SiBurning
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 18, 2005
- Posts
- 1,389
- Likes
- 39
If you're really worried about the sound of solder you should be making a physical connection between parts or between the parts and wire or pc board. Relying on solder for an electrical connection not only adds an additional joint, but an additional, comparatively lower resistance run of material to the circuit. Since it's quite impractical to make solid contact of a wire to pc board, you really should be building everything point to point. In either case, you still want to use solder to act as a coating and mating material to enhance the contact and protect the joint from corrosion.
For whisker worriers, use a solder with at least 2% lead and dip or flow all of the leads on all your parts in this solder, as well as any pc board traces. Parts are typically tin plated, and plain tin is the worst whisker offender. Since gold, silver, and zinc all grow whiskers, so you should flow those, too. (But see below about gold--better to just stay away.)
Heck, everyone should be dipping and flowing.
If you want to stick with simple soldering, consider a doped solder, such as eutectic 62.5:36.1:1.5 tin/lead/silver which has a melting slightly below 63:37. The inclusion of silver makes this a good choice for bonding with silver plated parts. Although there's been no independent verification, Cardas Quad Eutectic is at least claimed to have a better ability to bond with copper as well as silver, and a melting point only slightly higher than 63:37. Don't even try to solder gold pated parts. If you're lucky, the plating is thin enough to melt into the tin, but if it's thick or you don't let it melt and flow, you have a terrible joint.
Finally, you should really be cleaning the oxides off your traces and leads as well as inside any through holes just before soldering. The practical way to handle this is to burn it off by using extra resin. Any uncoated parts (e.g. copper) should be first washed in acid, including wire.
Going off into the deep end, it might be worth taking a different approach by experimenting with solder joints that have some of these faults or other less desirable conditions. They might require additional maintenance, and even cause total system failure, but the might sound better, and that's all that really matters in the end.
This might all be a bit extreme for most people. It's not intended as a general recommendation for the typical hobbyist.
For whisker worriers, use a solder with at least 2% lead and dip or flow all of the leads on all your parts in this solder, as well as any pc board traces. Parts are typically tin plated, and plain tin is the worst whisker offender. Since gold, silver, and zinc all grow whiskers, so you should flow those, too. (But see below about gold--better to just stay away.)
Heck, everyone should be dipping and flowing.
If you want to stick with simple soldering, consider a doped solder, such as eutectic 62.5:36.1:1.5 tin/lead/silver which has a melting slightly below 63:37. The inclusion of silver makes this a good choice for bonding with silver plated parts. Although there's been no independent verification, Cardas Quad Eutectic is at least claimed to have a better ability to bond with copper as well as silver, and a melting point only slightly higher than 63:37. Don't even try to solder gold pated parts. If you're lucky, the plating is thin enough to melt into the tin, but if it's thick or you don't let it melt and flow, you have a terrible joint.
Finally, you should really be cleaning the oxides off your traces and leads as well as inside any through holes just before soldering. The practical way to handle this is to burn it off by using extra resin. Any uncoated parts (e.g. copper) should be first washed in acid, including wire.
Going off into the deep end, it might be worth taking a different approach by experimenting with solder joints that have some of these faults or other less desirable conditions. They might require additional maintenance, and even cause total system failure, but the might sound better, and that's all that really matters in the end.
This might all be a bit extreme for most people. It's not intended as a general recommendation for the typical hobbyist.