Don:
I can't find it now, but I remember a column by Robert A. Pease in which
he left a transistor wrapped around the business end of a soldering
iron at 700F over the weekend as an experiment and found that its
performance specs were still in compliance when he checked it Monday
morning.
A related issue to tip temperature is that a physically small tip will
loose too much heat. There's a happy optimum where the tip possesses
sufficient thermal mass to not cool down when applied to the joint, but
is sufficiently small for the job.
Jack K8ZOA
A word to potential builders - keep the soldering iron temperature
greater than 700 deg F (750 is better). You will not damage anything
if the soldering temperature is 800 deg F or below *and* the soldering
time is kept short - contrary to popular belief, damage *will* occur
with a low iron temperature applied for a long period of time. Also
use a small diameter solder so you can control the amount and watch as
the thru-hole is heated, it will wick a bit of solder into the hole
when it receives adequate heat, but too much applied solder will mask
that process and can hide a bad solder joint.
73,
Don W3FPR
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