I finally bought some flux last year and was angry at myself for all the wasted years, proper solder is next on the list but I still have some cheap but usable solder that I want to use up first
Ages ago (80’s I think) there was talk of making lead free solder the only type that was available to consumers, and my great uncle (a deal horder) went out and got 2 cases of radioshack 64/40 resin core. Pretty sure it’s the same stuff you can still buy today, but I’ve got another 4 spools in my kit (that are old enough to drink).
In my uncles defense sometimes his deal hording paid off. He once saved a family reunion when our venue fell through because he happened to have a dozen brand new hibachi grills in the apartment he rented just for his stuff. And he made a small fortune when he bought a bunch of freon before it went off the market.
I think it’s the your synapses you need to worry about, but I forget, I love my 60/40 too. Still have a couple big rolls from RadioShack.
Really though if you wash hands after handling it, and use it in such small hobby scale quantities as most, it won’t matter. The smoke from the burning rosin is probably more dangerous.
Kester 63/37 no-clean 22AWG for leaded work, SN100C no-clean for RoHS. Mg chemicals and chip quik are good alternatives, Kester can be expensive to justify for home use.
As long as it fully saturates i thiink it’s fine, i’ve personally only had issues with too slow switching when i switch the mosfet many times a second, or when i didn’t give a high enough voltage to fully saturate it, both of which usually led to a smoky mosfet
For something that’s not switching at a high frequency, slow rise and fall times are fine as long as you are staying within the safe operating area of your MOSFET. A 10K gate resistor could certainly work, but it will depend on your MOSFET and load.
That’s good. My switching frequency is a few times per hour.
I am a little bit concerned that the slow rise/fall time make the MOSFET go outside its operating parameters for a fraction of a second. The resistance gradually changes meaning the mosfet will dissipate more power but also less current will flow.
So if you switch many times per second the gate capacitance with the resistor acts as a low pass filter reducing the gate voltage.
It really depends how much power/current you are switching. If you are switching 1A with a beefy heatsink FET, the time spent in the linear region is short enough it shouldn’t be a problem. If you are switching 50A though it then you might have a problem. Depending on how that gate divider is set up, you could still potentially damage the gate of the FET when shorting it to ground to discharge it if I understand how its hooked up correctly.
Ideally you would use some kind of FET driver with a voltage source (e.g. linear regulator) to turn on and off the gate plus the gate resistor.
The navy gave me a spool like 5+ years ago. It has no label. They were going to trash it. I have no idea whatsoever what its composition is. It’s rosin core and that’s about all I know. I also have a few different gauges of safety wire and shear wire.
While 60/40 is a joy to work with, I gave SAC305 a shot and it’s been totally fine for my uses with hobby electronic projects. You need to run your soldering iron hotter so it’ll be rougher on your iron’s tips, but I haven’t noticed much difference in ware, etc.
As a hobbyist, contributing to junk with lead in the world is something that’s been bugging me for some time. Additionally, it feels silly but there’s also a certain relief in not having to worry as much about contamination between my workbench and the rest of my environment.
If you haven’t already I’d also suggest getting some good flux. The Amtech NC-559-ASM has been working great for me.
That makes sense! In my case I actually needed to turn down my iron temps for the lead-free solder, previously had it ridiculously high from when I was trying to work with the cheap no-name solder.
This new lead free stuff is great, it comes with a price tag but it’s eons better than the no-name stuff IMO.
I have flux (syringe type) but I have no idea if I’m using it correctly, or if it’s just not that great. Haven’t noticed too much of a difference when soldering with it, apart from needing to brush off the circuit board with some contact cleaner to remove the residue
Word came down from on high, that I wasn’t to use 60/40 for teaching anymore. Usually went through about 1kg annually, and I had just stocked up. I think I had just gotten 8kg, or something like that, because of the bulk rebate, about a year before. And what was I to do? We weren’t allowed to have the solder on premises anymore.
So anyway, 60/40 for 1.0 and 0.7mm and some sn/pb/ag for 0.25mm. And no, I don’t have ventilation for my workspace, but I do have enough solder to last a couple of lifetimes.
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