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Space Science

Solder in Space 62

Posted by michael from the keep-soldering-on dept.
crmartin writes "NASA discovers soldering in space. Cool pictures, and some surprises." Nice illustration of how flux works.
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Solder in Space More

Solder in Space

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  • Oh crap the circuit board! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Celt ( 125318 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @03:04PM (#10015702) Journal
    heh wouldn't want to have to do emergency circuit board soldering in space if thats the way it acts, it could be alot of fun

  • Good to know (Score:5, Funny)

    by terrymaster69 ( 792830 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @03:07PM (#10015731)
    Now Science Officer Smith can properly mod the spaceship's PS3/XBOX2/etc. for the long trip to Mars.

  • am i the only one.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...who read that as "Soldier in Space"?

  • Water in a frypan can be similar (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ratso Baggins ( 516757 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @03:20PM (#10015869) Homepage
    Put a teaspoon of water into a well heated frypan and the water (while it is still a liquid) will generally form up in little blobs and behaves in a similar fashion. ie. moving in a circular motion.
  • ...read this "Soldiering in Space"?

    And then think "Wow! What kind of gun is a FLUX!?"

    pfft.

  • Firemarshall Bill sez (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) * on Thursday August 19, 2004 @03:46PM (#10016176)
    "Lemme SHOWYASOMETHIN'!

    Let's say, kids, that you're in space, doing all those amaaaaaazing astronaut duties, like, say, performing a SOLDERING EXPERIMENT!

    There you are, performing your scientific experiments on soldering in space, with SUPERHOTSOLDER! Suddenly, your astronaut compatriot, who had the little spaceman's mexican meal packet, farts REALLY POWERFULLY in your direction, distracting your attention, and the SUPERHOTSOLDER goes right into yours eyes, blinding you for life!

    Be careful up there, kids - space is dangerous and full of monsters and SUPERHOTSOLDER!"

  • Why it spins. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CryptoEngineer ( 755293 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:09PM (#10016454)
    As to why the rosin separates from the solder, I don't know. But I think I know why it spins.

    Heat is being conducted into the rosin ball from the molten solder. The rosin is boiling or vaporising. Initially, this is symettric, but if only a small jiggle occurs, one side of the blob gets cooled by the air, and starts to vaporize at a lower rate. The other, trailing side vaporizes at a higher rate, and in reaction of the ball experiences a push from that side. The movement increases the cooling effect on the upwind side, and the process feeds on itself. Since the rosin blob touches only the liquid solder, there is little or no friction , and these tiny effects can build up.

    The astronaut was lucky the rosin ball didn't come right off and hit him in the eye.

    • Re:Why it spins. (Score:3, Informative)

      by Orne ( 144925 )
      You'll notice in the video he's wearing goggles.

    • Re:Why it spins. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Thursday August 19, 2004 @05:22PM (#10017189) Homepage Journal
      The astronaut was lucky the rosin ball didn't come right off and hit him in the eye.

      I noticed, though, that the smoke from the heated ball of solder and rosin was clearly "rising" away from the astronaut. I'm guessing that they were using a fan or something similar to blow gases away. I'd be curious to know what happens when you melt this sort of solder without a breeze -- I'll have to google "zero gee flame" to see what the latest combustion experiments have yielded.

      Also interesting... at 0:43 or so (in the Windows Media version), it looks like the guy holding the fan got distracted as the rosin bubble started spinning. The smoke starts moving in other directions, and a small chunk of... something... goes flying off to the upper right of the frame. Wonder what that was?

      • Re:Why it spins. (Score:3, Informative)

        by shfted! ( 600189 )
        You need a forced ventilation system in space, as microgravity and a confined space doesn't create enough of a gradiant to properly mix and balance the various gases in the air (like oxygen). So yes, they have fans.
      • The chunk was probably just some dust in the air floating around.
    • I think you are dead on here, I was thinking the same thing...

      On a related note - I wonder if the flux in welding rod (stick arc welding) would behave the same way? I also wonder if NASA could build a MIG-style solder gun (and use argon or something as an inert gas for preventing the oxidation - though that wouldn't cure the wetting issue of solder)?

