Do I need a solder pot?

There are 3 holes in the feet of the pot. SCREW THEM TO THE BENCH. That sonofabitch makes one hell of a splash when it gets knocked off the bench.

It doesn't do the soles of your shoes much good, either. God forbid you are wearing sandals or shorts that day.

Flux not required.

Jim

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Does the absence of flux allow dross to build up on the liquid surface?

stay

insulation

Of course, the cheap-and-cheerful method is to use a Bic lighter. Works great on Formvar.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

I think that would work. Beldsol comes off at 700 deg, so it should be a breeze. I have never actually done this, but the flux would not stay without burning off also. The metal should be clean as the insulation melts away. Doing your first pair will also improve your soldering speed. Taking the insulation off is the biggest problem. Only 3 more pairs!!

greg

A solder pot would make sense if you were doing lots.

What temp tip did you try for the tinning ? It needs to be rather hotter than for normal electronic soldering to burn off the 'enamel'.

You can actually get a dedicated 'stripper' for enamelled wire but I'm afraid I don't know where you'd find one offhand.

I expect if you had a copy of "Coil Winding International" it would tell you. There is such a magazine btw. I once got onto its circulation list by accident. Great reading ! Loads of stuff you never expected to find out about. ;-)

Graham

It does.

I've seen a *big* 'solder pot' at our previous sub-contractor's facility in Bombay which they used for dip soldering.

Before use, someone runs a straight edge over the top to clean of the dross. No safety considerations of course. I expect the place is full of lead oxide dust and particles.

Any flux would simply instantly burn. The pcbs got a quick dip in liquid flux before solder dipping btw. Awful 'technology'. Yuk.

Graham

stay

insulation

I find that a 900F tip is needed to encourage the 'enamel' to play quickly.

Graham

If this has self-fluxing polyurethane varnish, beware of the fumes. They may not smell particularly strongly but they are very toxic in extremely small quantities and the effects take a long while to show up.

Do it in the open air or next to a powerful extractor fan.

(Look up 'isocyanates)

I had a six inch round solder pot that i used to salvage dip ICs from PC boards. I would float part of the PC board on the surface, then use a pair of channel lock pliers to pull out the chips. Then I would tap the board against the edge of the pot. If the passives had straight leads they would fly off the board against the back of the aluminum shield on the bench. I filled a lot of coffee cans with resistors, capacitors and TO-92 transistors before it disappeared from a rental warehouse. Its the only process where I ended up with more solder than I started with. ;-) I had a large coffee can full of lumps of used solder that were poured out of the pot and into an aluminum pan.

I acquired a used one (A Royel #111) several years ago, and it's a very handy tool for doing exactly what you describe. The trick is to feed the wire in a little slowly at the stage, when the insulation starts to bubble and peel, you can increase the feed rate. It takes longer to write it than do it. For very thick wire, I use a Stanley knife to make one score along the insulation prior to dipping, that helps.

It's also very useful for terminating wires onto coil formers, just wrap the wire around the pin, then gently immerse the pins into the pot.

I also use it for tinning heavy copper stranded cables (battery cables) and that is the only time I use flux, just some RMA on the cable, not in the pot.

Two words of caution, MAKE SURE it's bolted down, I'd hate to knock one over! And flux makes them a little smokey, open the doors and use a fan.

I have also read somewhere that adding a small piece of Asprin lets the pot strip the more agressive hi-temp wire insulation. I have never been game enough to try this, has anybody else?

Barry Lennox

So, did you get little "lead soldier" molds and remelt it? ;-P

Chheers! Rich

If you could afford a cylinder of argon or perhaps just nitrogen, then you could keep oxygen away from the surface. Seems a bit OTT for wire stripping though.

Chris