Throw Awy Your Soldering Iron

That has about 1 chance in 30,000 of being practical. I'll keep my Metcal.

again? :)

joe

I'd say less than that, but after that stupid euro move RoHS got adopted any stupid horseshit coming down the pike is possible.

It would likely never survive a shake test. So 1M to one odds in my book.

Very likely an overall slower manufacturing process as well. And the changeover costs... never happen. RoHS was bad enough.

They can have my iron when they pry it out of my cold dead hands !

Remembering the old cowboy song.... "With a BIG iron on his hip"

boB

Yeah, I'd rather de-solder a component rather than to pry it off to replace it.

snip

That was Big John, not biG boB.

Just once in my life, I dropped a hot iron and caught it mid-air. Now I jump clear.

Once you are past prototype stage, it is very uncommon to need to remove parts. 99.9% of boards in high volume production just work. I was told that when they make cell phones if they don't work they are tossed anyway. If they can save $0.50 per board they will jump at it. That is millions of dollars to them.

It only works on flat surfaces under lab conditions, and it requires way-expensive metals. I'm not going to hold my breath.

Me too !

My event was, while staring into a board wearing magnifiers, I just reached to my right blindly, and grabbed the wrong end :-(

One time only event :-( ...Jim Thompson

You're supposed to catch it by the cool end.

Mine is suspended from the ceiling with a length of elastic string. That keeps the cable out of the way and if I drop it, it won't reach the floor.

Jeroen Belleman

I am not holding my breath, but the write up claimed less expensive so maybe only tiny amounts of expensive metal are needed.

Where did you see anything about needing lab conditions and flat surfaces?

Dan

I was quick enough to jump back, the first time.

Aren't printed circuits flat surfaces? I think pretty much every technology started in the lab. Holding your breach is seldom good, especially when you are trying to accomplish something (never when scuba diving).

The article did say they only have it working in the lab at the moment. Not sure what that means, but I expect it means you need more fancy equipment than a soldering iron. "At this point MesoGlue can only be applied in a laboratory".