    • I have an alternate hypothesis: As the droplet moves, it is encountering hotter solder on it's leading edge. The resin wets the metal beter at the higher temperature and the droplet is pulled around the solder by this leading edge.

      I believe a similar effect has been employed to move small water droplets around on a flat surface by pulling them along with a laser.

  • Movie (I hope NASA can handle it) (Score:3, Informative)

    by andfarm ( 534655 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:10PM (#10016459)
    http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/images/sol der/video_final/iss.mpg

    As the solder heats up, a little drop of flux starts to spin rapidly around the ball of molten solder. It's a seriously weird effect.

  • I've always wondered (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    what charges a flux capacitor. Now, I know. If they can just get it to spin in the other direction, maybe that DeLorean will start working.
  • ... wouldn't that prevent the problem of circling solder? It seems to me that the rosin wouldn't be necessary in space because oxidation doesn't need to be prevented. NASA says that "hydrogen and helium are the prime components and are only present at extremely low densities" [nasa.gov] in space. Thus, the only reason I could see rosin being necessary is if the soldering would take place inside the space vessel. Otherwise, it seems to me that rosin could be removed from solder that is to be used on the space-side of
    • "the only reason I could see rosin being necessary is if the soldering would take place inside the space vessel"

      I think that was the general idea: the behavior of solder when lacking *gravity*, not when lacking *oxygen*.

      I don't imagine that a lot of EVA repair work would involve soldering: anything *outside* the capsule had better use stronger connections than solder.

      I wonder if soldering EVA would also run into a problem in maintaining the necessary heat.
      • I thought that maintaining heat would be a problem, too.

        Then it was pointed out by another slashdotter that vacuum is an insulator. As demonstrated by the Thermos container.

        Soldering *might* be useful outside of one's spacecraft eventually. I'm mostly thinking of plumbing solder for running piping, however. But I imagine that doing relatively precise soldering while wearing spacesuit gloves wouldn't be the world's easiest task. But yeah, they'll probably be more interested in space welding than anythi
        • "I thought that maintaining heat would be a problem, too. Then it was pointed out by another slashdotter that vacuum is an insulator."

          Yes, but I wasn't thinking of heat being lost to the vacuum of space (during EVA).
          I'm thinking about heat being lost to anything which is directly or indirectly connected to the workpiece, because *they* would be cold (at least if not facing the sun).
        • Soldering *might* be useful outside of one's spacecraft eventually. I'm mostly thinking of plumbing solder for running piping, however.

          I don't think plumging in outerspace is really feasible. The space pants just don't ride low enough on the hips and I don't know what kind of crazy physics type anomaly would manifest itself when you expose plumber's crack to the vacuum of outerspace.
    • See, that was my thought too.

      I don't think that doing it in a vacuum is the world's greatest idea. Space suit gloves do a number on your manual dexterity.

      Given that you are probably going to have to collect the fumes anyway, it's probably not the world's worst idea to solder in a nitrogen filled bag, which fixes that problem.

      The problem, I think, is that not only are you cleaning off any of the newly created oxidation from the soldering iron, you are also cleaning off any of the existing oxidation. And

  • containing the smell? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by smaksly ( 751439 )
    Wouldn't the smell of the solder pose a problem in the spaceship?

    I remember reading a story about how strong fumes affect astronauts and that everything that goes into a spaceship gets sniffed to make sure its not emitting any unpleasant odors.
    • If you notice the stream of smoke moving horizontally, my guess is that they have a fume hood or something of the sort.

      Or heck, if he's like most hardware engineers he's been breathing solder fumes for a dozen years -- why stop now?

    • I remember reading a story about how strong fumes affect astronauts and that everything that goes into a spaceship gets sniffed to make sure its not emitting any unpleasant odors.

      The difference is that this would be a short term odor source that could be cleaned up through filtering the air through carbon filters. Once the source of the odor is gone (soldering) you can eliminate the odor. A piece of plastic that slowly gives off an odor for months and months is a different matter entirely since you ca
  • Hey whatdya know? I happen to be soldering in space RIGHT NOW.
  • Why didn't the resin splatter and land on his hand making it very hard to hold everything in place? Solder usually works that way.

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