Solder Conductiivity compare to Copper

Thread Starter

Management

Joined Sep 18, 2007
306
Does anyone know what the % difference in conductivity be between high lead solder and copper? I saw somewhere that high lead solder was like 8% the conductivity of copper.

Is that true or do you know another percentage?

Thank you.
 

KL7AJ

Joined Nov 4, 2008
2,229
Those numbers are about right for a hunk of solder "in the wild." However, a properly soldered CONNECTION can be MUCH MUCH better than that. This is because CORRECT soldering actually forms a new copper based alloy on the surface of the base metals....nearly as good as copper itself. This is NOT true of a bad "cold" solder connection, however, where the conductivity can actually be much WORSE than raw solder.


Eric
 

rspuzio

Joined Jan 19, 2009
77
According to the CRC Handbook:

Cu: 1.7 μΩ cm
50% Pb - 50% Sn: 15 μΩ cm
Pb: 19.2 μΩ cm

Perhaps not exactly the alloy you had in mind (50-50 as opposed
to 60-40), but the figure of 8% looks about right. maybe a bit low -
-- for the 50-50 alloy, we have 8.8%, for pure lead 11.3%.

I guess that explains why we use copper in long, thin wires
but only make thick blobs out of the solder.
 
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