Cardas silver soldering ... or?

[Stefanoo]

Hello to everybody!

Just a question:

The weld process is very important and its quality is also determined by the type of soldering used.

Since there are different mix (lead-copper-silver-.....) and different proces, i'm getting confused!

I found cardas soldering and it's quite expencive, but i don't understand exactly what difference exists between this expencive and a different (2% silver) soldering but cheaper.

Is the weld paste an important accessory?

What soldering do you guys use for your work?


Hope to receive advice.


Best,
Stefano.

[SRMcGee]

Stefanoo:

There's an interesting debate brewing over on the "Electronics & Parts" forum regarding solder titled "Hocus Pocus". I'm a newbie (and will likely always be) so my experience is pretty limited, but I've enjoyed using Welborne Labs' branded 2% silver solder -- it melts easily, flows well and seems to set up nicely. But I cannot comment on how it sounds compared to other solders. Ron Welborne says on his website that it is unclear whether silver-bearing solders are audibly better than solders lacking silver; if you're inclined to do the research, why not buy a little and compare it to the cheaper alternatives?

Regards,
Scott

[Curmudgeon]

I find that the Cardas solder (the older version, I've not tried the new) solders well, as does Wonder Solder. I have had very good luck with Cardas items so far, so I just took it on faith and use the Cardas solder. Life is too short to test everything myself. And I'm not sure how I'd conduct such a test.

[Babowana]

I keep two aspects in my mind in soldering: mechanical and electrical connections.

My mechanical connection should have good strength for the two base materials to be well fixed. As far as I understand, the strong connection is very much depending on the surface condition to be soldered, temp adjustment and soldering procedure. I do not know how much that small amount of silver content of the solder would help this.

For the electrical connection, I always try to secure surface contact between the two base materials as much as possible, and do soldering over it. I try to avoid the connection where the air gap between the two base materials bridged by the solder material. On my experience, the quality of the solder material is very much depending on the quality of the material components' pureness of the solder whatever those are.

Which solder I use?
Leadless-silver-copper-tin of Japanese make.

[spzzzzkt]

In the past I have Wonder Solder and WBT silver solder and liked both due to the relatively low melting point and the nice looking joints they gave. I don't know if the sound was any better than if I'd just used a standard "lo-fi" solder.

I'm just as happy using standard Weller solder, and have just started using some Goot lead-free Sn/3.0%Ag/0.5%Cu solder (must be some of that Japanese stuff Babowana uses) and that seems fine although the lead free solders don't seem to give that nice shiny joint.

I'd definitely second Babowana's comments that a mechanically and electrically sound join is the primary thing to be concerned about. I certainly wouldn't be relying on the electrical properties of solder.