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I wouldn't bother. I use silver solder for special occasions (Felder stuff) but it's too expensive to use all the time. You're probably fine with 60/40 loctite

by unxdfa 4y ago

I wouldn't bother. I use silver solder for special occasions (Felder stuff) but it's too expensive to use all the time. You're probably fine with 60/40 loctite multicore. Just keep your parts, iron and boards clean and it's no harder.

twawaaay 4y ago
Seconded. Silver is expensive and really doesn't do anything useful for an amateur. Decent soldering station + correct and well taken care of soldering tip + thin multicore 60/40 + tools and supplies to clean your board + a bit of soldering training. There is lots of really good instructional videos on YouTube which is how I learned to solder.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > doesn't do anything useful for an amateur It really depends on what you are building. If you're building a HAM transmitter then it is very useful.
  - unxdfa 4y ago
    I’ve built a couple of fairly hefty transmitters without silver solder. I don’t get your point. The main use cases are certain alloy joints. I’ve seen it quoted as having better mechanical strength but that’s not what’s solder is for!
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      > I’ve seen it quoted as having better mechanical strength but that’s not what’s solder is for! That depends. Back in the day when I did this work large end stages were built pretty much 'in the air' and in the stuff I worked on there were trimmers and coils that were pretty heavy and that were only supported by the solder. So we used silver for those joints, and they held up pretty good. Hefty => 1KW and up... As for the skin effect, that is the reason we did it in the first place, but I never had access to the kind of gear that would have allowed me to test in practice what the difference was and I've long ago stopped doing this sort of thing.
      - unxdfa 4y ago
        Ah yeah that sort of stuff makes sense. Most of the high power stuff I did was with waveguides. Never needed it for VHF or lower. Skin effect makes sense. Hence why I use silver plated stuff in my VHF stuff.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        I actually tried to build a 100 to 200 MHz end stage using stripline to get rid of all of the hand wound inductors to replace them with silver plated traces but never could get it work in a predictable manner and I lacked the math background to figure out what I was doing wrong. The people that can do that sort of thing intuitively are magicians to me :)
        twawaaay 4y ago
        I can highly recommend Signal and Power Integrity from Eric Bogatin.
chongli 4y ago
You're probably fine with 60/40 loctite multicore Where do you buy this stuff? I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find it. Amazon doesn’t have it, Mouser doesn’t have it, Digikey doesn’t have it. Seems like it might be discontinued!
- zrobotics 4y ago
  I've never used loctite solder, but I've had excellent luck with Kester or alphametals. I don't see smaller spools than 1 lb on digikey, but they have an excellent spec sheet. Personally, 8oz spools are a good size where they aren't too heavy or bulky, but that's personal preference. Additionally, 0.032" is for me a nice balance where you can still do SMT (id say 0603 is ideal, 0402 can be done but for that I'd recommend smaller) but you can still solder larger stuff, up to around 14AWG wire. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/kester-solder/24-6040-9713/7565026 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/kester-solder/24-...
- mindcrime 4y ago
  Newark? https://www.newark.com/w/c/tools-production-supplies/soldering-stations-accessories/solder-wire?solder-alloy=40-60-sn-pb|60-40-sn-pb&st=multicore https://www.newark.com/w/c/tools-production-supplies/solderi... Also, Amazon appears to have it, per this listing: https://www.amazon.com/MULTICORE-LOCTITE-3096525-M-SOLDER-WIRE/dp/B00DKF13JY https://www.amazon.com/MULTICORE-LOCTITE-3096525-M-SOLDER-WI... Looks like you can get it from Digikey as well: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/multicore/386824/2498902 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/multicore/386824/... Note that part of the problem might be if you're searching for "Loctite Multicore" and not just "Multicore". I think the brand might have been sold off, or something of that ilk, so you may not see it with the "Loctite" branding everywhere. I don't know the backstory on that entirely, but it's something I've noticed (being a big fan of Multicore solder!)
  - chongli 4y ago
    Oh I forgot to mention that I'm in Canada, so the Amazon link says "cannot ship to your location. The Newark link doesn't work either, although they do have one Multicore solder product when I search their Canadian site, it's only about 6 feet in length. The Digikey link has a price of $60 which seems outrageous for solder.

