From breadboard to soldering

Get rid of it and get some nice new Kester 44. Old solder gets oxidized, and RS solder was all RMA flux and not RA.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com

Bad Info.

Solder oxidizes as it ages, RMA flux is too weak to deal with it, and

63Sn/37Pb is somewhat better than 60/40 and much much better than 50/50, which is suitable only for plumbing.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com

I'm impressed I can't hold a burr bit that steady. I had some success with a saw wheel for making straight cuts in the foil layer (spinning in the wrong direction).

You'd have to use the leads from parts like a resistor to bridge across several pads then make all the connections. If you have to, you can strip some solid wire to make bridges. There's no real heavy current involved so wire diameter can be very small.

My first foray into prototyping was my boss giving me a schematic and some perf board (no traces just holes). I'd never even seen perf board before so I faked it. That stuff you are talking about looks like the plated-through hole stuff I use for digital circuits. It is rugged as hell and hard to destroy - only downside is that if you have to rewire a mistake you will need a solder sucker or some such tool to clear the hole of solder.

Oh, another source of small gauge stranded wire is from old computer cables (like who uses those parallel cables with Centronics connectors any more?) The quality of the wire is usually good (especially the old stuff) and it is often different colors.

Flux cored solder is great but since yours is so old the flux may not work as well and the solder may be pretty oxidised on the outside. Try some practice joints and see how well it works. On a properly soldered joint the solder should flow easily on clean copper or clean tinned surfaces and the finished joint should be shiny. If the solder balls up or does not wet the joint then your old solder may be the problem. When you buy new solder for electronic work get the flux cored stuff. It works great. Whatever you do make sure to NEVER use plumbing flux on your electronic work. The fluxes used for soldering copper pipe will corrode and ruin your nice new circuits. Use only fluxes made for electronics work. Eric

YMMV. I've had no problems at all using fluxed solder I bought from a German fleamarket 25+ years ago and it's still a delight to use, flows beautifully, NEVER gives dry joints and shines like a mirror when set. Perhaps you just had a bad batch. Not all manufacturers are the same.

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Hah, my first circuit in a college lab I used plumber's solder and flux. And I got yelled at! But it was what I had available at the time.. and that acid flux cut through this old oxidized piece of copper clad like no bodies business.! My big sin was not knowing it was an acid flux and then cleaning it properly. My pcb turned green in a few months. :^)

Flux is great stuff, but needs to be respected. I've got flux that lets me soft solder (Kester 44) to SS (Stainless) or Al. But no splatter on anything that won't be cleaned.

George H.

Oh I thing the old radio shack solder and core flux will be fine, most likely rosin core. If you have old oxidized pcb's or copper wire, hit it with some fine sand paper or 'green scrubbies' scotch brite. And then try and tin it with the solder. I 'tin' everything before soldering the bits together.

George H.

I've got pretty good at this so I don't do many repairs. But one can solder blob over a narrow slit, or bridge it with a piece of wire or a surface-mount zero-ohm jumper.

I plan the circuit on a whiteboard, then mark the copperclad with a Sharpie, and then trace with the Dremel.

One can do picosecond matched-impedance circuits this way.

More complex protos, we do a real PCB layout and order a few multilayer boards from PCBWAY or someone, and work on something else until they arrive. I'm doing one now, and I've asked other people if there's something they'd like me to throw on the layout. When the boards arrive, I can chop them into chunks and distribute the circuits to people.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

Barbarian.

Incidentally, Amazon and places sell spools of tin (or something) plated copper wire for jewelry making. It's really hard (maybe not much copper?) and hard to solder. People should order real electronic bus wire.

Right, I'm usually evaluating a new part or a goofy circuit that I can't Spice credibly. But I include extra goodies, like transmission lines, nonstandard IC adapters, breakouts, whatever. Once it's a PCB layout, may as well order 5 of them.

This week's proto PCB project is some variants of a 600 MHz Colpitts coaxial ceramic resonator oscillator, with some ECL dividers and hooks for phase-locking. 4 layers. I'll buy a few from PCBWAY.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

just to clarify that FR4 is a type of glass-fibre composite, it's plenty rugged.

If there's a worry use insulated wire or place an insulator between the wire and the board. cardboard works well. lexan sheeting, or that stuff the make blister packs out of works well too.

paper clips with bright zinc finish solder readily and have high rigidity.

--
  When I tried casting out nines I made a hash of it.

The RS solder seems to be working ok. The joints made are pretty shiny.

Though sometimes the solder does not want to stick well.

Thats true of some of the wire, esp. speaker wire which seems to corrode quickly.

I ordered a big rolled of tinned solid wire.

But the flux sure smokes a lot. Does newer solder smoke less?

Andy

Ok, your technique looks like something that planes black boxes would use.

:-)

Use RA flux.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I decided to try your method out. Do you use single or double sided FR4?

Andy

On 5/17/2019 10:47 AM, Phil Hobbs wrote: ...

I assume that it has a felt tip and, if so, does it dry up? How about getting it in a bottle & using a syringe to apply? (Amazon has the pen & a 4 oz bottle for the same price.)

The pen is easier to control. Mine is three or four years old and working fine. I also have a quart of MG 835 that I use in needle bottles as well, and it seems to be shelf-stable, unlike Kester's RA, which crystallizes out in a year or two.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

I soldered my components today. Boy,was that fun.

I needed insulated wire and all I had was stranded.

So I twisted the ends and put some solder on the ends to stiffen it up.

I had to use my 4X magnifier. Could have used a 10x.

Took many hours.

The circuit beeps all the time.

Will recheck how I connected things later.

I can see why a smaller diameter solder is better as the wider stuff likes to bridge gaps where you don't want it to.

I used a very fine tip on my soldering iron.

It did not last long before it was a nub. :-)

Andy

To do much small work a good investment is a stereo microscope. The Amscope SE400 is very good for hobby use. I have one. Usually use the

10x lenses. They are around $ 200.