solder alloy change

The risk is that your chemistry will be off.. Don't do it..

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You're trying to balance the 'cost' of changing the alloy in your solder pot with risk of running a continually unknown and constantly changing alloy. I can't tell you what's best, because that depend on your situation. Some thoughts on changing the alloy are: * Cleaning a solder pot is dangerous and time consuming. You'll blow a weekend wearing a respirator doing this. * Cleaning a solder pot could be time well spent. You wouldn't be the first one to find serious corrosion problems in the pot while doing a clean-out. Better to find them on your terms rather than by wondering why all of your solder is on the floor later. * It won't be easy to obtain full value for your SAC307. Potential buyers will not believe that your alloy is clean.

Some thoughts on slowly changing the alloy are: * Likely, your thermal recipes for all your products will require constant tweeking, blowing your Cp and throughput. * Customers will not understand why you think running an unknown alloy is a good idea. * Solder suppliers will not provide much help troubleshooting your process after they find-out that you're running an unknown alloy.

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if your solder wave machine has a removable solder pot, consider getting a second solder pot. So you will start with a brand new empty solder pot. Keep the current one with your current solder as a backup.

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