Best solder for RC builds?

[Hai-Lee]

For hobby soldering 60/40 is more than adequate. It is also necessary to ensure that the pieces to be soldered are clean and that the size of the iron is appropriate to the job at hand.

My soldering has lapsed of late, (money and eyesight issues related to getting old), but in my younger days I was taught to a NASA imposed standard, (in the military at the time). It appears that NASA was having reliability issues with the electronic assemblies it was using that were supplied by contractors so they researched soldering and assembly techniques for the best and most reliable techniques.

It was discovered that the contractor soldering was haphazard in quality and in solder quantity. As the first space shuttle was being built at the time they imposed a strict acceptance regime on contractor supplied assemblies and they calculated that not only did the reliability of assemblies improve by orders of magnitude but they also reduced the weight of solder used in the space shuttle by well over half a ton!

Just try not to use too big an iron or too small an iron when soldering as both will lead to heat damage of the items being soldered. Be quick, accurate, and never rest the iron in contact with anything being soldered. Form a heat bridge and then hold the iron in the heat bridge and not in contact with the components. Maybe a difficult thing for a home solder to achieve and not that important for the average home project. It took me a few months to get it right consistently and sadly the skill is apparently perishable without lots of practice!

Final thing to consider is that preparation is everything!

Just a little story and my experiences

Have fun!

 

[PsyBorg]

Aoyue 469 solder station. ~20 bucks on amazon.

Any 60/40 thinner rosin core solder is more then good for what we do.

Damp sponge and yer good to go.

No fancy brass scrunchies needed no flux paste pens liquids.. all unnecessary unless you are working on gear from the 70's or earlier.

Take a new solder station and slowly bring up temps till your solder melts. Add a bit more temp to account for wires / pcb and that temp will be low enough to work with and not damage your electronics.

Use a sharpie and mark that dial position so as your iron and tip age you can see it needing more temp to work and know its time for a replacement.

YES they do require that from time to time as the element corrodes and heat conduction is reduced.

The common advise to "crank up the heat" is WRONG and why people have so much problems specially on flight controllers.

Clean and Tin your tip EVERY joint you do. This habit will prolong your gear, make your work neater, and become automatic quickly.

When working on pcb's always put the solder on the pad THEN apply the iron. Doing it iron first overheats the lands and you get the poor habit of feeding solder too fast splattering blobs all over the place causing potential shorts.

Finally NEVER EVER strip your wires near any pcb as there are always stray strands and is the biggest cause of shorts.

Not to put anyone down but FT and RR how to solder vids are the perfect examples what NOT to do.

 

[Flite Risk]

[QUOTE=" Use Rule #4: Know your target and what is beyond it. JD[/QUOTE]
Preceded by Rule #3: A safety is a mechanical device, it can and will fail.
Followed by Rule #5: If you kill it, you eat it. (Rule #5 does not apply to combat situations)

 

[PCBGeeks]

All from memory, no google today, so forgive minor inaccuracies.

60/40 = 60% lead, 40% tin alloy. The tin component both smoothes out the melt, and lowers the temperature the lead will melt at. A good solder will liquify around 400 degree or so, lead alone needs about 700. MUCH Less tin will smooth it our, only needs 4 to 7%, but to get that melt temp down you need a lot.

Rosin Core is the flux. Flux cleans the wire, early flux was acid, and it worked great, but tends to eat electrical wires after a time and the industry switched to rosin. The tin of flux in my picture is Rosin Flux. It also cleans metal under heat and lets the solder stick without damage to the metal. Manufacturers for years have added it to the center of a tube of solder for convenience. It works OK, but if you already have a (very) thin layer of rosin already on a bare wire or pad the solder flows and sticks NOW, and not a second or two after the solder melts on it and the stuff from the core cleans the wire enough for it to stick. That's important for electronic components that also have tiny solder joints internally and your goal is to add more without melting them.

I am a believer in old school. Lead based, rosin core. and small tin of flux. I have soldered more in the last year than in the 20 before it. Still using a a can of tin and a roll of solder that, to my horror, followed me home from a former job about 25 year ago. Still have it because soldering pencils usually come with some small bit of solder, and I always used that first. The tin? well a little goes a long way. It's old. How old? there isn't a bar code on the can. Not even half gone.

View attachment 61767

Nearly as important than the type is the diameter of the stuff you use. This is .40, very thin, melts easy and quick, and works well with a standard 25 watt or a thin 15 what pencil (that I don't have). For the occasional XT60 plug with 12 or 14 gauge wire I also have a 40 watt.

A third hand is a good thing to have, very useful. Also, there is putty that you can pack about those sensitive components to soak up heat before it damages internal parts. Haven't found a need for it for the RC stuff though.

Practice, practice practice. Tin your connections! (flux, and add solder first) Good Solder-Fu is a skill developed over time.

JD

All from memory, no google today, so forgive minor inaccuracies.

60/40 = 60% lead, 40% tin alloy. The tin component both smoothes out the melt, and lowers the temperature the lead will melt at. A good solder will liquify around 400 degree or so, lead alone needs about 700. MUCH Less tin will smooth it our, only needs 4 to 7%, but to get that melt temp down you need a lot.

Rosin Core is the flux. Flux cleans the wire, early flux was acid, and it worked great, but tends to eat electrical wires after a time and the industry switched to rosin. The tin of flux in my picture is Rosin Flux. It also cleans metal under heat and lets the solder stick without damage to the metal. Manufacturers for years have added it to the center of a tube of solder for convenience. It works OK, but if you already have a (very) thin layer of rosin already on a bare wire or pad the solder flows and sticks NOW, and not a second or two after the solder melts on it and the stuff from the core cleans the wire enough for it to stick. That's important for electronic components that also have tiny solder joints internally and your goal is to add more without melting them.

I am a believer in old school. Lead based, rosin core. and small tin of flux. I have soldered more in the last year than in the 20 before it. Still using a a can of tin and a roll of solder that, to my horror, followed me home from a former job about 25 year ago. Still have it because soldering pencils usually come with some small bit of solder, and I always used that first. The tin? well a little goes a long way. It's old. How old? there isn't a bar code on the can. Not even half gone.

View attachment 61767

Nearly as important than the type is the diameter of the stuff you use. This is .40, very thin, melts easy and quick, and works well with a standard 25 watt or a thin 15 what pencil (that I don't have). For the occasional XT60 plug with 12 or 14 gauge wire I also have a 40 watt.

A third hand is a good thing to have, very useful. Also, there is putty that you can pack about those sensitive components to soak up heat before it damages internal parts. Haven't found a need for it for the RC stuff though.

Practice, practice practice. Tin your connections! (flux, and add solder first) Good Solder-Fu is a skill developed over time.

JD

Yes I fully agree with you.

 

[chrisjordan]

60/40 solder is adequate, but 63/37 is far superior solder. It has a shorter plastic phase, which means it transitions from liquid to solid faster and is less prone to distort when you try to keep things steady with your palm shaking. With that solder, Kester #186 flux works wonderfully. I prefer to use thinner material, usually.8mm.