The AM Forum

Ever try to solder a piece of solder to solder?

oh flux it

I once had a technician tell me to go flux off

Since we're on the topic of flux... I recall some very aromatic fluxes in solder in years past, particularly back in the 1960s.  Although the current batches I have on hand are more neutral smelling, if I heat up a solder joint of a 40 year old kit, I release that very pleasant scent again.

Was this purposeful on the part of the solder manufacturers or merely a by-product of the flux components of the old days? 

I have a 5lb roll of the old stuff that someone gave me.  It smells just like you remember.  The new stuff, little to no smell and whatever smell it has it doesn't smell like the old stuff.  The old stuff seems to flow better too.

Flux changes all the time some newer ones were nasty. Cleaning is a big deal and contamination is a big deal. When you have a 4 or 6 mil trace you can't afford any of it to dissolve. Also some fluxes absorbed water causing shorts in hi Z circuits. Today the big deal is cleaning. now everybody wants flux that cleans with water so toxic chemicals can be avoided. That old flux with the nice pine smell is a bit acidic and a pain to clean off a PC board unless you use chemicals.

Frank said:
Denatured alcohol and a stiff brush works good.

Yup, Great for home but in a factory all they want to do is put in a pail of water.
Remember the days of the freon vapor bath to clean boards.
The hole in the ozone eliminated that bath.

Frank said:
Yes I do. From what I understand, they never really proved that it decomposed the ozone. What's really a hoot and most people don't know it is that UV light breaks down ozone rather easily. We use ozone as a disinfectant for our de-ionized water. The ozone is sparged into the tank containing water. Then the water is passed through a UV cell which converts the ozone to oxygen, (just like the Ionic Breeze II).

Yes, but what a pain in the A double scribble!

UV light breaks down ozone ?? I thought UV light creates ozone since one way of generating ozone is via shortwave UV light. Ever go near a shortwave UV germicidal lamp after it's been operating and notice the distinct scent of ozone ? Please explain since from hands on experiance as well as documentation I've read UV is an ozone creator not an ozone destroyer ??

I think the theory behind the ozone layer destruction was the freon molecule would combine with the ozone molecule by robbing it of one or two of its atoms when exposed to UV light. Don't know if the wavelength of UV played a role.  It's possible the dismemberment of the O3 molecule could occur faster than its production under the same UV conditions.  Don't know, I'm guessing. Actually I'm not to concerned by it as I don't necessarily believe it, not just yet, anyway.

John,

You're right! UV is what generates ozone.  There is the long wavelength UV and short wavelength UV.  One generates ozone and the other one breaks down ozone.  Quite a  BIG natural process then, the sun bombarding the upper atmosphere.  Obviously there is a balance resulting in the net ozone left.

The ozone hole was the biggest ever in the Geophysical year ,was it 1960? then shrunk down until now.
It makes sense that there is a natural cycle to the net quantity.  Who's to say for sure that we are the main cause in the latest increase?  But yet this refrigerant deal was railroaded through quickly.  I have never been convinced.  Bend over. 

I think the ozone layer, ice age coming and going ["global warming"]  hurricane increases, etc etc, are simply the result of natural long term cycles.  The cycles are never smooth - the have huge swings around the main trend which makes people fearful.

This false info is generated mostly by scientists or organizations looking for more govt grants and pubic donations [non profits] to keep their salaries going.  Just think of the hurl they wud be puking out if we lived the through the recent ice age 10,000 years ago when the great lakes were glaciers.   ;D   There was a time when the poles were tropics. Now, how much more extreme can it get than that ? Natural cycles rule the whirl.

T

Natural cycles within the whirl and I think outside the whirl too.  I don't remember where I read it but I read somewhere that the sun not only exhibits the 11 year sunspot cycle that we're all familiar with but also has a 100 or 110 year cycle.  During the 100 or so year period the 11 year max/min cycles become larger and smaller or become more and less intense.  I'd be curious to know if there is some correlation between the solar cycles and the global climate. 

Freon is heavier than air, but air does not sit still.  If it did, we would suffocate in nitrogen, because the oxygen would float miles up, in a layer above the nitrogen.  But we can breathe, because oxygen gets stirred into the nitrogen.  And Freon and other ozone-damaging chemicals like bromine get up to the stratosphere.

Just in the last century or so, and especially the last fifty years, and faster and faster each year, we have burned a significant percentage of the natural gas and petroleum reserves of the planet, and cut down a significant amount of the planet's forests.  We also invented refrigeration, and developed advanced refrigerants such as Freon, part of a family of chlorofluorocarbon chemicals that we have used heavily, and then dumped into the air.  This was unprecedented in history, and meanwhile the volcanos continued their usual spewing as well.  Volcanic spewing is a huge component - but human contribution is very much on the same scale now.  Volcanos make big peaks, but human contribution is large, continuous, and rising.

Now the ice caps are melting, the level of CO2 is the highest in hundreds of thousands of years (per ice-core drillings), our hurricanes are quite remarkable, our ozone layer got sick, etc.  Any single one of these facts would be inconclusive, but all of them together...  I have to think there is a connection between this, and our huge additions to the atmosphere.  Otherwise, I would have to believe in a very big coincidence.

And didn't Jacques Cousteau report that much of the ocean bottoms seemed to have died back in the 1980s?  We dump into the oceans as well, we have seen Brown Tides, etc.  All kinds of bad stuff has been happening.  Like I said, to believe that all of this is just part of a natural cycle, I would have to believe in a very big coincidence.  Several of them, in fact.