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Copper slip on eletrical connectors.
antimony - 15/7/09 at 08:27 AM

Hi folks.
Is copper slip conductive?
I have a circuit board with an intermittent power loss fault. Rather than trust my very dodgy soldering, I thought a bit of copper grease may fill any cracks in the solder.
Good idea or utter rubbish?

coozer - 15/7/09 at 08:35 AM

Rubbish, solder it or get some one who can

thunderace - 15/7/09 at 08:37 AM

stick the pins of a multi meter in it and do a continuity test

iank - 15/7/09 at 08:54 AM

You can get high silver content paint that is conductive and might work, but soldering will be much more reliable and probably easier.

02GF74 - 15/7/09 at 08:57 AM

nope - put the tub down.

you need to examine visually i.e. look at the joints to see if you can spot what is known as a "dry joint".

read this

any dodgy ones, you would put a small amount of solder onto the tip - the motled solder help to conduct heat - place onto joint so it mels, and add a bit more solder to it. sometimes a bit of flux on the joint helps (plumbers flux from B&Q will work).

the joint should look like a little mountain of shiny sholder that covers the whole pad and rises maybe 1 - 2 mm up the wire.

as ^^^ say, a multimeter, if you have one, would help too.


the example of a good joint in the linky does not look all that good to me.

top left corner here:



BTW - what circuit is it?

02GF74 - 15/7/09 at 08:58 AM

quote:
Originally posted by iank
You can get high silver content paint that is conductive and might work, but soldering will be much more reliable and probably easier.


and much much cheaper!!!

that stuff is a last resort and is usually for restoring broken tracks - also for low current stuff.

Peteff - 15/7/09 at 09:46 AM

Copaslip is not conductive it is a good insulator if you put it on thick enough. I've repaired tracks with a wire bridge rather than just rely on the solder.

britishtrident - 15/7/09 at 09:47 AM

quote:
Originally posted by 02GF74
quote:
Originally posted by iank
You can get high silver content paint that is conductive and might work, but soldering will be much more reliable and probably easier.


and much much cheaper!!!

that stuff is a last resort and is usually for restoring broken tracks - also for low current stuff.



And also for repairing heated rear windows.

BenB - 15/7/09 at 11:06 AM

I'd definately re-solder it. For the cost of one of those conductive paints you could get a nice soldering iron and some solder And it won't flake off as soon as you put a few mA through it....

nz_climber - 15/7/09 at 10:24 PM

Maybe get someone who can solder it nicely to have a go first

Also the picture above is some of the worst soldering ever!!

Staple balls - 15/7/09 at 10:36 PM

Yup, solder, there's no good reason to do otherwise