"Smitty Two" wrote in message
news
In article ,
Archimedes' Lever wrote:

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:21:13 -0700, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article ,
Archimedes' Lever wrote:

As far as temperature, I agree with you. I've never found a need to
solder anything at less than 800F. Smaller parts just require shorter
dwell time.

This one is off the mark. Perhaps you meant "at MORE than 800°F"
That would certainly be an upper max for me, and it is quite easy to
solder at much lower temperatures. Well over a 100 degree
differential,
and that is significant.

Pardon my ambiguity. What I meant to say was "anything other than 800F."
That's the upper limit on most fixed-temperature tips, or adjustable
irons.


Yes, and despite most folks cranking the damned things up that high,
basic soldering operations (pre-RoHS) were NEVER meant to be performed at
that high a temperature. Even on big 0.092" stock with lots of Copper.
In that case, one should pre-heat the whole assembly a couple hundred °F,
which will insure that all the solder joints wet well and flow through
properly.

Uh-huh. I've personally hand soldered hundreds of thousands of joints at
800F, and overseen the soldering of millions. Turning down the flame has
only one result: It takes too damn long to build the board. It's sort of
like the clock speed on a computer. It doesn't matter much if something
takes 1 second instead of 1/10 second, but it makes a big difference if
it takes an hour instead of 6 minutes. When I was a kid I built some
Heathkit stuff and spent 30 seconds making every solder connection,
because the iron was underpowered and I didn't know enough to know it.
Machine soldering is different, of course, but for hand work, 800 is
perfect for everything and anything.



I concur - 700F tips are great - no problems in the last 15 years. The only
time I go for a 700F is terminating some cables where the insulation is
super sensitive to the heat and shrinks back or melts through.