Stripping Sn/Pb solder from pins

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Solder dissolves gold plating quickly.

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jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins
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Of course, there is that approach. Dip the pins first into a pot of molten gold to dissolve the Pb/Sn, then in another pot of clean molten gold to re-plate. You'd need a nitrogen atmosphere, I think, so you're already 80% there, and the pots of gold can be supplied by leprechauns.

Sláinte

Reply to
Syd Rumpo

Cost aside, I think the molten gold might cause the ceramic to crack.

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

How, and still be able to remove the solder?

Is that your best Polish joke? ;-)

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

This is Angels on a pinhead territory, but assuming there's no access to other parts of the circuit and it's, say, an impenetrable DIL module, then we could wrap some thin wire around the pins near the module. No, we couldn't remove the solder right next to the module, but I won't tell if you don't.

We don't really have Polish jokes in the UK, and only really know of them through US TV program(me)s. However, they're just recycled Irish jokes, which don't really happen here any more, because they're usually just boring.

Cheers

Reply to
Syd Rumpo

Irish jokes are just recycled chicken jokes. ;-)

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Or, melt the entire pin off the connector. The melting point of pure gold is over 1000 C! That is REALLY hot. White hot, and you can't be near it without singing the hair off your arms, using dark goggles, etc.

But, a small pot of gold would probably be worth several thousand $ at the very least. One Troy ounce is a tiny little bead.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

If you think all that is fun, read this and the comments to continue the fun. "How Not to Do It: Tertiary Butyllithium"

Reply to
amdx

I had my share of that fun with Lithium Aluminum Hydride. I was a novice chemical researcher, the only undergrad in the summer research program, so a wise and kindly grad student offered to chisel off a chunk of the concrete-like mass for me, and set it all on fire with the second blow. We just closed the fume hood door and enjoyed the bright red fireworks display. jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

I always hated it when my professors would refer to a hydrogen ion as a "proton". Sure that's all it is, a naked proton, but there is a world of difference in terms of how it is considered. The LHC isn't trying to etch glass or any other chemically mediated reaction. Likewise etching circuit boards doesn't really demand the calculations performed when setting up a particle accelerator. Very different worlds... so why make it sound like they are merged significantly by using the nuclear term "proton" instead of calling it a hydrogen ion. All the other atoms are just clumps of protons and neutrons too, but we refer to their ions as... well, ions.

Reply to
rickman

I'd be interested to know how you finally solve this.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Sure, Tom.. it may be one of those things where I make my best recommendations on how to do a top quality job and it ends up being done differently for other reasons. There's a lot of $$ at stake. Caswell has a gold brush plating setup for a quite reasonable price, but everything involves some risk.

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Greetings Spehro, I have been reading this thread and thinking about the problem. I tried myself to remove some solder mechanically from some gold plated pins. I used an abrasive impregnated nylon brush, the type that mounts to a buffer motor, to remove the solder. It worked pretty well. Getting between the pins was tough but the brush I have is pretty coarse. The gold came off too. I have used the silver brush plating kit from Caswell and it worked quite well. If the gold kit works as well it will be easy to re-plate the pins. Eric

Reply to
etpm

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