Hi this is my first post and I hope that someone can help! I'm in the process of trying to make a pure silver tonearm interconect. So far I have found a supplier which can supply reasonable cheap 99.99% pure silver tonearm cable. I have Eichmann silver bullet plugs which are also milled from 99.9% pure silver. This is where things start to fall down. I have 4% solder to connect the tonearm cable to the Eichmanns. But I have a friend that is a jeweller that can supply pure silver solder. My ultimate goal would be to use 99% pure solder to connect the tonearm cable to the Eichmann's. There are one or two things that I would like answering if possible :-
1. How high a content silver solder can a normal soldering iron solder?
2. Can anyone recommend a decent silver solder flux for high content silver
solder.
3. Would any gas powered soldering gun work for high content silver soldering?
Thanks in advance.
1. How high a content silver solder can a normal soldering iron solder?
2. Can anyone recommend a decent silver solder flux for high content silver
solder.
3. Would any gas powered soldering gun work for high content silver soldering?
Thanks in advance.
You need too much heat for pure silver soldering. Use Cardas quad eutectic solder; the small amount of silver present will be sufficient for a quality joint.
Or plain old silver-bearing tin-lead. I bought some 2% silver solder cheap from Radio Shack and it makes terrific connections to silver wire. Beautifully shiny and fully-wetting joints.
Don't know, never would pay the ripoff artists their prices, but the RS solder flows well and makes a beautiful, reliable joint with silver wires and silver terminals. What else can you ask for? Leaves money to spend on irrelevant stuff like music.
If you attempt to use 99% silver to solder the melting point will be virtually identical with that of the wire and the connectors. This is indeed where things start to fall down. The process at that point might more accurately be described as welding. I don't know what the bullet connectors are exactly like in this case, maybe you can get the wire to spark weld to them?
A really inventive person might contrive a connector which could be swaged or crimped to the wire. I think it's moderately easy to cast silver, or you could get some rod and turn it in a power drill, or lathe if you have one...
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...or you could just not bother, as silver wire is not strictly necessary. Why not spend the money on a nice medallion?
A really inventive person might contrive a connector which could be swaged or crimped to the wire. I think it's moderately easy to cast silver, or you could get some rod and turn it in a power drill, or lathe if you have one...
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...or you could just not bother, as silver wire is not strictly necessary. Why not spend the money on a nice medallion?
I gotta say, not to be divisive, but the Cardas quad really is the nicest solder I've ever used. I've used the RS silver, Kester "44" 2% silver, Kester "44" 63/37, Parts Express 4%, and some unknown flavors, too.
The Cardas flux content seems to be a little excessive, and ideally needs a little cleaning, but the flow really is impressive.
I also think, other than getting some silver content to prevent leaching of silver plated terminals, that there ain't no difference in performance between any of the above solders.
The Cardas flux content seems to be a little excessive, and ideally needs a little cleaning, but the flow really is impressive.
I also think, other than getting some silver content to prevent leaching of silver plated terminals, that there ain't no difference in performance between any of the above solders.
Many thanks for your replies guys but my questions mainly remain unanswered. I use 4.6% silver content and this is pretty easy to solder with a 15watt no-name soldering iron. I'll be trying 9.6% silver content soon and see if this works any better.
I wish to use a high silver content because I want to get the purist conductor possible for carrying sound! My logic is simple, I have a 99.9% pure RCA plug, then I use 4.6% silver content solder where my 99.99% pure silver tonearm cables meets to connect the two togther! Surely this must effect the carrying of the sonics along the tonearm wires. Hence, keep the silver as pure as possible, hopefully to keep the conduction as good as possible. I'm even considering hardwiring the tonearm cables directly into the phonostage RCA connects, this way we bypass the gold plated RCA's inputs which my phonostage has which are massively inferior to silver for conductivity. In an ideal world I would love to have a continuous 99.9% pure wiring from the cartridge itself to the RCA inputs on the phonostage PCB!!!!
I wish to use a high silver content because I want to get the purist conductor possible for carrying sound! My logic is simple, I have a 99.9% pure RCA plug, then I use 4.6% silver content solder where my 99.99% pure silver tonearm cables meets to connect the two togther! Surely this must effect the carrying of the sonics along the tonearm wires. Hence, keep the silver as pure as possible, hopefully to keep the conduction as good as possible. I'm even considering hardwiring the tonearm cables directly into the phonostage RCA connects, this way we bypass the gold plated RCA's inputs which my phonostage has which are massively inferior to silver for conductivity. In an ideal world I would love to have a continuous 99.9% pure wiring from the cartridge itself to the RCA inputs on the phonostage PCB!!!!
Why should it? "Sonics" are not carried along the tonearm wire, the electrical signal from the cartridge is. There is some small benefit to using silver wire for that, but the soldered joints represent a vanishingly small fraction of the total loop resistance.
