What are Solder Pots used for

[gogo2520]

Hello Everyone
    I was just woundering , What are solder pots used for? Some how in the back of my head I got this image of a solder squirt gun hooked up to one, da. I have seen them for sale but have know idea what they are used for.
                                               gogo

[MP]

I keep a small one on my workbench for tinning wire ends. Makes quick work of it and always makes a much nicer wire end than using a soldering iron.

MP

[Virus]

MP

Do you have a photo or a link of a solder pot. Could maybe be more descriptive.

Thanx

Virus

[MP]

Here is one like what I use on my workbench for tinning wires. I purchased mine directly from Techni-Tool.
They come in various sizes, but I only need a small one.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00011V070/qid=1149000405/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-3893925-2095865?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A2QE1R98UNI0YZ&s=hi&v=glance&n=228013



MP

[Virus]

MP

I believe it is just a small steel holder with some solder in it ?

Doesn't it leave a like droplet shape at the end of the wire?, making it difficult to put trough a hole?

Virus

[MP]

No. It leaves a nice clean shining coating of solder on the wire. First dip the wire in some flux, then into the solder pot of melted solder down to the insulation. Only dip it for a second and pull it straight up from the pot. When you pull the wire out of the solder pot, it will have a nice even coating of solder because the bare wire was evenly heated. Using a solder iron will many times give you a solder blob at the end. This is because of the excessive solder on the iron. Most any agency that makes cables for their products will use a solder pot to tin all wires before they are soldered to connectors.

MP

[Virus]

MP

Thanks, makes sence if you dip it into flux first.

Virus

[MP]

I am certainly a believer in plenty of flux. Requires some alcohol clean up afterwards, but I always use plenty of flux. A gracious amount of flux when desoldering, tinning or assembling a board makes solder joints much nicer looking and much cleaner when you are finished. Gets rid of blobs and brightens up the look of the finished solder joint. A little trick I learned years ago when going through a course for MIL spec on soldering and assembly.

MP

[mrnicks]

Alright, I think I have finally found the right thread to post a question I have about solder pots and fluxes.  I build industrial machinery and have been tinning wires by using my trusty weller wp25 for a long time always using rosin core solder.   It has always worked great but I went and bought a pot for speed. And the flux I'm using is some acid based stuff I just had lying around. This flux I stinks to the high heavens and I'm pretty sure it's slowly killing everyone in the shop.  I do have a fume extractor with about 4 carbon filters on it and it's not enough.  Point of the story is can someone steer me in the right direction of a flux that's for this job and is not so noxious? The solder I'm using is 60/40 (http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/72-6309).   

[Hero999]

I wouldn't recommend acid flux. Use rosin cored flux which is found in normal solder and use sparingly.

[mrnicks]

Can flux be "cored"?    Or are you trying to say rosin cored solder?  For soldering I use rosin cored solder.   I'm looking for the least noxious flux to use with my solder pot. Something I can dip the wires in before dipping in the pot. 

[mrnicks]

Is something like this good?  http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/835.html   



You say you sparingly and that's fine and dandy but I think you have to use as much as it takes to make the wire strands wick the solder.  With no flux or too little it just balls up around the wire and you can just flick it off. So I think you're at the mercy of using as much as you need to get the job done. Not to be nit picky, but I think you're just saying use as much as you need and no more.

[Hero999]

I made a mistake in my previous post: there's no such thing as cored flux.

What I meant to say is that you need rosin flux which is used in cored solder.