![]() So don’t use it for soldering! Unlike solder flux paste or liquid fluxes, Vaseline won’t do anything to help your solder flow smoothly and make good electrical connections with metal surfaces. While it may stick to things well under normal conditions, it does not function in the same way as solder flux. First of all, Vaseline is petroleum jelly made from hydrocarbons. No, Vaseline should not be used as a flux substitute. This means it’s more likely to oxidize faster and corrode faster. And since you’re working with solder at high temperatures, sudsy residues will evaporate, leaving the metal exposed to the hot solder. Like clean, dry metal surfaces do on their own, the suds from the dish soap may help prevent oxidation during heating (but not as much as true flux). But like water, dish soap doesn’t really provide anything that can improve soldering (at least compared to flux). What about using dish soap instead of flux?ĭish soap is often recommended as a replacement for paste or liquid fluxes, and some people even swear by it as an all-purpose substitute. In other words, the solder will still adhere to the surface just as well if there’s no water present. It can help reduce oxidation during heating on some metal surfaces (nickel and stainless steel), but it doesn’t have any cleaning or wetting properties. Water can be used as a substitute for flux in certain situations, but it has its limitations. You may find it interesting – What can I use if I don’t have soldering wire. You may end up with some bad-looking joints (not good for mechanical strength), and your solder wire could corrode faster since there isn’t any additional protection provided by the flux. When the parts are hot enough that the metal starts to melt, it’s more likely to form balls or lumps instead of creating an even coating. Without any type of added flux, solder won’t flow easily to the parts and will adhere poorly. Soldering is possible without using flux, but you’ll often get a poor joint. Keep reading to learn more! Can I solder without flux? But what if you run out of flux or need to do some quick repairs and don’t have any on hand? Are there any substitutes that can work just as well? In this post, we’ll take a look at some alternatives to flux and discuss how well they work. It helps the solder flow smoothly and adhere to the metal surfaces, which results in a strong, reliable joint. When it comes to soldering, flux is an essential ingredient. Home ▸ Soldering ▸ What Can Substitute For Solder Flux This entry was posted in Cool Stuff, iPad, Open Source Hardware, Tools / Equipment and tagged Charging, eagle cad, iPad, iPhone, iPod, LED, open source, open source hardware, pcb, SMD, surface mount by Jeremy. Happy iCharging! Eagle files are on Github. Not a for sure thing, but I’ll watch the feedback.īelow is a picture of the 2 other boards I did not populate yet, along with the prototype I made the other day. I’m thinking about getting some more made and selling them as kits, partially assembled (the SMD 603 LED and resistor) or fully assembled. They have spring loaded tops, and they are modular, you can form them in any configuration you want! How cool is that?! ![]() “But Jeremy? Where do you keep all of those SMD parts?” you ask? Good question, I use these awesome Modular Snap SMD component storage boxes from Adafruit. So I fired up the hot air rework station, grabbed my tweezers, and voila! SMD parts! (I did order some reels of 603 resistors and LED for use in future kits, sorry peeps, no old motherboard parts for you!) I use a good pair of tweezers, and a viewfinder from an old camcorder to inspect my work. Motherboards have a slew of SMD things on them. I got the 603 resistor from an old PC motherboard. (Can you blame me?) Now, 6 years later those tiny 603 blue LED’s come in handy. I had an old cell phone from 2006, and saved the keypad because it lit up blue. I used the same circuit I had in the old post, just added an LED and resistor for a power indicator. Although I do tend to favor 5V 2A supplies from Adafruit. ![]() You can’t beat that with a stick! Now, I have a nice little iDevice charger that accepts standard 5 volt power from any standard power supply. I sent off the files and 2 weeks later, I got three perfect purple PCB’s. Now, the boards I whipped up in a few hours, and had it made from DorkbotPDX service. ![]() (video link, it’s good, you should watch it!) I give her full credit for the circuit. This design is based (and the schematic is almost exact!) off of Ladyada’s Reverse engineering Apple’s secret charging methods. I had a post a while back on charging an iDevice (iPhone, iPad, iPod) and talked about and showed a schematic for the charging circuit. ![]()
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