Is it better to use rosin or solder paste for electric soldering iron? The difference and function between rosin and solder paste
There is still a difference between solder paste and rosin. Rosin is a solid crystalline mass extracted from the resin secreted by pine trees. What is usually referred to as solder high may be two different things. One can be used as flux and the other can be used directly as solder.
First introduce the rosin. It is the rosin secreted by pine trees, which is somewhat similar to the rubber on rubber trees. After natural rosin is processed, turpentine and rosin can be produced. Rosin is a very good flux, which is widely used in the soldering process of the electronics industry due to its non-corrosion and good insulation properties. The commonly used solder wire is a hollow core structure filled with rosin.
But solid rosin is inconvenient to use alone, so it is made into a paste. This must use other solvents and additives, so that the paste will not dry quickly for easy use. However, it is also possible to reduce the insulating properties of the flux, and some also have a certain degree of corrosion. Therefore, do not use solder paste with poor insulation performance when soldering electronic components and printed circuit boards. In the past, I used alcohol to dissolve rosin as flux. When soldering, the alcohol evaporates instantly, and the rest is pure rosin, which will not cause corrosion to electronic components and will not leak electricity. Just keep adding alcohol or it will get sticky very quickly.
Another kind called solder paste (also called tin paste) is made of tin powder and flux, which is silver gray. It is used as solder in the reflow soldering process to complete the soldering of SMD components. Before soldering, apply tin paste on the pad by scraping and place the components, and then pass through the reflow oven, the solder paste will melt into solder and complete the SMD soldering with the help of the soldering ingredients.
These two solder pastes are easy to distinguish, except that the color is different and the weight is also different. The silver paste made of tin powder is very heavy and the price is much more expensive.
