I may convert over to lead free solder because I think a lot of my customers will come from Europe. Someone talk to me about what I need to know. For example, if someon came to me and asked, "Hey, tell me about soldering", I'd start with, "Go out and buy Kester #44, 63/37. Buy a 186 flux pen. If you want to clean, you can use Chemtronics Flux Off Rosin followed by Ethanol/IPA blend. Set your iron somewhere between 650 and 750..." etc etc.
I don't really know anything at all about lead-free soldering, different blends....does a eutectic lead free blend even exist? What about fluxes? Advantages/disadvantages to various types, etc. How do I clean afterwards? Basically just assume I know nothing about lead free
Thanks for any help anyone offers
I tried to read and research everything I could find on soldering - from users, vendors, you name it. Spent a fair number of hours on it.
I came to the conclusion that I wanted to go with a Kester product - they seem to have a solid reputation and they make many versions. They have product literature that doesn't quit; I tried to wade through a ton of it.
One of the things I liked about Kester beside the large number of advocates/happy customers/users they have is that they seem to make almost any flavor of solder you could want and within many of those flavors they have sub-flavors. So it wasn't like they had a particular axe to grind. Plus, their literature is really detailed - hard to believe a business could produce so many spec sheets on models of solder, but it helped me compare apples with apples and sometimes apples with oranges in a way that I could compare measureable attributes.
At this point I knew I wanted Kester - but there were still a dozen or more variables to dial through. What was the stuff made of, what percentages, how well did it solder initially, at what temperatures, how easily did it clean up, how well did it perform, how did it look, how well did it hold up, how safe is it to handle, how safe is it for the environment, how much does it cost, etc, etc.
In the process I found some papers and charts that were presented by Kester representatives at conferences that seemed to trace the thinking on various types of solders as they were introduced into the market over the last decade or so. I got pretty far into the weeds for a guy who just wanted to hand solder a few parts and boards here and there, but hey, I love researching.
Finally I narrowed my questions regarding what I thought were the key concepts and tradeoffs involved and to a few of the potential products - so I called Kester's headquaters in the U.S. The first person I spoke with was pretty helpful but I got transferred around a bit (in a very helpful way as people could see I was after some specific info). Finally, someone suggested I call a particular rep - the name sounded like it might be the guy who developed and presented the papers at the conferences. I figured I was about to be in over my head but what the heck, I gave him a call.
Turned out he was THE MAN - same guy who authored and presented the conference papers and charts. The fellow could not have been nicer or more helpful. I had done my homework so I kind of hung with him on the most of the details and he was patient with me to make sure I got it all crossfooted regarding the tradeoffs. By the end of an hour or so phone call he confirmed several things I had suspected and he straigthened me out on a number of other related considerations/tradeoffs. He even spent some time counseling me on the soldering irons I had under consideration.
Long story short, I finally narrowed it down to three Kester products and gave them each a try in my lab (OK, in my garage); I had my own solder bake-off. See below (YMMV):
Settled on this:Kester 24-9574-1402 Lead Free 48 RA Solder Wire, .031" dia., Core Size-66 Sn99.3Cu0.7 (K100LD) http://www.all-spec.com/products/KWLF4820.html- Lead free requires a higher temperature which I don't think is as desirable for parts and boards, but I decided LF was the right thing to do from a health and environmental standpoint. I'm confident that this model of solder represents an excellent balance of the many attributes anyone might be looking for in modern leading edge solder
. So far every joint I've soldered with it conducts electricity
Tried this and it was ok but didn’t like it as much as Lead Free 48 above:Kester 24-9574-7618 Lead Free No-Clean 275 Solder Wire, .031" dia., Core Size-66 Sn99.3Cu0.7 (K100LD) http://www.all-spec.com/products/KWLF27540.html?gclid=CNiQ48_j4LgCFcdr7Aoda3cAWA- The solder joints didn't seem to form as easily/nicely as with LF 48
Pretty sure this is the best but decided to go with Lead Free:Kester 24-6337-0027 44 RA Solder Wire, .031" dia., Core Size-66 Sn63Pb37http://www.all-spec.com/products/KW4410.html- This is probably the best (easiest/nicest/best looking solder joints at the lowest temperature) if you aren't as concerned about health and the environment
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Here is a link to just Kester's Solder Wire products (they make many other products):
http://www.kester.com/products/solder-wire/?type=in&limit=20&filters%5B%5D=&filters%5B%5D=18&filters%5B%5D=Within the Solder Wire products here are the Model 48 Flux-Cored Rosin Activated products:
http://www.kester.com/products/product/48-Flux-Cored-Wire/ "Kester 48 Activated Rosin Flux for cored solder wire was developed for lead-free applications to enable soldering of most common metals. Kester 48 has performance characteristics far exceeding standard RA fluxes. Kester 48 builds on the performance of its predecessor Kester 44"
Note: the 10 digit part numbers don't use hyphens on the Kester site but on the web the hyphens seem to be generally used by Kester's distributors)