AVR-Chat

Well, I went out and got my kester no-clean .025 solder and a flux pen.
After trying to solder down some 1206 and 603 parts I have one thing to say:

What a waste of money.

For small parts, hand assembly the old rosin RMA stuff (sticky goo) works
much better - things stick, they wet and the solder sucks into every crack
drawing the part and centering it over the pad.

The no-clean, is truly no clean, no wet, no stick.  And, yes, I got the pen
to flow.  I paint over the pads, it evaporates and leaves behind a faint
cloud of powder...

Come to think of it, I kind of like the smell of ethanol when cleaning my
boards...



----
Larry Barello
http://www.barello.net

At 04:56 PM 9/17/2004, Larry Barello wrote:

>Well, I went out and got my kester no-clean .025 solder and a flux pen.
>After trying to solder down some 1206 and 603 parts I have one thing to say:
>
>What a waste of money.

Works fine for me.. You do have to get used to working with it. 
A pointed stick works nicely as a holddown tool. I've tried metal tools, but they all have problems. They either get soldered into the circuit, or they end up slightly magnetic, and pick up the parts when you want them to not do that.  Magnetizing a wooden stick would be a neat trick.

Could it be the temperature of your soldering iron, Larry?  My 
experience has been that the no-clean fluxes need a bit higher soldering 
temperature than we would use with a rosin based flux to work properly.  
The water solubles seem to work better when the soldering temperature is 
lower.

The no-cleans we've used here leave behind a clear residue rather than a 
powder.  This almost sounds like you're using a water washable flux.  
But we also still use lead here.

There's an outfit in Nashville, TN, that makes a water wash flux removal 
product that also seems to work pretty well.

                         http://www.kyzen.com/

Hope this helps.

REB

Larry Barello wrote:

>Well, I went out and got my kester no-clean .025 solder and a flux pen.
>After trying to solder down some 1206 and 603 parts I have one thing to say:
>
>What a waste of money.
>
>For small parts, hand assembly the old rosin RMA stuff (sticky goo) works
>much better - things stick, they wet and the solder sucks into every crack
>drawing the part and centering it over the pad.
>
>The no-clean, is truly no clean, no wet, no stick.  And, yes, I got the pen
>to flow.  I paint over the pads, it evaporates and leaves behind a faint
>cloud of powder...
>
>Come to think of it, I kind of like the smell of ethanol when cleaning my
>boards...
>
>
>
>----
>Larry Barello
>http://www.barello.net
>
>
>  
>

--- In AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com, "Larry Barello" <yahoo@b...> wrote:
> Well, I went out and got my kester no-clean .025 solder and a flux 
pen.
> After trying to solder down some 1206 and 603 parts I have one 
thing to say:
> 
> What a waste of money.
> 
> For small parts, hand assembly the old rosin RMA stuff (sticky goo) 
works
> much better - things stick, they wet and the solder sucks into 
every crack
> drawing the part and centering it over the pad.
> 
> The no-clean, is truly no clean, no wet, no stick.  And, yes, I got 
the pen
> to flow.  I paint over the pads, it evaporates and leaves behind a 
faint
> cloud of powder...

I don't have any problems. The flux from the pen I use (Electrolube)
is sticky and leaves a slight residue, which I clean off with IPA. 
The old resin-based flux solder is better, as you say.

Leon

For a second there, I though you were cleaning with India Pale Ale (IPA).  

-----Original Message-----
From: leon_heller 

...

I don't have any problems. The flux from the pen I use (Electrolube)
is sticky and leaves a slight residue, which I clean off with IPA. 
The old resin-based flux solder is better, as you say.

Leon

On Sat, Sep 18, 2004 at 12:53:21AM -0500, Dave VanHorn wrote:

> Works fine for me.. You do have to get used to working with it.  A
> pointed stick works nicely as a holddown tool. I've tried metal
> tools, but they all have problems. They either get soldered into the
> circuit, or they end up slightly magnetic, and pick up the parts
> when you want them to not do that.  Magnetizing a wooden stick would
> be a neat trick.

I find my fingernail works best :-)

     http://www.bdmicro.com/smt/

Check the bit on soldering 0603 caps about halfway down the page which
make the 1206's look like cinder blocks - they're the smallest part on
my boards and I can do them faster than I can through-hole parts - no
flipping the board over nor clipping leads.  I've soldered literally
thousands like this.  This really isn't hard.  0.025" solder is really
a bit large, though, for the smaller parts, even for the relatively
large 1206, I use 0.015" solder and pull out the 0.025" for the
through-hole pin headers and screw terminals.

-Brian
-- 
Brian Dean
BDMICRO - ATmega128 Based MAVRIC Controllers
http://www.bdmicro.com/

Dear all,

  So, heres a funny thing, anyone know of a programmer/C compiler for OSX?
I've got virtual PC installed and win2K, but so far, no joy. I'd prefer to
do it all nativly in OSX.

Paul

Paul

I use avr-gcc

it's available through fink

you will find instructions here 
http://www.vs.inf.ethz.ch/res/proj/smart-its/tools_macosx/
and here http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~mseeman/resources/macmicro.html

to program i use an stk500 compatible programmer through an usb-serial
adapter and it works ok.

hope this helps

massimo

On 20/set/04, at 09:51, Paul Maddox wrote:

> Dear all,
>
>   So, heres a funny thing, anyone know of a programmer/C compiler for 
> OSX?
> I've got virtual PC installed and win2K, but so far, no joy. I'd 
> prefer to
> do it all nativly in OSX.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Massimo,

> it's available through fink

Thanks, thats handy..
Next daft question, can I use CodeWarrior as the editor and somehow get it
to run the command line compile?

Paul

Paul

I've never used codewarrior but i guess it would be possible to do what 
I do with xcode/projectbuilder
where I point to and external makefile and use that to build my project

massimo

On 20/set/04, at 11:02, Paul Maddox wrote:

> Massimo,
>
>> it's available through fink
>
> Thanks, thats handy..
> Next daft question, can I use CodeWarrior as the editor and somehow 
> get it
> to run the command line compile?
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Massimo,

> I've never used codewarrior but i guess it would be possible to do what 
> I do with xcode/projectbuilder

<DOH>
I forgot about that, thanks..

Paul