Now, can we please have some positive interaction? It seems like the only time you ever bother to talk to me any more it's something in a negative tone, or to correct me.
You know that's not true.
It really gets old.
mnem
I'll tell you what gets old, not being able to quietly correct a factual error in something you've written before first thinking "Is this worth it? Is the information important enough that it's worth risking sort of reply that Mnem might think somehow insults his understanding and cause him to take three pages to explain how he isn't wrong and I'm picking on him?". I didn't blink before correcting Vince about the silver solder thing earlier because I didn't expect any comeback for having the temerity to offer an alternative, and as far as I know, correct interpretation to him. I think hard every time I ought to reply to you and say "Erm no, it's like this", or "Not quite" or "I think you're misunderstanding this". I certainly genuinely wouldn't dare just say "That's wrong" to you for anything less than something categorically wrong and easily proven because I know that even that you'll quibble over. Think about that for a minute. No, really, think about that. I don't have to do mental weighing like that before risking disagreeing with anyone else on the whole forum, even people who are famously fractious, even the people everybody regards as gobshites.
Okay... so we're going to do this. Fine.
You do this every time, C. You quote folk out of context (I'm not the only one), as if the one point you are drilling in on is the only one, and you hammer them over and over with that one point until they get sick of it.
All this time, you conveniently ignore the posts where I try with painstaking care to clarify what I meant, and continue to drill on the one point, as if it were only fucking thing that matters.
Here:Eutectic alloys like 63/37 have a solidus/liquidus temp that is very nearly the same.
A eutectic has a precise temperature at which it melts completely or sets completely - not nearly the same, exactly the same. It's half of the definition of a eutectic, the other half being that the melting point of a eutectic is lower than the melting points of the alloy's constituents.
A eutectic has a phase diagram like this:
At the eutectic alloy composition there is no temperature point where there is liquid of one element and solid of another.
They use the term eutectic specifically for 63/37. Yet you and I both know that the change in state with this kind of solder is not that exact. You should be able to use the melting point of 63/37 to set the temp on your soldering station; the closest you can get is within a few degrees.
Is it the product QC? Is it the interaction between the alloy and the flux? Is it sunspots...? I'm going to guess a combination of the above and the response curve/PID loop of the iron.
Doesn't matter. These are the terms the people who make the stuff use, and right or wrong, we have to deal with it.
mnem
eutectic | juːˈtɛktɪk | Chemistry
adjective
relating to or denoting a mixture of substances (in fixed proportions) that melts and freezes at a single temperature that is lower than the melting points of the separate constituents or of any other mixture of them: "the eutectic mixture melts at 183°C" | "silver and copper form a eutectic system".
noun
a eutectic mixture.
• short for eutectic point.
ORIGIN
late 19th century: from Greek eutēktos ‘easily melting’, from eu ‘well, easily’ + tēkein ‘melt’.
Now, the normal response to that would be to actually
converse aboot the point raised therein. Do you do that...? No. You just keep hammering on the only thing you care aboot, that I said something that was factually incorrect.
So let me say this again... the people who make the solder referred to 63/37 as a eutectic alloy. They actually referred to a list of several of them in the course I took so long ago... but the only ones I've used were 63/37 and another made for low-temp soldering to stainless steel.
I used that term because they did, no other reason. I then went on to describe the
actual behavior of 63/37 solder thusly:
Eutectic alloys like 63/37 have a solidus/liquidus temp that is very nearly the same. This can be a bit of a pain if you're trying to solder large masses, as achieving proper wetting can be difficult where the mass of the work is sucking the heat away very fast and it develops lumps where the solder solidifies while still wetting/flowing.
At no time did I
ever disagree with you or the definition of the word eutectic. In fact, I agreed with you that is how it SHOULD behave, as you can see in the post I quoted above.
Now... as to how to correct this horrifically wrong statement... let me see...
Supposedly eutectic solder alloys like 63/37 have a solidus/liquidus temp that is very nearly the same. This can be a bit of a pain if you're trying to solder large masses, as achieving proper wetting can be difficult where the mass of the work is sucking the heat away very fast and it develops lumps where the solder solidifies while still wetting/flowing.
So-called eutectic alloys like 63/37 have a solidus/liquidus temp that is very nearly the same. This can be a bit of a pain if you're trying to solder large masses, as achieving proper wetting can be difficult where the mass of the work is sucking the heat away very fast and it develops lumps where the solder solidifies while still wetting/flowing.
Alloys like 63/37 have a solidus/liquidus temp that is very nearly the same. They call them eutectic, but in practice the solder still melts at a very narrow range of temperatures. This can be a bit of a pain if you're trying to solder large masses, as achieving proper wetting can be difficult where the mass of the work is sucking the heat away very fast and it develops lumps where the solder solidifies while still wetting/flowing.
Which one do you like best...?
And finally... I stand behind this statement:
Now, can we please have some positive interaction? It seems like the only time you ever bother to talk to me any more it's something in a negative tone, or to correct me.
You push my buttons, C. You push them in the same way my grand-dad did. That's why I have short temper with you; but that does not mean my gripes aren't legitimate.
It's not just the times when you come down on me; it's the fact you almost never have anything
actually positive to say to me. The best you can manage is what would be called "good-natured ribbing"... and if there were a balance, then it would actually be taken as such. But there isn't. That is pretty much the top of the scale.
Statistically speaking, there has to be some time when I have better than that coming. Fuck, even crusty ol'
med manages to find something from time to time, and he's a confirmed antisocialist.
mnem
*just tired*