[TowerTalk] Silver Solder

[David Gilbert]

I'm not really confusing the two, although I wasn't as clear as I could 
have been.  I understand the difference ... I just don't see the point 
of using hard silver brazing rods.

1.  You don't need them for radial work.   A decent mechanical 
connection (even twisted wires) and normal lead-free low temperature 
silver bearing solder works fine with minimal hassle or special gear.

2.  For lightning grounds with a few connections, a proper mechanical 
clamp or an exothermic weld, both of which are readily available to 
hams, are as good or better than brazed connections using materials and 
equipment that are not as readily available.

Yeah, if I was working on commercial gear with lots of connections I'd 
probably use high silver content brazing rods as well, but that wasn't 
what the original post was about.

Dave   AB7E



On 8/7/2015 1:44 PM, charlie at thegallos.com wrote:
> <snip>> For lightning protection (or any high current application), solder
> seems
>> to me to be a very poor choice.  Solder, including silver solder, almost
>> invariably will be the highest resistance element (and the weakest
>> thermally) in the system and will act like an explosive fuse if it takes
>> a hit.  As Jim says, clamps or welds are the way to go for this.
>>
>> 73,
>> Dave   AB7E
> Dave, you are confusing "soft" silver solder with "Hard" silver solder aka
> silver brazing, which is explicitly allowed by the NEC.  Most places don't
> do it, because Cadwelds are easier, but ask the local engineer at the say
> AM radio station how they connect their grounds, or the local cell guy how
> they attach ground straps - yep, call in some guy with a welding torch and
> some real silver solder
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>