restoring corroded components

[ulysses]

hey all

i often recycle components from old gear destined for the scrap heap and often they have corroded legs and are hard to solder

soak them in coke-cola? wondering if anyone has any good tips

cheers

[njkmonty]

flux?

[Marcos - Munky]

Use some steel wool to sand the parts legs. This will clean the corrosion and all the stuff that makes hard to solder.

[amptramp]

I use 220 grit sandpaper but you have to be careful.  I recently had an electrolytic capacitor that I cleaned up this way show up as having leads that were attracted to a magnetized screwdriver.  That meant thin tin plating over steel, so don't go through the outer plating or you will never be able to solder it.

Supposedly high-quality components can be worse - back when I was working on spacecraft, we used a lot of metal-can 2N2222A's with glass seals for the leads which were gold-plated kovar.  The gold at the 150 micro-inch plating thickness was porous, so it formed an electrolytic cell with the kovar that rusted away under the gold.  Kovar is a nickel-steel that matches the temperature coefficient of expansion of glass.

[sominka]

If the leads are long and plenty of length for reuse. Just cut them. If not use a realy hot iron to desolder them.

[ulysses]

thx for the replies guys   

[pinkjimiphoton]

Use some steel wool to sand the parts legs. This will clean the corrosion and all the stuff that makes hard to solder.

i understand this approach, but gotta say theres some caveats. when ya sand stuff, you're putting little grooves in it that will make it rust more, and more likely to fail.

soaking the leads in coca cola actually makes a little sense. wipe it off with aluminum foil. i kid ya not.  the reaction between the aluminum and the iron in the leads and the carbolic acid in the coke should actually work to clean the leads with no damage.

that said, i usually just run a razor blade down them and a dab of flux. that usually is enough to get a good joint without damaging it too much.

but like all this stuff, ymmv!