I coughed up a hundred clams for a surface mount soldering kit with a syringe of paste flux and several syringes of solder.  I never had any problem with flux on the tweezers with this arrangement. The stuff seems to last forever since you only use a tiny bit each time.  I am sure it has exceeded its shelf life but I am still using it.  

I used flux and solder for a number of years, and got a syringe of solder/flux mixture and had good results with that by itself with no extra flux.  

But if you are stuck with wire solder, you need lots and lots of flux to make surface mount work.  

-- Lawrence Lile, P.E.
Electrical and Electronic Solutions
Project Solutions Companies
www.projsolco.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter L. Peres [mailto:plp@actcom.co.il]
> Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 1:24 PM
> To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
> Subject: Re: [EE:] Lotta sap (flux on tweezers)
> 
> 
> On Sat, 16 Oct 2004, Charles Craft wrote:
> 
> > If you have seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and remember
> > Clark trying to read a magazine after doing battle with the Christmas
> > tree, that's me with SMT parts stuck to my tweezers after using liquid
> > flux on SMT boards.  What am I doing wrong??????????????
> >
> > If you flux after placing the parts then they stick to the flux brush. I
> > guess one of those little flux syringe doo hickies might be better but
> > haven't picked one up yet.
> >
> > If you flux first (which is great to hold the part) then it seems that a
> > little flux always wicks up on to the end of the tweezers. In the TSSOP
> > soldering thread someone mentioned using paste flux. Thoughts?
> 
> Wipe the tweezer tip in a q-tip soaked in solvent before picking the next
> part up, or whenever you feel like it. The q-tip is held with a file clamp
> to the solvent pot lip (tiny glass baby food container in my case) or
> thumb tacked to the wooden table with a sheet of foil under it.
> 
> Peter
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