Some people have a good gut feeling for what will work and what
probably won't work.
Anyone with soldering experience has probably made the observation
that surface tension of solder is incredibly high and it would not
stay in the hole, certainly not for the also proposed reflow.
Filling the holes with solder alone is a dead end idea, but feel free
to prove us wrong.
BTW there used to be copper plated solder wire, the copper layer was
scored in short sections. You'd stick the wire in the hole, break off
a section, and then rivet it both sides. Then you'd desolder the
solder out of the hole, the copper plating would stay leaving a thin
hollow rivet similar to a PTH hole (but much inferior of course).
That's all the way solder is going to go for making VIAs, in my opinion....
ST
On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Daniel Howard Bryant
<
coloradobryant@...> wrote:
> --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Simao Cardoso <simaocardoso@...> wrote:
>>
>> Hi, don't take me wrong i don't want to kill both your enthusiasm, but
>> forget the molten solder stuff. You will never do through holes with it.
>>
>
> I beg to differ, especially if you use a little wire whose diameter was significantly smaller than the hole or even perhaps a porous metal insert, so as to allow the solder to penetrate the hole and make contact with all the layers. Through hole plating seems to have become an industry secret with only a few board house employees that know the process entirely...isn't this a forum for the do-it-yourselfer?
>
> Don't get me wrong, chemistry is fun too......but if we can eliminate some steps to make it easier for the homebrewer, why not? Then more people can get involved with less intimidation to try something new.
>
> To heck with molten solder, why not use conductive ink that has a high viscosity similar to a gell then just inject it into the holes with a syringe?
>
> Cheers,
> Daniel
>
>