Re: Gold-Plated PCB-mount Sockets?

On Mar 22, 7:26 pm, t...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I've been reading about how two different types of metal, when in
contact as an electrical connection, can cause bad things to happen.
Specifically, for my current interests: gold and tin (or tin/lead)
connector-contacts should not be mated. So, for example, it would be
a bad idea to use DIP IC sockets that have gold plating, unless the IC
pins are also gold. So far so good. I can (not) do that.

I've also been reading that gold-plated pins should not be soldered
with tin/lead solder, IIRC. Is that correct? I've think I've read
that doing so will cause the solder joints to be more brittle and have
higher resistance, and possibly get worse with time.

But then what about all of those nice gold-plated Molex PCB headers
and sockets? What should I use to solder them to a PCB? Or should I
just switch back to tin?

- TomGootee

http://www.fullnet.com/~tomg/index.html

From what I can see, the consensuses seem to be:

1. For almost all receptacle-to-pin-mating situations, both socket and
pin surfaces should be made of the same metal. One exception seems to
be that acceptable performance can be gotten when putting a tin or tin/
lead DIP IC pin into a (round) machined or turned gold-plated socket
(but NOT a gold-plated "flat contact" or "leaf-spring" type of DIP
socket), although, if practical, no IC socket at all would be best.

2. Soldering a gold-plated pin into a PCB, using tin/lead solder,
"should" be OK. But using 62/36/2 tin/lead/silver solder should be
better.

- Tom Gootee

http://www.fullnet.com/~tomg/index.html

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