[sdiy] solder wick?

[harrybissell]

Since Le Peasent  (is he related to Bob Pease ?)
gave me such a nice intro...

Boards that are wave soldered in manufacturing facilities
need careful control of the wave chemistry... ie the LEAD
is selectively drawn out of the bath as more boards are run.

This can be judged by specific gravity of the molten metal...
and a lead-rich alloy is added to balance the loss.

Failure to do so gives a solder bath that melts at progressivly
higher temperatures...  Now badly run facilities just turn the
temperature up and keep going...

so I tried to recover some A-B type W pots (1/2" diameter - 1/8"
shaft - VERY nice) from a centuries old board. The soldering iron
would not even melt the solder... adding flux and fresh solder was still

a no-go.

so I got the propane torch... it STILL would not let go until the board
burst into FLAMES...

Can anyone tell me what the composition of the solder pot was on the
day that board was run ???

(I figured it out AFTER much thought...   ;^)

H^) harry

The Peasant wrote:

> > One thing that is really neat for removing parts whole is
> > a solder pot. Good
> > example - I used to have all the circuit boards from a
> > 360 Systems Digital
> > Keyboard. Loads of good parts - CEM3360's, nice trimpots,
> > TL082's by the
> > dozens. With a solder pot I stocked up my parts drawers
> > in a matter of
> > minutes. This ruins the circuit board. The fiberglass
> > starts to come apart.
> > Solder pots are also fun for experiments with molten
> > metal when the boss
> > isn't around
>
> I once knew someone who would salvage parts from pcbs with
> a propane torch, just heat each area, solder side up, the
> parts would just fall right out. This only worked for some
> boards though, and it sure trashed them!
>
> Take care,
> Doug
> ______________________
> The Electronic Peasant
>
> www.electronicpeasant.com