My only tip, and this is super basic, is spend the money on silver solder. It handles much more like lead solder, and flows freely, it'll make learning to solder a fucktonne easier.
its about twice as expensive, but will make your life easier as you don't need to apply as much heat. So you'll save in fried delicate components.
You have to be careful when saying "silver" solder.
For soft solder, the eutectic is SnAg3.5Cu0.9, which melts at 217C, 34C higher than the 63/37 eutectic Sn/Pb. There's a lot of low cost lead-free solder out there which is essentially pure tin[0], with silver and copper content below 0.5 percent each. That melts even higher, at about 230C, and tends to be not eutectic, i.e. it has a pasty range.
I think you are talking about the eutectic alloys with about 3% silver. Good stuff, but the higher temperatures involved make it harder to use without damaging the components.
For repairing 20th century electronics and for general DIY electronics use, 63/37 is great, and flows better than 60/40 - just wash your hands afterwards.
For repairing 21st century electronics, use lead-free for compatibility.
Also, to many people, saying "silver solder" means a silver-copper high temperature brazing alloy, which is a whole different thing. Better to say "tin-silver solder" or "tin-silver".
Edit: See also this entry on degradation of pure tin electronic connections[0]
I am just beginning to solder, and I am committed to using non-leaded solder. After some research, I have settled on SN100C, but I haven't used it yet.
No idea, but I'll give you an upvote for joining in!
The tin solder you mentioned is 99% tin and has a very high melting point, so you'll have to be careful with hand soldering not to cause heat damage. You can also expect rework to be difficult, with lots of burned flux.
The photos at your link show some gorgeous joints, so good luck! It may be that the trace amounts of Ge in the solder will help with joint longevity.
Since I don't do production soldering, and cost isn't really a consideration for me, I use 3% silver alloy to keep the temperatures down, when I'm not using 63/37.
I guess so. But there's nothing I can do about that right now sans going to the future, as I'm still acquiring the pieces. Haha. I was trying to just make it clear that this was a choice was due to research and not use, as of yet.
I wouldn't bother. I use silver solder for special occasions (Felder stuff) but it's too expensive to use all the time. You're probably fine with 60/40 loctite multicore. Just keep your parts, iron and boards clean and it's no harder.
Seconded. Silver is expensive and really doesn't do anything useful for an amateur.
Decent soldering station + correct and well taken care of soldering tip + thin multicore 60/40 + tools and supplies to clean your board + a bit of soldering training. There is lots of really good instructional videos on YouTube which is how I learned to solder.
> I’ve seen it quoted as having better mechanical strength but that’s not what’s solder is for!
That depends. Back in the day when I did this work large end stages were built pretty much 'in the air' and in the stuff I worked on there were trimmers and coils that were pretty heavy and that were only supported by the solder. So we used silver for those joints, and they held up pretty good.
Hefty => 1KW and up...
As for the skin effect, that is the reason we did it in the first place, but I never had access to the kind of gear that would have allowed me to test in practice what the difference was and I've long ago stopped doing this sort of thing.
I actually tried to build a 100 to 200 MHz end stage using stripline to get rid of all of the hand wound inductors to replace them with silver plated traces but never could get it work in a predictable manner and I lacked the math background to figure out what I was doing wrong. The people that can do that sort of thing intuitively are magicians to me :)
Where do you buy this stuff? I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find it. Amazon doesn’t have it, Mouser doesn’t have it, Digikey doesn’t have it. Seems like it might be discontinued!
I've never used loctite solder, but I've had excellent luck with Kester or alphametals. I don't see smaller spools than 1 lb on digikey, but they have an excellent spec sheet. Personally, 8oz spools are a good size where they aren't too heavy or bulky, but that's personal preference. Additionally, 0.032" is for me a nice balance where you can still do SMT (id say 0603 is ideal, 0402 can be done but for that I'd recommend smaller) but you can still solder larger stuff, up to around 14AWG wire.
Note that part of the problem might be if you're searching for "Loctite Multicore" and not just "Multicore". I think the brand might have been sold off, or something of that ilk, so you may not see it with the "Loctite" branding everywhere. I don't know the backstory on that entirely, but it's something I've noticed (being a big fan of Multicore solder!)
Oh I forgot to mention that I'm in Canada, so the Amazon link says "cannot ship to your location. The Newark link doesn't work either, although they do have one Multicore solder product when I search their Canadian site, it's only about 6 feet in length. The Digikey link has a price of $60 which seems outrageous for solder.
The good news is, there are plenty of good solder brands out there. If the Multicore stuff isn't readily available to you for whatever reason, you can also consider products from Kester, MG Chemical, Stannol, Cardas, Chip Quik, etc. And while I've never used it myself, I've actually heard good things about one of those cheapo Ali-Express brands - "Mechanic"[1].
And since this whole sub-thread started with a mention of "silver bearing" solder IIRC, I'll point out that there are a couple of decent options there. I actually like the Radio Shack brand silver-bearing solder, but I don't know if it's still available or not. But Chip Quik have a product in that space[2] and they are a pretty reputable brand so I would expect it to be fine. That said, I don't think the whole "silver bearing" thing is terribly important and I rarely use the stuff myself these days. YMMV.
I've used silver solder for very special stuff (HF, high power) where skin effect matters but wouldn't bother beyond 63/37 for normal soldering and that will melt a lot lower than your silver solder would.
I agree with this. I’ve long found Pb-free solder to be very hard to use for hand soldering. It has a high melting point and it never seemed to flow well. Pb solder is of course easier to use with its low melting point and flowability, but I don’t like using it on account of it being more toxic. Silver solder has been a great middle-ground for me. While it has the high temp requirements of other Pb-free solder, it flows much more like lead.
I also can’t emphasize enough just how much of a difference an application flux makes. I spent years struggling with sloppy solder work and thinking I was just doomed to be bad at it. Using flux made a massive difference. I was no longer having to constantly clean up bad joints or deal with solder blobbing where I didn’t want it. Just recently I was able to effortlessly hand-solder a bunch of tiny SMD components onto a board. Something I never thought I’d be able to do.
When I was learning to solder I really wish the importance of flux use was taught to me. It would have saved me a lot of cursing and frustration.
its about twice as expensive, but will make your life easier as you don't need to apply as much heat. So you'll save in fried delicate components.