Soldering irons and solder

[fido]

you should of seen my test bed for washing machine motors|
rob t

Somewhere I've got a lead for testing Hotpoint motors which puts mains to one brush and one field coil lead and has a wire link to join the other brush / field coil wire. No test bed though, just clamp a motor bracket in the workshop vice. Not ideal though, as it is only a no-load test. Did yours have some kind of friction device to impose a load? Sometimes shorted turns seem to cause increased eddy currents without the usual sparking so a motor will spin fine with no load but has virtually no torque. Perhaps in such cases the shorted turns are in the field coil rather than the armature?

[Joe]

On Hoover motors I'd just jump-lead juice into them and keep them still by putting my foot on top.

[tiv48]

no just like yours with flying leads for hotpiont hover and service with the addition of a hover modual,so we could test them. mainly used for checking after replacing bearings and carbons. dont forget the 15 watt lamp with crock clips to see when heater came on
rob t

[DODGERN]

On Hoover motors I'd just jump-lead juice into them and keep them still by putting my foot on top.

Lack of a suitable vice didn't 'defeet' you then Neil?

Roger.

[Joe]

Ho-Ho.

- Joe

[DODGERN]

Sorry Joe, I did it again didn't I. Looking at the quote again!

Roger.

[Steve_P]

Well, I have a Metcal and it is good. I also have a Solavox iron which came from CPC. Soldering is fun with one hand though, but I use Solder Paste for this.

http://cpc.farnell.com/multicore-solder/...dp/SD00041

If you look round the net, you can find leaded solder paste!!

Cheers,

Steve P.

[Brianc]

I'm with Rob on this one. I have a Weller TCP as my normal iron and a 100W Weller which uses the same Curie Point principle of temperature control as the smaller one. The 100W jobbie can handle almost anything I throw at it such as capacitor blocks, chassis solder tags and even brass components that need to be machined as splitable pairs such as eccentric straps and bearing blocks. I bought it in Germany but have not seen one in the UK but they must be available as I have bought bits for it here.
It was quite common to lift the earth from a soldering iron before the H&S worries - perhaps we thought that the kit was more important than the engineer in those days :D:D.

[Joe]

Soldering is fun with one hand though, but I use Solder Paste for this.

Another advantage of the gas ones: they're much easier to hold in your teeth as there's no flex to get in the way.

- Joe

[Bluebottle]

I should have added, ISTR at one time the aviation industries baned PB free solder due to reliability problems. John.

As far as I know PB free solder is still banned from Aviation and Military equipment. I have tested mixing PB free with PB solder and it did seem to perform OK under ideal conditions on a PC board but I wouldn't trust it in the depths of a 1947 radio chassis. The legislation of course does state that all new equipment must be manufactured using PB free solder, there is nothing to stop anyone using PB solder to repair circuits originally made using it. As an aside CPC have PB solder currently on offer but even on offer the price is eye watering. Suffice to say I bought enough PB solder to last the rest of my life when people were still kicking it around radio rallies a couple of years ago...............

Another solder story which is true. A young lady working in a solder factory was fired and to get her revenge she emptied the contents of her perfume bottle into the flux making machine when this was discovered by the bosses the flux was tested and was found to still work OK so the batch was put into production. I know this story to be true because twice while working on older equipment I've caught a whiff of perfume when heating soldered joints !!