Good Morning Jan!
     
     Wow! Well I'm glad you tried it because I'm too chicken! The first 
     rule they taught us in metallurgy school is that molten metal and 
     water is a BAD combination. I would be a bit leery of the moisture in 
     a potato initiating an explosion. Dross is typically oxides and other 
     contaminates that are less dense than the solder alloy itself and so 
     dross floats on the surface of a solder pot. Because of this density 
     difference dross shouldn't be throughout your solder pot unless the 
     wave pumping action pulls some around. Dross is also very abrasive so 
     the wave solder equipment manufacturers don't want dross anywhere but 
     at the top of the solder pot. There are chemical additives that can be 
     used to "de-dross" a solder pot but I don't think they are potato 
     based. My guess is that all the dross that accumulated in the half 
     hour was generated because of the potatoes themselves. Sometimes dross 
     sinks just below the surface of a solder pot because it's not pure 
     dross - it contains small chunks of solder thus making it heavier. 
     Maybe the TechNet chemists can help out. 
     
     
     
     Dave Hillman
     Rockwell Collins
     [log in to unmask]
     


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Assy: Cleaning solder pot
Author:  [log in to unmask] at ccmgw1
Date:    12/13/96 2:16 AM


Hi all,
     
A colleague of mine had spoken with our soldering tin contractor about 
cleaning the solder pot. We had a theory that dross is floating beneath 
the surface but not at the bottom of the solder pot. The question was in 
how get them out. The contractors chemist had a theory which he had not 
tried himself but recommended it. He said: "Make somekind of skewer to 
attach four potatos in a row. The moisture in the potato will evaporate 
in the solder pot and make small bubbles which will push up the dross 
from the pot". We tried it and god(!!) what a reaction. We let them stay 
in the pot for about half an hour and sure got up some dross. WOW! The 
whole solderpot surface was covered by it. So now i'm wondering, does 
organic stuff like potato leave anything in the pot which will affect the 
quality in any way?? Has anyone tried anything similar? (probably not!) 
Dave, SIRguru any comments?
     
/Jan Merstrand
     
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