Louis Staalberg wrote: > Nowhere in the electronics world is there ever a need to > use a liquid flux. Perhaps you used the wrong solder. > For the benifit of all readers: > Use *only* 60/40 Rosin Core Solder.
Of course I used 60/40 rosin core solder in both cases, only because I haven't seen any 63/37 locally (that's what Bob Knuckolls at http://www.aeroelectric.com/ recommends). For some reason the old Radio Shack stuff I used years ago seemed to work better than the new roll of Kester I bought a few months ago, and it made a difference in the end result. I don't claim to be an electronics expert (although I've built plenty of electronic stuff over the years), but when the guy at the electronics shop recommended a bottle of liquid flux that says "Liquid Solder-Flux" (sold by GC Electronics at http://www.gcwaldom.com/catalog.html ) to fix my problem, I went for it. This guy had been in the electronics business for 25 years, so I assumed he knew what he was talking about, but maybe he was just trying to sell me some overpriced snake oil. This stuff is "pure rosin base and non_corrosive", so I figured it couldn't hurt, and might just help. The guys in Teledyne Brown's electronics shop tried to send some paste flux home with me also, some sort of special stuff for that particular plated wire (nickel, I think it was), but I declined because I already had some from wiring up my strobes with the same kind of shielded wire years ago. Of course I couldn't find it when I got home, and by then everybody was gone, so I was at the mercy of the guy at the electronics store. I figured anything was better than nothing, so I used it. Maybe I wasted my time, maybe not, but since it was maybe a minute altogether, I'm not going to fret over it much. I just did an advanced Google search using "electronic" and "solder" in the "all words" field, with "liquid flux" in the "exact phrase" field, and got about 600 hits on places where liquid flux is used on electronics. All I saw were applications and sales sites. I didn't look through them all, but I didn't see anything that said not to use it on electronics. There's a "how-to" regarding aircraft wiring, at http://www.vansairforce.net/articles/GoodSolderingTechnique.htm that some might find interesting. Maybe the reason I haven't had any problem in the past soldering with this pencil is because I use it on that thin solid PC board stuff to make teeny little 555 timer circuits and that sort of thing. The vast majority of my soldering experience is using a 30 year old Weller 245/325 watt gun that usually solders stuff instantly, so no problem there. Bottom line is it's now all soldered up and working, so that's good enough for me. On to the intake manifold... Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama N56ML "at" hiwaay.net see KR2S project at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford
