I can tell you that I have used solder pots in manufacturing.
In my case I was tinning the ends of tightly wound spring
cores that would later be used to make flexible antennas
for emergency transmitters.

My only words of wisdom here are not to be in too much of
a hurry. I once dipped a bundle too quickly and the solder
"exploded" by some kind of thermal shock. I was lucky to
get out without more serious injury.

As far as for board soldering, I have no experience or
knowledge of using them this way.

Lyle


-----Original Message-----
From: pic microcontroller discussion list
[mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Picdude
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 8:10 PM
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: [EE]: Solder pot / cheap wave solder, tips?


Were there ever any responses to this?  I never saw any, and can't find
anything in the archives, but am very curious about using solder pots.


On Saturday 26 April 2003 00:32, Jesse Lackey wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> One of my clients has 15 boards of low to moderate complexity to be
> soldered up.  There's about 100 components, all thru-hole, not
> particularly dense or anything tricky.  I've soldered these before by
> hand, it takes about an 1h:15min to an hour and a half, when doing it
> not in a rush.
>
> I'm wondering ...
>
> I see solder pots advertised in jameco, and I've heard of wave soldering
> and that gear is expensive (on ebay, anyway).  I'm unclear exactly what
> a solder pot is used for.  I envision some process whereby a board is
> stuffed, leads trimmed, and dipped into a mini-vat of molten solder for
> a few seconds, and voila.  But solder pots don't come with a means of
> dunking the board - is this a separate thing?  And most solder pots look
> rather small.  I'd like to be able to do 4" x 6" boards.
>
> If I can keep the cost under $250 a desktop-type system for
> insta-soldering thru-hole boards would pretty much pay for itself with
> this project.
>
> On the other hand, the more designs I do, the more surface mount parts I
> use.  Should I look at things that can reflow (or whatever its called)
> surface mount parts?  Are these usable with thru-hole too?
>
> I've seen the toaster-oven website ... has anyone tried this with
> thru-hole?
>
> Ok enuf questions ... thanks in advance for any insights!
>
> Best,
> Jesse

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