[Tabrin]

I'm in a place where I can't just go to radio shack or home depot and go picking through the different odds and ends that they have for my projects. I need to plan them out in their entirety a month in advance, if not more.
My current project for my desktop has me doing some wiring inside my case, and since I don't like to just twist-n-tape I solder the connections, then tape. I'd use heatshrink but those heatshrink 'kits' you find on modding sites are a bit too expensive for something that I can just do with electrical tape. (And I don't have a hairdryer to shrink it with)

The problem is, I've run out of solder. My old roll was unmarked, and I seem to recall it being called 'low-temp' solder...probably a resin core.
I've got a dinky little 30Watt Soldering Iron that I got off ebay for a buck or so with shipping. Probably doesn't spit out too much heat.
So I headed over to McMaster.com to finally buy some Tygon for my watercooling setup (besides the fact that they sell everything from screwdrivers to Bathroom Monkeys (^tm)) So I headed over to the solder section (page 3162) and was promptly stumped.

...I was going to ask about lead/tin ratios and what temp people think a 30W iron can melt, but this is long enough as it is.

So my question probably should be:
What kind of solder should one get for a 30W soldering iron to do simple soldering of things onto PCB boards like a video card or motherboard, soldering lengths of wires together, and for soldering light-weight things to alluminum computer cases?


Wow. That was unnecessisarily long.

[johnny5c]

I use .031" 60/40 (60% lead and 40% tin) for most stuff. For PCB's I think .020" 63/37 is about the best.

[KILLorBE]

Originally posted by johnny5c
60/40 (60% lead and 40% tin)

I think you meant 60% tin and 40% lead.

I use 60/40 22SWG/0.7mm/0.0275591 inch multicore solder (5 core 362 Flux).

This is a nice site about solder.

[ares350]

60/40 here too. actually I couldnt find 60/40 last time, and got I think 57/43 or 63/37 whatever. it works pretty good too. dont think it matters much, the wattage really only means how much you can heat, not how hot you can get. you might have trouble melting the lowest temp solder onto a 10gauge wire(it would drain away the heat faster than the iron could heat it up). but if your working 14gauge and above, no problems.

[overXposure]

the mixture of the solder determines the melting point of it ...

resin core or not .. is more of a personal choice ... i prefer to brush some flux onto the joint first and then solder on it ... but some prefer to use solder that has it in the core to save a step (can be a bit more messy as well tho)

[HiProfile]

bgmicro.com has some REALLY cheap solder rolls - different sizes, weights, and mixtures. I prefer thin 60tin/40lead with rosin core (even tho I always use a flux paste too), but there's also 63/37 there that is great for electronics. I think it was ~$8 for a pound, and its a very good deal. You can also get some cheap Panaflo 80mm fans there too.

I found that 40tin/60lead doesn't flow as well unless its at its highest melting temp, otherwise it acts like partially melted hard candy.

[Tabrin]

Ah, great. Hopefully BGMicro ships to APO/FPO addresses, since they've got some other random stuff that I was halfheartedly looking for.