Soldering substitutes

soldering

Seen hot-air-gunning, super-gluing, epoxy-gluing, plastic-taping, other-taping, –. Super-gluing joints did not look good as you need acetone to remove it!

  1. is epoxy gluing better substitute for soldering?
  2. when to use such substitutes?
  3. are they really substitutes or just bad habit?

Best Answer

Nothing you listed is a substitute for soldering, they are all things you can use for physical attachment or insulating but are not things to use for making an electrically conductive connection.

Hot-air-gunning, do you mean hot air soldering or maybe given the nature of the other things mentioned heat shrink tubing?

super glue (cyanoacrylate glue) is a good insulator. i have heard of people using it to provide extra hold on wire wrap boards. its not doing the job of solder though, its not providing the electrical connection but rather just keeping it from coming unwrapped.

Every type of epoxy i've used has been an insulator although there appear to be some that are conductive and may be useful in specific situations. (Thanks Michael/Jeanne)

Plastic tape is an insulator.

Duct tape's core is a conductor, but the coating and glue on the tape is an insulator.

I would never use any of these in place of solder.

I do use some of them as insulators though. For instance if I have soldered wires coming off a pcb i'll plop hot-glue or epoxy over the connection to glue the wire to the PCB and remove stress from the solder connection.