HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT SOLDER BARS

Solder bars and solid solder wires are used in different alloys as base and refill solders for wave and selective soldering in electronics manufacturing. Stannol solders for printed circuit boards are produced from virgin metals only. To achieve the expected high quality we only use tin with a purity content of at least 99.9%. For lead-containing and lead-free applications, Stannol manufactures many different high purity solders for electronics manufacturing. These solders are produced to international standards or with special properties such as minimised dross formation and minimised copper dissolution. The ongoing development of solders for the electronic industry has highest priority at Stannol.

Lead-free solders, based on pure tin with an addition of silver and/or copper, are suitable for all lead-free applications in electronics manufacturing.

For the production of electronics, ECOLOY TSC alloys (Tin, Silver, Copper) are a reliable lead-free option. TSC alloys are available in different compositions and vary by the ratio of tin, silver and copper. The eutectic alloy TSC with Sn95.5Ag3.8Cu0.7 should be highlighted due to its low melting point of 217°C and excellent wetting properties.

The alloy TSC305 (Sn96.5Ag3.0Cu0.5) with a lower silver content has become an industrial standard alloy over the last years. Lower silver reduces the price and a lopper content ensures less maintenance.

Even more favourable is the alloy TSC0307, which has a composition of 99% tin and only 0.3% silver and 0.7% copper. Up to 90% of the expensive silver can be reduced, although the properties are virtually the same during the soldering process.

The TC alloy (S-Sn99.3Cu0.7) is a lead-free solder, which replaces eutectic or almost eutectic tin-lead alloys at the lowest possible cost. The main advantage of the product is that it contains no silver, which leads to extensive cost savings, as well as a defined melting point of 227°C and good wetting properties.

For manufacturing sites where a low dissolution rate of copper and iron is an important issue for a reliable soldering process, microalloyed solders have been developed in our laboratory. Due to the addition of small amounts of metal dopants like Co and Ni, the solders have a considerably lower copper and iron dissolution.

This results in less control and maintenance of the soldering equipment. FLOWTIN solders by Stannol are patent pending. FLOWTIN solders show a finer grain structure which leads to an optimised shiny surface of the solder joint. This is an additional advantage compared to conventional lead-free solders.

SN100C® is another silver-free microalloyed solder with unique properties. Due to its acceptance and usage in many thousand different wave- and selective soldering equipment, it has become a worldwide accepted industrial standard. It is also well established solder for HASL-equipment in the PCB manufacturing. Based on S99.3Cu0.7 with additions of Ni and Ge this solder has economic advantages due to the missing expensive silver. The addition of nickel and germanium ensures a highly reduced dissolution rate of copper. Additionally the dross formation is much lower than with standard solders.

This alloy is worldwide patented by the company NIHON SUPERIOR (e.g. patent no. EP0985486) and licensed by Stannol. Therefore we can offer our customers SN100C® and its variations in the expected Stannol quality! Different solder wires are available in SN100C® to ensure our customers the usage of one alloy all over the whole manufacturing process