by unxdfa 4y ago

twawaaay 4y ago

Seconded. Silver is expensive and really doesn't do anything useful for an amateur. Decent soldering station + correct and well taken care of soldering tip + thin multicore 60/40 + tools and supplies to clean your board + a bit of soldering training. There is lots of really good instructional videos on YouTube which is how I learned to solder.

jacquesm 4y ago
> doesn't do anything useful for an amateur It really depends on what you are building. If you're building a HAM transmitter then it is very useful.
- unxdfa 4y ago
  I’ve built a couple of fairly hefty transmitters without silver solder. I don’t get your point. The main use cases are certain alloy joints. I’ve seen it quoted as having better mechanical strength but that’s not what’s solder is for!
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    > I’ve seen it quoted as having better mechanical strength but that’s not what’s solder is for! That depends. Back in the day when I did this work large end stages were built pretty much 'in the air' and in the stuff I worked on there were trimmers and coils that were pretty heavy and that were only supported by the solder. So we used silver for those joints, and they held up pretty good. Hefty => 1KW and up... As for the skin effect, that is the reason we did it in the first place, but I never had access to the kind of gear that would have allowed me to test in practice what the difference was and I've long ago stopped doing this sort of thing.
    - unxdfa 4y ago
      Ah yeah that sort of stuff makes sense. Most of the high power stuff I did was with waveguides. Never needed it for VHF or lower. Skin effect makes sense. Hence why I use silver plated stuff in my VHF stuff.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        I actually tried to build a 100 to 200 MHz end stage using stripline to get rid of all of the hand wound inductors to replace them with silver plated traces but never could get it work in a predictable manner and I lacked the math background to figure out what I was doing wrong. The people that can do that sort of thing intuitively are magicians to me :)
        twawaaay 4y ago
        I can highly recommend Signal and Power Integrity from Eric Bogatin.

chongli 4y ago

You're probably fine with 60/40 loctite multicore Where do you buy this stuff? I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find it. Amazon doesn’t have it, Mouser doesn’t have it, Digikey doesn’t have it. Seems like it might be discontinued!

zrobotics 4y ago
I've never used loctite solder, but I've had excellent luck with Kester or alphametals. I don't see smaller spools than 1 lb on digikey, but they have an excellent spec sheet. Personally, 8oz spools are a good size where they aren't too heavy or bulky, but that's personal preference. Additionally, 0.032" is for me a nice balance where you can still do SMT (id say 0603 is ideal, 0402 can be done but for that I'd recommend smaller) but you can still solder larger stuff, up to around 14AWG wire. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/kester-solder/24-6040-9713/7565026 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/kester-solder/24-...
mindcrime 4y ago
Newark? https://www.newark.com/w/c/tools-production-supplies/soldering-stations-accessories/solder-wire?solder-alloy=40-60-sn-pb|60-40-sn-pb&st=multicore https://www.newark.com/w/c/tools-production-supplies/solderi... Also, Amazon appears to have it, per this listing: https://www.amazon.com/MULTICORE-LOCTITE-3096525-M-SOLDER-WIRE/dp/B00DKF13JY https://www.amazon.com/MULTICORE-LOCTITE-3096525-M-SOLDER-WI... Looks like you can get it from Digikey as well: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/multicore/386824/2498902 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/multicore/386824/... Note that part of the problem might be if you're searching for "Loctite Multicore" and not just "Multicore". I think the brand might have been sold off, or something of that ilk, so you may not see it with the "Loctite" branding everywhere. I don't know the backstory on that entirely, but it's something I've noticed (being a big fan of Multicore solder!)
- chongli 4y ago
  Oh I forgot to mention that I'm in Canada, so the Amazon link says "cannot ship to your location. The Newark link doesn't work either, although they do have one Multicore solder product when I search their Canadian site, it's only about 6 feet in length. The Digikey link has a price of $60 which seems outrageous for solder.