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Identify the flux in cored solder


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I have 6 reels of cored solder that have been stored in damp conditions resulting in the sticker stating if the core is resin or acid being detached/lost. Is there any way a mere mortal such as me can identify if the flux is acid or resin.
Thanks.
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Its been a while since I played around with solder and fluxes. But solder core with acid fluxes used to be quite rare. The chances are its likely to be resin. I would use some and if the residue is brownish its resin, acid based fluxes, if I remember correctly, left a whitish residue. We used to use acid based fluxes and washed all residue for fear of corrosion. But I did tests and found no noticable corrosion after several years. Cored Fluxes are temperature dependent and provided your joints aren`t over 70 (conservative estimate) degrees for appreciable length of time I wouldn`t worry.
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Posted by Hogster on 10/01/2012 20:03:03:
Its been a while since I played around with solder and fluxes. But solder core with acid fluxes used to be quite rare. The chances are its likely to be resin. I would use some and if the residue is brownish its resin, acid based fluxes, if I remember correctly, left a whitish residue. We used to use acid based fluxes and washed all residue for fear of corrosion. But I did tests and found no noticable corrosion after several years. Cored Fluxes are temperature dependent and provided your joints aren`t over 70 (conservative estimate) degrees for appreciable length of time I wouldn`t worry.
 
Many thanks for your comments.

Edited By J.N. on 11/01/2012 09:13:59

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I think acid fluxes are used more in the plumbing trade than electronics. And usualy, because of the size of the joints, the flux is applied seperately to the solder. I worked in electronics and we used solder core with water based flux which was supposed to be very corrosive and had to washed of, but in my experience that was a bit overstated. If your building for the MOD you cant leave anything to chance. But for consumer electronics the residue can be left with little risk IMHO.
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