My favorite brand of solder

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1

My favorite brand of solder has always been whatever I have on hand, or whatever my hand lands on in the store. Now that I have a nifty new solder/desolder/hot-air station, I want to use “the right kind” of solder.

What what solder should I use for

  1. Fine PCB work
  2. Joining wire leads (power, etc), at 14-22 ga (I presume I’ll use nasty rosin-core leaded and a big iron for heavier gauges of wire).

I already have some leaded and un-leaded solder pastes, but feel free to suggest your favorites there too.

Help me start off on the right foot here, please.

Thanks in advance!

2

I love my Sparkfun Special Blend

[url]https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10242[/url]

3

I’ll need to give this a try as I find that normal lead free solder is awful to work with.

4

Is all leaded solder “rosin core”? That seems to be all I see on Amazon. I did order some ‘special blend’ - thanks @ John Smith

5

I’ve only ever purchased one spool. I guess it was a bad idea to for them to sell so much of it at once.

6

You are aware of “acid core” solder? (For the plumbers among us)

7

I’ve never tried that “special blend”. Sounds interesting.

My advice is unless you plan to assemble boards for sale in Europe then stick with leaded solder. Lead-free is a recipe for frustration. For normal occasional use the health risks are practically non-existent.

I primarily use Kester “44” rosin core (0.80mm). And I keep a dropper bottle of Kester 951 no-clean flux in near proximity. I’ve never wanted for more.

8

It generally is. Further, unless you have some actual need to be RoHS, there’s no benefit to lead-free, I’ve been told. I’ve never used SparkFun’s special blend, though.

9

Fine. 0.7mm is my go-to at the moment, and I much prefer it to my .8 or 1.0mm. It also happens to be a 60/40 SnPb rosin core. It is not a brand name, but if I wasn’t a cheapa$$ I would go to Newark/Element14 and search for a fine rosin core Pb solder in a recognised brand and buy.

10

@ Brett - Skip the 60/40 stuff and go for the Sn63/Pb37 stuff. It’s easier to work with.

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9161

Like Ian said, you can never go wrong with too much rosin, so you might be interested in rosin core:

11

I have been using this with a real cheap solder station and do not miss the lead

12

[quote=“godefroi”]
@ Brett - Skip the 60/40 stuff and go for the Sn63/Pb37 stuff. It’s easier to work with.

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9161[/quote]

That stuff works very well, too. We bought several (~20) rolls of that a couple years ago when Sparkfun had it on clearance for about $1/roll. That’s what we use in our soldering workshops at Maker Faire.