Metcal Blog

Our own Robert Roush recently joined a panel on the challenges of proper solder joints with Indium Corporation’s Brook Sandy-Smith, technical support engineer, Andrew Nunenkamp, director of engineering at MC Assembly, and Vince Burns, quality engineer and an IPC Certified Trainer.

Metcal's exciting and innovative Connection Validation product has been a big hit, winning four awards to date. We've received questions from around the world, looking for a little more detail about how the process works. The infographic below helps explain.

Until the release of our CV-5210 power station, Metcal soldering stations have not featured a tip temperature display. Many customers, especially Contract Manufacturers have lamented this, because of their need to provide documentation and support for their customers and ISO or other process control requirements.

Solder tip life is a constant discussion among users of hand soldering for almost all applications. Whether you're in production, rework, or R&D, the cost of tips and their longevity impacts the ROI of your overall soldering investment.  While operators almost always want the tip to be hot, hot, hot, and all the time, using a soldering iron sleep stand can significantly improve the life of your solder tips.

When used when the handpiece is idle, a Solder Sleep Stand automatically reduces the power supplied to the hand piece, leading to:

• Reduced idle temperatures
• Slower chemical reactions
• Less inter-metallic formation
• Less de-wetting
• Longer tip life

Take a look at this chart that illustrates the effect of using the sleeper stand for just a few minutes. 

You can see how this can significantly reduce the power consumption as well, meaning for a production environment, it can affect your total ROI.

Theoretical Example:

If you have 5 soldering irons each in production using on average 40 watts per hour over an 8 hours day your consumption is: