Solder Pot? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: wilheldp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 12:09:39 am
content: I was flipping through the latest MCM catalog that they sent me, and I noticed something that I didn't know existed before....solder pots. They are pretty small crucibles with electric heating elements that can melt solder and store it in its melted state. The stated use for such a thing is tinning wires.I can see how something like this would be very useful for not only tinning wires, but maybe amateur wave soldering of small PCBs. I am curious as to what type of solder you would put in it. The description in the catalog says to use "bar solder," but I've never seen such a thing. Also, would you need a little pot of flux next to it? Would the solder hold up well to repeated heating and cooling?Anybody have/use one of these?

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 12:18:50 am
content: You can put any solder in it, but flux core is a waste because the flux just burns off.Bar solder is basically just a big bar of solder with no flux.They have solder pots on DX for cheap ~$25No idea how good they are though.http://dx.com/p/250w-temperature-controlled-soldering-pot-blue-golden-220v-48763#.Ut8OURCBp1MYou would need one with a pretty big solder pot to do wave soldering on anything but a tiny PCB.All the ones i've seen have a small pot 80mm or so

author: wilheldp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 12:20:10 am
content: Yeah, the ones in MCM (Tenma brand) aren't overly expensive. I'm just curious how useful or effective they are.

author: N2IXK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 12:36:33 am
content: I use one when I need to tin a lot of wires in one session. Dip the stripped end into a small container of liquid flux, then into the solder pot. I filled mine with 63/37 bar solder, purchased from McMaster-Carr, IIRC. Saves a lot of time for repetitive tasks like making up lots of patch cables, etc.A solder pot is also good for salvaging DIPs and other components with lots of pins from scrap boards. You fill the pot to the very top, and "float" the backside of the board on the surface. All the connections melt at once, and you just pluck the chip out of the board like it was in a socket.The temperature on most is unregulated, so operating it from a variac is a good idea to keep from overheating the solder and oxidizing the surface. Keep a dampened index card or popsicle stick handy to skim the dross off the top of the solder occasionally, and remember that all that thermal mass will remain hot for a LONG time after powering down. Keeping it well away from the edge of the bench to avoid spills should be obvious, as well.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 12:41:31 am
content: Here's a good video about what's a solder pot useful for :This particular solder pot gets heated up using a somewhat expensive hot air gun (the blue thing you see on the side).Solder pots are also useful to pre-tin wires. You can get paste like fluxes, dab the wire in flux, then scrape the reside (dross) off the solder pot surface and dab the wire into the solder pot to get it tin.You can see the procedure here and this guy has a series of videos about soldering in "paranoid mode" or avionics grade, Nasa approved whatever... note he just uses a wet flux, not a paste :Larger solder pots are also used sometimes to solder a whole lot of through hole components to a board. You use a foam type flux, cover the whole bottom of the board in flux, then move the board manually through the solder bath at a slight angle. Flux will clean the surface as it activates from the solder heat, and then solder from the bath goes up the leads soldering them. There was a good video posted in another thread, but I simply can't remember the link and it was in Chinese or indian so there's no keywords to look for it.You can see here what's inside one of those 100w solder pots from Deal Extreme... they're simple devices, if you're careful to open them up and make sure they're SAFE (isolated wires and all that) then they're a good purchase:

author: wilheldp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2014, 12:52:30 am
content: Thanks for the videos. Those things are pretty sweet. I don't know how I've never heard of them. The first video appears to be easier than using a desoldering gun or hot air rework gun. I'm assuming that the solder pot has some sort of detrimental effect on the opposite side of the board, especially if you have a double-sided load on your PCB, but for just harvesting parts off junk boards, it seems hard to beat.