In any event, bottom line is that if you want everything to be silver, you're welding, not soldering. A very different process with questionable (at best) benefit and large potential drawbacks.
You can't conventionally solder 99% Ag wire to a 99% Ag block. Imagine soldering 60/40 solder wire to a massive cube of 60/40 Sn/Pb alloy. You would melt and deform the block.
jewellery solder wire with 50% or 60% Silver content have melting point at 660 - 710°C (1220°F - 1310°F). More Silver content = higher melting point. For pure Silver melting point is at 961.9°C (1763°F).
No way to solder this with soldering iron, you need welding equipment. Eichmann silver bullet RCA's will melt at this temperature.
Mixing silver wire with regular solder wire will lower melting point, but solder joint is unreliable and breaks easily.
No way to solder this with soldering iron, you need welding equipment. Eichmann silver bullet RCA's will melt at this temperature.
Mixing silver wire with regular solder wire will lower melting point, but solder joint is unreliable and breaks easily.
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Also used fore soft welding top quality high tensile tubes when making quality bycicle frames, not to dammage the very thin 0.5mm tube
Welding equipment could be very simple, and may use ordinary householding gas, you only need the right tool, but nothing special
Welding equipment could be very simple, and may use ordinary householding gas, you only need the right tool, but nothing special
The Eichmanns have a terribly small ground contact. It melts with the slightest touch of a soldering iron, and needs something that can form the joint before the heat travels into the plastic portion. Something you may need to think about.
You may be able to achieve your requirement if you can ensure the wire contacts the connectors and stays there before using any solder, this will ensure a small mechanical connection under the solder, so it is immaterial what solder you use.
Over here in my country we only get solder in two grades: 'Pathetic', and 'Worse than Pathetic', so I plumped for a roll of Cardas solder from Percy Audio. It's the best stuff I've ever used, and it flows better and has less flux than almost everything else I've been able to source locally. I still use regular 60/40 (or what is labelled as such) for non-critical applications. Can't attribute any sonic differences to solder, but the expensive stuff is much easier to work with and doesn't let out as much smoke.
You may be able to achieve your requirement if you can ensure the wire contacts the connectors and stays there before using any solder, this will ensure a small mechanical connection under the solder, so it is immaterial what solder you use.
Over here in my country we only get solder in two grades: 'Pathetic', and 'Worse than Pathetic', so I plumped for a roll of Cardas solder from Percy Audio. It's the best stuff I've ever used, and it flows better and has less flux than almost everything else I've been able to source locally. I still use regular 60/40 (or what is labelled as such) for non-critical applications. Can't attribute any sonic differences to solder, but the expensive stuff is much easier to work with and doesn't let out as much smoke.
Beside the need to do this it is possible to do this with a proces called hard soldering. In a jewelery shop they use a very small but hot flame. With the very small flame you can head a small spot on the bullet plug and with 99.9% silversolder you can solder the wires on this small spot.
Do some training on cheap plugs first, because it is not a easy task to do.
For hard soldering you need a relative cheap welding tool with propane/buthane gas and oxygen. I have bought one for $100,- last year.
You can allways ask the local jewelery schop to do it for you.
Do some training on cheap plugs first, because it is not a easy task to do.
For hard soldering you need a relative cheap welding tool with propane/buthane gas and oxygen. I have bought one for $100,- last year.
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You can allways ask the local jewelery schop to do it for you.
Maybe I'm just way off here, but how about skipping soldering as a joining approach altogether and using some kind of mechanical joint?
In the jewlery trade silver solder comes in several grades that is melting points but
I think the lowest melting point for jewlery repair is about 1200 degrees. Also with
the higher timperature you need a strong flux rosen just won't work.
I think the lowest melting point for jewlery repair is about 1200 degrees. Also with
the higher timperature you need a strong flux rosen just won't work.
Can you elaborate a little further DeadPirate? this sounds an interesting idea.
Hi. I did a lot of research and trial/error on this a few years ago. There was 1 viable solution I found - laser welding. Laser welding is a highly specialized service and you have have expensive (minimum $10,000 US when I was looking at this) with lots of training. Here in the Atlanta area, I ended up finding a guy who was one of the first people in the US to use laser welding for jewelry applications, so he is well versed in applying this technique to silver. He was quite intrigued by my audio applications of teh welding and he welded the joints on a pair of pure silver DIY ICs as a test. He told me that the laser energy is so focused that you could hold the part in your hand as it welded. Obviously, for safety reasons that is not what you actually do. But his point is that the heat is highly localized. I had at one time envisioned a point-to-point amp with NO solder joints - all laser welded. But each weld costs about US$20 and I lost interest in that idea. Using laser welding for IC's however, makes much more sense.
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