Chipquik substitutes - Rose's Metal, Roto136F

[clearchris]

My chipquik supply is running low, so I did a little research.

Chipquik melts at 58 Celsius (136 F).
http://www.chipquik.com/store/produc...ucts_id=210001

There are a number of alloys not containing cadmium that also have similar melt points. Rose's metal is commonly available on ebay, and at pretty attractive price points. Rose's metal melts between 94 and 98 °C (201 and 208 °F). A bit higher melt point than chip quik though. The higher melt point could be livable if it had better properties, like being able to be cleaned out of closely spaced pins. If I remove a tightly spaced package with chipquik, the chip is trash, I can't get the alloy out of the pins.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sac...ismuth&_sop=15
Also available from rotometals for $14 (+$5 shipping to me) for a POUND ingot.
https://www.rotometals.com/roto208f-...t-roses-metal/

Alternately, they have a half pound ingot of 136F melt point alloy for $34.
https://www.rotometals.com/roto136f-...und-per-ingot/

Either way, a half pound or a full pound is probably a lifetime supply for me, although I might use it a bit more than I do now if it were cheaply available. Right now, chipquik is used only if all else fails. I also don't know the weight of chipquik, they have no mention of weight and sell if by the foot.

So, anyone use any of these?

[diif]

Re: Chipquik substitutes - Rose's Metal, Roto136F

The 136F melt alloy has the exact ratios as chipquik, if i was buying one that would be it.
10cm/4inches of chipquik weighs ~ 1g. So a foot is around 3g.

[clearchris]

Re: Chipquik substitutes - Rose's Metal, Roto136F

Thanks for the weighing diif!

So, there are 266.8 grams in a half a pound, so that's approximately 75ft of chipquik. The longest pack of chipquik available is 32ft at $190 list or $160 at mouser. So the ingot is roughly 300$ worth of chipquik for $33 plus shipping. Damn. I might just get one of those.

Only downside is if you can't melt it with an iron, but bismuth is one of the worst metals for thermal transmission, so it's unlikely to be an issue.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Chipquik substitutes - Rose's Metal, Roto136F

Now I wish there was a way to easily make wire out of ingots and pellets...

[petehall347]

Re: Chipquik substitutes - Rose's Metal, Roto136F

model makers use the same stuff for bending small copper pipes .

[clearchris]

Re: Chipquik substitutes - Rose's Metal, Roto136F

I'm not convinced wire is the best form for chipquik. Maybe my technique is bad, but this week, I melted enough chipquik on my first opamp to reuse on the other 6 opamps. Picking it up on the iron seemed a much less messy process anyway.

If I really cared, I could probably make a 3d printed form. Wire would probably be out considering how brittle the alloy it is, but I bet I could make some rods.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Chipquik substitutes - Rose's Metal, Roto136F

I thought as distributed, Chipquik is wire?

Well a rod would work but that's basically a wire. I just wonder how "clean" it is to use a pellet especially if that pellet is much more than necessary.

Honestly I've never used this stuff before. Would be nice to keep costs low and if pellets are cheap, would be nice to get wire.

I also have a blob of waste (basically, all the solder that my desolder station sucked up) regular solder that would be nice to reform into a wire, so I can more easily use it as fill metal when needed. I thought the blob (well, now it's more like a cookie or biscuit after melting and molding it all) is at least 100g now though I can't remember how much it weighed the last time I measured.

[clearchris]

Re: Chipquik substitutes - Rose's Metal, Roto136F

Yes, chipquik is wire. I was talking generally about the alloy, which is generically called "Cerrolow 136." Well, wire I'd say is thin, when I say rod, I'm probably talking about 1/8" minimum.

I find it very hard to not use more then necessary in it's current form of wire, unless I break small pieces off and use tweezers to deliver it to the joint. It melts so quickly, you blink and you have a big blob on there.

I don't think you can feasibly make wire out of your recovered solder, but you could get a solder pot. Probably really nice for tinning wires. I wouldn't use my recovered solder because there is chipquik mixed in with it. I'd probably be ok with a mixture of lead free and leaded solder.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Chipquik substitutes - Rose's Metal, Roto136F

not sure how good the used solder is. Yes it's a base mixture of leaded (60Sn40Pb / 63Sn37Pb), really leaded (50Sn50Pb), and leadfree (97Sn+) solder... I'd not be surprised it's back to being close to eutectic based on the mixture of solders in it where the leadfree offsets the really leaded solder...

However it probably has a lot of iron and copper mixed in, and probably has some gold and silver in it (yeah, right... only trace amounts.) Because of these impurities it probably won't wet well...