Dangerous Prototypes

Kester 951 no-clean flux. Give me the 20 year old syringe of Philips flux (http://http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Dangerous_Prototypes_tool_list#Soldering_supplies) any day, this stuff is worthless. It doesn't 'lube' the solder flow at all. Whats the point? Avoid.

You?

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I'm about to order a (different version) from sparkfun: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8967 (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8967)

THe comments say it is a great pen, but is it??

Wow. The Wb fix worked great, thanks Sjaak!

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i have used in the past on qfn parts, best to wash with di water or a mild(5-10%) isopropyland + di water mix, use a cut down acid brush to get any flux chunks.

works well to flux desoldering braid.

I feel bad. . .I think I'm the one that highly recommended this. . .sorry it didn't work for you, Ian. 

One of things that i did when first using that specific pen was not put enough on.  the sponge tip is spring loaded.  To get the flux to start, push down until you see the tip retract  bit (it'll come back out after you lift up).  Do this a few times and then you should have a good flow of flux on the pcb.

After the initial priming, you'll just nee do dab the IC of interest, you should see a nice little pool around the pins you've dabbed.  I always apply it direction onto the IC pins, after they're on the board, or just to the board in the case of passives.

I use this with a little $30 Weller at home with no issues.  I've done 64 pin qfp's with this and the Weller with no issues, as long as I put enough on.

I don't think you're responsible :) I looked at the options at digikey or mouser and decided on one without any real reason. No clean sounded good.

phew. . . :)

Did you give it a good push to prime, as described above?

Oh yeah, I globbed the stuff around. It seems to dry to a matte sheen and then doesn't do that much while I solder.

I could just be me, I've been using the same flux for years. It's a lot stickier and doesn't dry, I'm probably very used to it by now.

I used some pen flux earlier and it worked like a charm but of course I have not saved the pen nor remembered the brand/type ... now I use KESTER #951 and it is piece of cr4p .. dries in seconds and does not help soldering at all :(

I ended up using my own home made flux that works wonderfully :D - it is made with nitrocellulose thinner + colophony (the rosin you use to coat bow of violin or cello ..) ... I can change the viscosity of the flux by adding more thinner or more colophony. You could use isopropil alcohol instead of nitro thinner...

[quote author="Sjaak"]I'm about to order a (different version) from sparkfun: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8967 (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8967)

THe comments say it is a great pen, but is it??[/quote]

I've used this one, mainly with 10 year old, tarnished, desoldering braid. It's pretty aggressive and is reputed to eat soldering iron tips - it certainly removed the solder mask from a SOIC-DIP converter to which I was soldering a PIC18LF2550.

its a bit late but i still wanted to share this.
i always use this cheap ass flux from ebay, they call it solder paste and it goes in a square box, its just 1,99.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Advanced-Quality-ZJ ... 5644e9a6bd (http://cgi.ebay.com/Advanced-Quality-ZJ-18-Soldering-Solder-Flux-Paste-New-/370523350717?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5644e9a6bd)
its quite sticky, i smear a bit on my PCB and all the SMD parts stick trough it, very easy

Nice, I will try some of that. Great english on the wrapper: "No posison no orrosion" :)

I am now keenly interested in your flux report. I generally use 951. It is possible to put a puddle of it that does not dry out instantly. Water based (951 is alcohol based) would of course dry slower, and rosin based would not dry at all. It is certainly much better than no flux in my experience, but I have not used any of the more aggressive rosin fluxes like the ebay one linked as they generally contain worse chemicals.

I would not use anything like without first having documentation on what is in the chemical, so I understand the potential exposure hazard of the material. 951 is almost entirely IPA/Ethanol, with a small amount of Butyl acetate, Methanol, and Carboxylic acid in it. This type of information can be found on the MSDS of chemicals sold in the US.

I notice the eBay linked flux is in the home and garden tools category :-)

Here in Spain, in every electronics shop have this flux:

It's no-clean, smelly and you need something to apply it. But in my modest opinion is really great for the price, almost 2 euros. Ian, if you want to try it I'll gladly send you one.

i bought a replacement laptop adapter from eBay, i was initially sent the wrong item. i sent a message to the seller stating that they sent the wrong one, it took them 3 days to respond. when they did they apologized and offered an additional waranty for the correct one, 

a few days later i received the correct adapter, and left feedback accordingly, one week later the adapter died, and i sent another message stating that it died, and 3 days later i received this message.

"You can see our AD again, if the buyer leave feedback, we can stop the service, thanks"

they might have just said "we are not happy you did not leave perfect feedback, and because of that we will not honor the warranty we offered you."

even sellers that have a good feedback rating, can be real scumbags!

yep, not being able to change the feedback rating on ebay can be a real pain.  I had a similar situation with some NiMH batteries recently, granted this was my own fault because I hadn't tried all of them before leaving feedback.

[quote author="sqkybeaver"]
even sellers that have a good feedback rating, can be real scumbags![/quote]

There is number of sellers that want you to first set the feedback to "all max" before they are willing to ship anything to you. I have seriously icky experience with ebay.com (german ebay is for e.g. waaaaaay better) and I don't order anything "electric" from there any more..

i figure an unopened genuine dell charger would last longer than a week.

it was not for myself and having to apologize to my friend/customer and make them wait is not good. if i order more than i need than ill have to start to charge more, and laptop repair is to competitive here. not to mention keeping a stock is too expensive.

i may end up eating the cost and going through a different source for some things from now on.

[quote author="sqkybeaver"]i figure an unopened genuine dell charger would last longer than a week.[/quote]
i wonder if that seller is actually selling factory settings or maybe the laptop is causing the issue (drawing more current than specified, etc)

i'v tested the laptop and inspected the motherboard, it runs fine, i cant measure current without cutting the cord.

might be worth building a dongle just for measuring the current.