That's like 800 gm in a liter of solution!!! Is that the approx. concentration of flux?? The Merck gives a pH of 4 of aqueous solution, proly less than 1 M, but, as you say, still substantially acidiic... go figger. Yet NaCl forms a neutral solution..... go figger.
It probably is a near saturated solution. ZnCl2 is highly water soluble. It is made by dissolving zinc metal in hydrochloric acid. They might even stay on the acidic side by limiting the zinc added.
You sound like you have a chem background.
Anti-wicking tweezers can make a big difference there. But yes, I prefer crimping, myself.
Enjoy, DoN.
Yes -- Heathkit would void the warranty on any kit assembled with such a flux.
Good plan.
Enjoy, DoN.
And.. phosphoric acid is commonly used in foods/beverages, but just watch it etch steel (even significantly diluted).. pickling.
I expect that the hydrochloric used in the process of making plumbers flux could be a contributing factor, but I'm no chemist.
It might be worthwhile to re-do the cable soon before any/all recollection is gone.
If the wires were heavier gage, they might last for years, but those fine strands in 28ga wire are fairly delicate depending upon the number of individual strands.
There are numerous methods for fanning out bundles of wires. In addition to making secure connections, stabilizing the splice area is very important with fine wires.
Roger on the piles of stinking corpses.. CSI will clean 'em up.
Now, everytime I look at my crystal clear screen/splendidly re-located Haas pendant, all's I can visualize is my chemically crumbling splice -- all 26 of them.... LOL No breaks, no breaks....
Googling returned both, and I was able to buy a 35 ft 26 pin dfp cable, but which caused boucou ghosting and substantial color shifts. Not sure what the story is with the 20 and 26 pin, but the 20 pin did seem more prevalent in the hits.
I haven't used them, but the "About Us" section says that they will make custom cables:
Called'em up, nice bunch of guys, they even have dfp cables -- but only 6'. And they don't really get into making custom stuff from scratch, will mebbe fix certain kinds of cables, etc. Appreciate the link.
I use a small drill vise to hold most connectors, while soldering. It has smooth jaws, and is all steel so it is heavy enough not to slide around the bench. I have one with 3" wide jaws that gets the most use. Another is 4", and is used when making adapters with short leads.
Yeah, but try holding an RCA connector in that vise... And then soldering the braid to it.
Stan
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Oh well, they were somewhat close to you and I thought that they might do the dirty work (fabricate and check the cable impedance).
Another (long shot) link:
I plug connectors like that into a piece of junk equipment. It holds things in place and acts as a heatsink.
The old RCA phono plug with the tulip-shaped backshell? Can you still get them in that format? The only ones which I have seen for years have been the ones with a screw-on secondary backshell, and a separate tab for the ground connection.
And for the old style -- grip the connector in the vise by the pin -- after soldering the center connector into the pin so it is reinforced against crushing (ideally put it in a V in the vise jaw to keep it from moving while you are working), and keep the tulip backshell just above the jaws so they don't act as a heat sink.
Enjoy, DoN.
I've done hundreds of them. Simply put a jack in the vise to hold the plug, or vise versa.
I recently bought some from
I strip junk equipment. It takes up a lot less space.
I have a couple of toolmaker's vises, that I use for the same thing. Most connectors I fit (fortunately few, these days), are rectangular, although I do use them for holding the cable when soldering BNC center pins.
Well, you did it done. That's the most important part. Plus you told one heck of a humdinger story along the way. Welcome to your well deserved
15 minutes of well deserved fame.?-)
replacements,
Please, please tell me that you washed that off really well. If you didn't, you may be redoing the splice within a year.
connectors.
Fiber optic cable and the fibers aren't really all that fragile. I know, i have done some splicing. In raw tension they are noticeably stronger than copper of equal size. Against bending they fail, and transverse shock will cleave a fiber in less than a millisecond. That is how the pre-splice cleaver tool works, and it is necessary to get a really clean perpendicular end. After that, the rather automated fusion splicer does the splice proper. Then moving the already on fiber reinforcement into position and heat shrinking it on and putting everything in place in the splice trays and water tight splice enclosure. And i omitted most of the prep.
?-)
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