Soldering for electronics

I'll get something on this page REAL SOON NOW.
Later: I have something, look!

The one thing that instigated it was discussion in a repair procedure about how you should use 63-37 solder. 60-40 (60 percent tin) is OK in a pinch, but 63 percent is almost perfect. Why? Because solder, at least if it's not 63-37, goes through a plastic state between liquid and solid as it cools, and the further way from this 63-37 "eutectic mixture" it is, the longer the plastic phase. Strength of the solder connection is affected. If it moves during the plastic phase, it gets pretty lumpy.

I guess I'll just plunk down some random stuff at random times. Here's another one:
Ordinary, or "vanilla", solder is just tin and lead. There are special applications where other elements are in the solder. Like silver, and sometimes silver solder has cadmium. That's poison (more so than lead). I've heard of case where cadmium poisoning (from frequent use of cadmium-bearing silver solder) was misdiagnosed and treated as mercury poisoning. The symptoms are similar, but the treatment for mercury poisoning doesn't work. What does work, I believe, is garlic -- particularly raw. I have a couple of pages about garlic -- see:

Written 1/16/1 and enhanced at various times in the then-future.

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