Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 08 Jul 2011 07:49:05 -0700, mike wrote:

I find it annoying, although not unexpected, that the cost of a bottle
of flux is 8X the cost of the laptop. Sigh...

Huh? I paid $20 for my X31, but had to replace the HD, add RAM, and
upgrade the 2100b wireless to a 2200bg card. My guess is I have about
$100 into it. Ebay completed auctions show selling prices of $90 to
$180 so this is not going to make me rich.

Incidentally, there are motherboards for sale for about $45 which is
probably too high to use as a replacement or practice board.

I buy computers when they're a buck and I think I can fix 'em up.
I do it mostly for the challenge and to give me something to do.

Price of flux isn't a "problem", it's an annoyance.
Making your own is interesting. Wonder what my neighbor would say
if he caught me gnawing on his pine tree?
I happened by a parts store today, but they didn't have anything
I thought would work.
I'll just order some from ebay.

If the price of flux is a problem, you could also make your own.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-your-own-Eco-friendly-soldering-flux/
I've actually done this and find that it somewhat works. The problem
was the sticky mess it created. For pine sap, I just went to the
local lumber yard and got permission to "sample" the sap oozing from
the cheap pine lumber. Very little sap is required. My guess is
about 5% solids in solution. I found that I had to add some HCL acid,
which made it "highly activated" flux and required cleaning after use.

I had better luck buying some rosin paste flux from the local hardware
store and dilluting it in denatured alcohol. It worked about the same
as the home made variety, but did not require filtering out the sap
solids, bugs, wood debris, dirt, etc.