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Type of solder to use: important for a hobbyist?

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Ian.M:

--- Quote from: Domagoj T on January 26, 2019, 09:58:10 am ---
--- Quote from: Doctorandus_P on January 26, 2019, 08:54:06 am ---When you are working with Lead-Free solder you have to look out for Lead contamination.
1% of lead contamination can mess with the lead free alloy and you can loose upto 90% of mechanical strength, and solder isn't that strong to begin with.


--- End quote ---

Really? It's that crucial? I usually suck off the original stuff and reapply the leaded, but never paid too much attention to it. You learn something every day.

--- End quote ---

--- Quote from: Electro Detective on January 26, 2019, 10:30:26 am ---
I've gone over lead free solder after sucking it out, isohol clean up, refresh with standard lead solder, and clean up

Never a problem, shiny and 'tough as nails' joint

I must be doing something wrong to get it right  :-//



--- End quote ---
SnPb tolerates a little excess tin far far better than Pb-free tolerates traces of lead.  Therefore reworking Pb-free to SnPb has no technical issues provided you suck or wick off as much as possible of the old alloy.   Its going the other way (reworking a SnPb board with Pb-free) that's the potential nightmare that Doctorandus_P mentioned.

Doctorandus_P:
I wanted to find some references to strengthen my claim, and then I stumbled into the topic of "gold embrittlement". with Lead-Free soldering.

In the link / pdf below a connector which looks nicely soldered with a big surface area and good fillets on the sides but it did not have enough strength to survie some (de) mating cycles.

http://www.circuitinsight.com/pdf/solder_joint_embrittlement_mechanisms_solutions_standards_ipc.pdf

And plenty more to read:
https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=lead+free+solder+embrittlement
https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=lead+contamination+solder+strength

tkamiya:
My history is just like yours.

I used and still use the usual lead-tin solder.  At hobby level, I am not exposed to whole a lot of fumes. 

jazper:
Flux Flux flux.

If you're doing smd then make sure you get a half decent (Loctite/multicore, kester, electrolube) flux. I use electrolube flux pens and they are the business.

63/37 solder (kester) is my second favourite solder by far.

My favourite is actually the 2% silver 62/36/2 - Kester branded also.

63/37 is pretty good in comparison, but doesn't have the edge...

I have some lead free Edsyn solder, the problem I have with it is it solidifies cloudy, which means I find it more difficult to see if I've got a good joint or not.

mariush:
You probably mean 63/37  ... and probably 62/36/2 for the silver solder.

I wouldn't trust eBay with solders, unless the seller has a very good reputation with lots of history in selling such stuff. Your link seems good.  That solder is old stock (solder in picture is dated 2015) but it's not like the solder goes bad in a few years)
Digikey and other distributors stock these solders so it's not a problem buying a spool once a year (or more often depending how much you solder) ... though Digikey's prices are kinda big, like 60-80$ for equivalent of that 36$ eBay solder.
63/37 solders are about the same price as that listing, ex around 35$ for Multicore no-clean 63/37  500g spool.

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