Soolder fillets

[Jeremiah McCarthy]

I was a certified NASA solderer, and no NASA soldering course I ever took required fillets...It was quite the opposite, minimal solder was required in the interest of saving lift-off weight...It was estimated that minimal solder in the Apollo program saved 450 pounds in entire launch vehicle...OT?...Yes...

It is curious to me that we are cautioned not to trim the relay leads in the K-2, but we MUST in the case of the KAT2...Once the leads are properly soldered, trimming the leads will have no effect on the relays themselves...It has been my experience in rework that trimmed leads make parts removal easier...My Hakko 808, which I dearly love, will NOT remove all the solder completely through to the other side of the board...Solder wick will, but the leads must be trimmed first, otherwise the protruding portion keeps the solder wick and the iron up off the joint...The heat must be applied to both the lead and the hole at the same time, and that is not possible with an untrimmed lead...I will continue to trim EVERYTHING...And de-flux it...Just my opinion...

Jerry, wa2dkg
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[Alexandra Carter]

> I was a certified NASA solderer, and no NASA soldering course I ever
> took required fillets...It was quite the opposite, minimal solder was
> required in the interest of saving lift-off weight...It was estimated
> that minimal solder in the Apollo program saved 450 pounds in entire
> launch vehicle...OT?...Yes...

We had an ex-NASA guy where I worked when I was a student, he talked
about the NASA soldering technique, and yes it seems to closely match
the Elecraft soldering technique! They were given an amount of solder,
and told to solder a board, install a bunch of components I guess, and
then at the end of that, graded on how much solder they still had left!
I hope they looked at the quality of the connections too, I'm sure that
was a factor too. When I read in the Elecraft manual about how to
solder their way, I was reminded of this guy. So, we're learning to
solder like some very respected builders when we build our Elecrafts!

> My Hakko 808, which I dearly love, will NOT remove all the solder
> completely through to the other side of the board...

Your Hakko 808, which you dearly love, is the modern version of the old
OK Industries solder sucker, a very good one, BUT, for real
solder-sucking bliss, get a Pace! Also learn to do daily maintenance on
your Pace, since they need it - they're the Ferraris of the
solder-sucking world, and you need to replace the tip daily, filter
often, clean out the handpiece filters, and have a good understanding
of how that baby works inside and how to keep the vane pump happy.
Expensive, high-maintenance, but the best solder-sucking I've ever
seen!

73 de Alex NS6Y

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