Ge Diodes and soldering

[saxtim]

Hi,

Just recently bought some Germanium diodes from small bear and I'm a bit worried about ruining them with excessive solder heat - I'm pretty sure these things hold up much worse to heat than the silicon counterparts right?  How careful should I be?  I was thinking about buying some of those snapoff style sockets and simply soldering two single ones of those in and then socketing the diode - is that worrying about it too much?

thanks
tim

[Peter Snowberg]

As long as you use a properly sized iron (no blow torches) and you solder quickly, you will have no problems. It should only take a maximum of 2 seconds to make each connection.

On the other hand, using sockets for diodes allows you to experiment with different combinations, and that alone is good reason to use a socket for them.

Transistors are much more sensitive to the heating than diodes are.

Take care,
-Peter

[sfr]

I often worry about destroying components, but to tell the truth I've had done some pretty bad jobs and thought "I must have destroyed that transistor" (I'm often way too underslept and I still haven't replaced my horrible little junker of a soldering iron) and while not everything I have works the first time, so far I've never ruined a component. . .

(of course, now all three or four projects half finished on my workbench are going to be full of non-working, overheated components.)

[saxtim]

Cool.  I'd often thought I'd ruined components too, specially some of the transistors I've soldered - but they've all worked so I guess it can't have been that bad.  I might go with the sockets anyways as you suggest Peter - it'll give me the option of fiddling later.

thanks

tim

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I happened to get a box of what must be "OOS' (Old Old Stock) Ge diodes, that had tarnished leads that resisted soldering until polished with fine sandpaper. So if you wnat ot solder quickly, maybe make sure the leads are shiny!

[petemoore]

On extensive builds with no diode sockets I leave a little extra lead on the top of the board, clip an alligater clip on it for a heat sink...probly overkill, but not that much trouble then I feel all confident about 1 more component in the ckt...I like it cause Im half confused half the time anyway and this little gesture takes away one more thing to wonder about.  
 Same goes for transistors, but I quite often socket those

[eliktronik]

On extensive builds with no diode sockets I leave a little extra lead on the top of the board, clip an alligater clip on it for a heat sink...probly overkill, but not that much trouble then I feel all confident about 1 more component in the ckt...I like it cause Im half confused half the time anyway and this little gesture takes away one more thing to wonder about.  
 Same goes for transistors, but I quite often socket those

RS actually sells a nice little spring loaded clip. I find it quite convenient not only for this, but to hold all kinds of stuff.

[Samuel]

Yeah those little clips are great for clamping down leads for trace repairs...