On Mon, 2005-02-28 at 13:13 -0800, James Newton, Host wrote:
> I have personally "welded" wires onto a SMT device using a sort of
> "tweezers" built from two different bits of spring steel (actually a regular
> tweezers that I cut into two) with a battery (6v lantern) connected across
> the sides. I applied paste, positioned the wire against the pin, held it
> down with one side of the tweezers, then got my solder ready, and made
> contact with the other side of the tweezers against the pin. I would get a
> little arc sometimes, but usually it just got damn hot, melted the solder,
> and did the job. Very quick. I would just break the connection on the pin
> side and continue to hold down the wire with the other as the solder cooled.
> Really slick, however...

Neat. This reminds me of a show I was watching last night where some
people in New Zealand were trying to build a gold smelter. At one point
they had purified the gold, but had the problem of the gold had been
separated into several pieces. They though about heating up the furnace
again, but one of the people suggested a different solution.

He picked up two lantern batteries, opened them and salvaged the carbon
rods inside. Connecting them to a set of jumper cables, the cables to a
car battery, and donning a welders mask, he proceeded to "weld" the
pieces of gold together with just the current of the battery! Very neat
to see, and quite a clever solution. Of course, don't try that with
pretty much any other type of metal, unless you either like it oxidizing
like nuts, or you immerse it in an inert gas.

TTYL


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