[sdiy] PCB houses

[Matthew Smith]

Quoth Adam Schabtach at 2009-01-24 08:04...
> What I'd like to know is whether there is a tinning solution that isn't made
> out of pure evil. I read the MSDS for Tinnit and another solution I found
> advertised online, and both of them were scary enough that I wouldn't want
> to be anywhere near the stuff. I've never bothered tinning my boards but I
> wonder whether they'd be easier to solder if I did so.

Pure Evil and with a working life of about 50ns from mixing (OK, a bit 
of an exaggeration) it's seriously expensive.  The cost factor has 
always kept me away from this before.

I don't always bother with tinning.  Flux pen to the pads just before 
soldering and then it's as easy as anything.  I have also flux-penned 
all the traces and tinned by running the iron along them.  Not that 
you'd want to do that on a large board with a lot of traces.

As regards disposal, used ammonium persulphate leaves you with a mixture 
of that and copper sulphate - nothing too nasty.  (Or, think of it like 
this, a mixture of fertiliser and tree-root killer ;-))

Cheers

M

-- 
Matthew Smith
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