Best solder for you?

[labjr]

I wonder if leaded solders with rosin flux degrade the tip faster? I haven't compared different fluxes for performance. Always used rosin core.

[macboy]

I always use halide free, rosin based flux. Though rosin smoke isn't great for health, halides are worse. Also, in my experience, rosin fumes seem "sticky" by nature and that makes them easy to filter from the air, as they readily adhere to filter media. Just make sure that filter media isn't your lungs.

Back to the topic at hand, my favorite solder is Kester 44 60/40, 66 core, 0.031". That is "44" flux (activated rosin) which is very good at dealing with not-so-new surfaces, 60% Pb 40% Sn alloy, 66 core which means that the flux core in the wire is approximately 66% of the width of the wire, or about 3.3% by weight (58 core is 2.2%wt, and 50 core is 1.1%wt flux content). The diameter of 0.031" (0.8 mm) I feel is a good general purpose size. It is not so small that you need to feed many inches to tin a thick wire, but also small enough for any through hole and some SMD work. I also use 0.020" (0.5 mm) and as small as 0.010" (0.25 mm) for SMD.  I have some Kester 44 62/36/2 (2% silver) in 0.020" size which I use where I want the better conductivity or on anything I know has silver in it.  This is available at Arrow in a "pocket pak" for less than $3 (part# 83-7145-0415), which is actually a good price since a 1 lb roll is well over $100. The small spool of similar stuff at Radio Shack is a similar price/weight, but I don't know who the OEM is, and I've never used that. Comparing the MSDS sheet to that of various manufacturers might reveal the secret.

[magic]

if your in Europe you wont be getting lead based solder now.
TME has removed it from the site, RS has this notice.

Crap, it's real.
Actually they have it, but they won't sell it to me.

Thanks for the heads up, I guess I will have to stock myself up for years from other vendors who apparently didn't get the memo yet.

[labjr]

I always use halide free, rosin based flux. Though rosin smoke isn't great for health, halides are worse. Also, in my experience, rosin fumes seem "sticky" by nature and that makes them easy to filter from the air, as they readily adhere to filter media. Just make sure that filter media isn't your lungs.

Back to the topic at hand, my favorite solder is Kester 44 60/40, 66 core, 0.031". That is "44" flux (activated rosin) which is very good at dealing with not-so-new surfaces, 60% Pb 40% Sn alloy, 66 core which means that the flux core in the wire is approximately 66% of the width of the wire, or about 3.3% by weight (58 core is 2.2%wt, and 50 core is 1.1%wt flux content). The diameter of 0.031" (0.8 mm) I feel is a good general purpose size. It is not so small that you need to feed many inches to tin a thick wire, but also small enough for any through hole and some SMD work. I also use 0.020" (0.5 mm) and as small as 0.010" (0.25 mm) for SMD.  I have some Kester 44 62/36/2 (2% silver) in 0.020" size which I use where I want the better conductivity or on anything I know has silver in it.  This is available at Arrow in a "pocket pak" for less than $3 (part# 83-7145-0415), which is actually a good price since a 1 lb roll is well over $100. The small spool of similar stuff at Radio Shack is a similar price/weight, but I don't know who the OEM is, and I've never used that. Comparing the MSDS sheet to that of various manufacturers might reveal the secret.

Why not Kester 44 63/37?

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

My favourite since I was a wee lad. It's what I reorder. All the way from the 1970's up to today.

Quote from: labjr on Today at 15:50:38

Why not Kester 44 63/37?

[OwO]

I still use lead solder in my products 

[Elandril]

Thanks for all the tips!

I've mostly used Stannol and Multicore, but I'll definitely try some of the suggested ones. One can never have too much solder after all.

[mindcrime]

I'm still using up a roll of Radio Shack 60/40 in 0.021" diameter that is so old that Nikola Tesla probably used solder from the same batch. OK, maybe not quite, but I'm sure this roll is close to 20 years old by now.  It works well. I also have a slightly newer roll of the Radio Shack stuff that has 2% or 3% silver in it, but I can't really tell that it makes much difference.

That said, after discovering EEVBlog and watching a bunch of Dave's videos, I just ordered some Loctite / Multicore solder to try out. I also bought a roll of Monster Cable Cardas brand Quad Eutectic Solder to experiment with.  We'll see how that goes next time I need to assemble something.

[malagas_on_fire]

Used some donau 60 / 38 / Cu2 0.75mm 1mm and lately a mbo 60 / 38 Cu2 0.5mm . All performing well . Should try other brands such as Stanol or kester.

[labjr]

I bought a roll of Cardas Quad Eutectic several years ago when it was like $60. I use it for audio stuff. Not sure it's any better than Kester. Don't know who makes it. Nelson Pass once remarked that it's Multicore Savbit.