Standard Incandescent Bulb Salvaging

[spaceman]

Does anybody know if the small amount of electrical solder used at the base of the bulb is anything special. I have a collection of burnt out bulbs that I would like to melt the solder off of for sensitive electrical connections on breadboard. I guess what I am asking is it a high grade electronic solder that they use on lamps bases?

 

[(*steve*)]

If about as special as the aluminum used in the ring pulls on soft drink cans.

 

[Alec_t]

You may find that the lamp base solder has a high melting point, so less easy to solder with on circuit boards. Plus, you'd have to apply flux externally instead of having it in convenient wire cores.

 

[(*steve*)]

And I bet you're going to tell me that all the hair I've been collecting from hairbrushes isn't going to be useful either!

It's made of GOLD I tell you! (More like silver in my case...)

 

[spaceman]

You may find that the lamp base solder has a high melting point, so less easy to solder with on circuit boards. Plus, you'd have to apply flux externally instead of having it in convenient wire cores.

Good Point. So basically we are talking a poor solder for breadboard. I still have junked circuit boards I can remove solder from. Thanks for all feedback.

 

[(*steve*)]

I wouldn't try to recover solder from circuit boards either. You don't know what mixture of soldered you'll get. Aside from the flux issue mentioned previously, your recovered solder will be a mix of potentially many types of solder. It's not impossible to get a mix that is unsuitable for use as solder.

Apart from all that, how are you going to get the solder into a form you could reuse it?

 

[spaceman]

I was going to drip it into a small diameter copper tube with a metal funnel. Then push out when cooled.
its hard to find the acid core anymore. I think I can get free flux by draining out the liquid from spent dry cell batteries. I am also considering hammering the pins of old amx and pentium chips and connectors that have the nano gold coating into plumbers tin solder.

 

[(*steve*)]

Acid core solder is probably fine for plumbers, but you should never use it for electronics. And I hope you understand the difference between an acid and a base. On that matter, have you seen the damage that leaking batteries can do to electronics? Would you intentionally spread this stuff around your electronics?

And if you drop it into copper tubes, it may join itself to the copper because, well, that's what solder is for.

I have no idea what you intend to do with gold coated pins or where nano anything comes into it.

 

[spaceman]

I have no idea what you intend to do with gold coated pins or where nano anything comes into it.

I wanted to stress that the gold is an extremely small amount . I think the base metal of the pins is tin but cannot say for sure. Would like that if anybody definitely knew they would post that info . The extremely small amount of gold would keep the solder fluid to avoid cracks to the same extent a high quality electronics solder that would be purchased. Copper I believe will only allow adherence by capillary effect in an almost interference space so that should not be an issue. I did not know about the acid core solder being used for plumbing tho. If so why bother fluxing copper fittings together if the acid core will do the same thing ?