I have a tuning fork can sealed with solder. Similar to a sealed crystal can. My 200W soldering gun doesn't even seem to have enough BTU's to melt very much of the solder on the can. Any suggestions? It is a rather large heat sink capacity.
Just how big is that thing? I can take the shield plates off PC boards with a very small Metcal tip. 200 Watts is about 4 times the power of the Metcal. Is that a Weller gun? Are all the terminals tight? Clean? Tinned?
I searched for "tuning fork can" and only found sentences like "a tuning fork can help you tune a piano".
Do you plan to use the can again after you open it. I've seen tuning forks in velvet-lined boxes. Or wrapped in felt in any old box. Is a can that important? If the can is round, doesn't it waste space?
A can opener? A hack saw? A band saw? A propane torch? A roofer's soldering iron?
If it's too hot, might it not damage the fork or ignite the other packaging?
The tuning fork is a tuning fork oscillator. It has a driver coil on one side and a exciter coil on the other. It also has a divide by two flip flop inside, this probably has a bad transistor because it is not dividing by two anymore.
For things like this I have used an electric stove burner. Perhaps a hot plate with a slab of stainless steel would be suitable. The slab to assure uniform heating and heat transfer. Originally inductance heating was probably used.
Are you sure it's soldered and not welded? If welded, then a can opener, rotary grinder, rotary cutting tool, or belt sander to attack the seam, might work.
Incidentally, if there's a evacuation seal somewhere on the can, then you'll probably find a partial vacuum inside. The tuning fork characteristics will change slightly when vibrating in air as compared to a vacuum. Are you sure you wanna do this?
Pre-heat the whole can on a hot plate. When you get it hot enough, the solder will melt and it should just fall apart.
If you don't wanna risk getting it that hot, just get it fairly warm. Apply some rosin paste flux. Then try hitting it with a plumbers soldering tip on a propane torch. If it can solder copper plumbing, it should be able to get the can hot enough.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Some difficult-to-solder parts are soldered quickly with resistance soldering equipment. American Beauty and Pace are 2 that I'm familiar with.
The soldering tips are wired to a fairly high current, very low voltage (not many turns for the secondary winding) transformer, and the duty cycle of the xfmr primary winding is regulated by a simple triac/diac circuit.
The tips are put in contact with the workpiece, and current is passed thru the workpiece, creating a short circuit in the xfmr secondary circuit, quickly generating heat in the workpiece.
The tip placement for most items is at opposite sides of the workpiece, heating the entire part located between the tips. The tips don't need to be tinned, they only need to make good electrical contact with the workpiece.
The end cover for a cannister type object would be a fairly simple and quick task with a resistance soldering unit.
I have decided to build a crystal controlled multivibrator circuit to replace it. I started a thread about it on sci.electronics.design. The guy that I had ordered the crystal from told me that it would be a bad idea to open the can due to contamination. However, I might be still interested in opening the can once I get the thing working with the crystal vibe with a divide by 2^14.
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