the solder isn’t necessary with good technique.
- duped 4y agoTotally true, but you don't always have a solder tub or tub of flux laying around. The other advantage of this approach is it's easier to avoid tinning under the insulation
- denkmoon 4y agoWhat is the impact of tinning under the insulation?
- userbinator 4y agoMakes stranded wire turn solid and likely to break at that point.
- mdturnerphys 4y agoAnd if you have a lot of wires to strip, get a compound automatic wire stripper or a laser wire stripper.
- lagrange77 4y agoThere are laser wire strippers? Shut up and take my money.
- mdturnerphys 4y agoHere's the one I've used: https://www.laserwiresolutions.com/product/mercury-4/ https://www.laserwiresolutions.com/product/mercury-4/
- b112 4y agoThis... how, why, what? It has to be fake. Right? We're supposed to be using lasers to ... well, shoot at space ships, not cut plastic wire wrapping!!
- techdragon 4y agoWhen all you have is a laser, every problem looks like something to be ablated.
- mechanical_bear 4y agoThat has to be expensive.
- rkagerer 4y agoAwesome. How do they know when to "stop"? EDIT - found the answer: > Because the metallic conductor is essentially a mirror at the wavelength of the laser, the process is effectively “self terminating”, that is the laser vaporises all of the insulating material down to the conductor and then stops, so no process control is required to prevent damage to the conductor.
- an_aparallel 4y agosolder pots!! Thank you for your comment :) This is awesome. i dont know why i've never seen these before.