09:37 <yorick> Twix: if you have a kitchen pot with temperature control, maybe

09:37 <yorick> Twix: I guess the kitchen pot wastes a lot of galden

10:17 <Twix> yorick, you don't need temperature control since the temperature of the vapor phase balances itself. The galden vapor phase does have an exact temperature at air pressure near sea level. We did it once on an chemicans plate(because those can get hotter than a normal hotplate) and a high beaker(a high kitchen pot will do, too). Also we used a termocouple to check if the pcb has reached solder temperature. We lost a little of the galden but not much

10:18 <yorick> Twix: this thing here says to never ever let the galden get to 300 degrees

10:18 <yorick> because it will poison you

10:18 <yorick> and then they sell a $2000 oven for vapour phase soldering

10:18 <Twix> it can't reach 300 °C

10:19 <yorick> why is the oven $2000?!

10:21 <Twix> because it recovers the more of the galden. Which makes totally sence if you do the process often and not like me in your garage for fun :D

10:21 <Twix> *sense

12:42 <whitequark> Twix: that is not correct

12:43 <whitequark> if some parts of your machine overheat because e.g. they end up being bare (not covered with galden), then they can reach 300°C

12:43 <whitequark> sure, that might not be very likely. but the consequences of this are severe because it decomposes to hydrofluoric acid and fluorophosgene, among other products

12:44 <whitequark> so you should have at least two independent temperature control methods. I would go for a thermocouple and then a failsafe bimetallic sensor wired at 290°C or sth

12:45 <whitequark> yorick: I did some galden soldering in a heated pot I bought for like $3 at the nearest kitchen store. disabled its built-in safety (since it trips at 105°C or such), and connected it to a PID controller I had around. works beautifully

12:46 <whitequark> that heated pot is like a pan you might heat pasta in, but it has a heating element attached to the bottom. very convenient for this use case.

12:46 <whitequark> if you cover it with a lid, then almost no vapor escapes (it is very heavy and condenses easily), conserving the working fluid

12:47 <whitequark> it is hands down one of the absolute easiest soldering processes I have ever used. would recommend to everyone

12:47 <whitequark> just make sure to have that shutdown

13:34 <gruetzkopf> my setup has a condensation coil and excess of galden - and it also has two cutoffs, though none with a bimetallic strip

13:37 <whitequark> oh yeah doesn't have to be bimetallic