Cardas Quad Eutectic 10ft / 3.04m Silver Solder 

High quality Cardas solder made from the right combination of 4 metals.

Cardas solder is made with Ultra pure, tin / lead /

silver / copper, Quadeutectic .032 solder, activated rosin core flux. 

Melting Temperature 338°F/170°C

Most solders, such as the popular 60/40, are a slurried mixture of

tin and lead. In making the joint, the tin/lead mixture melts, but

solidifies one metal at a time. It goes into a slurry state and one

metal is liquid and the other is very small solid particles, sort of

like wet cement. Next, the other metal solidifies and creates a million

little connections. This type of connection is not particularly good and

not permanent. 

When the phone company used this type of solder on their main frames,

every joint had to be reheated once a year to ensure reliability. Even

then, the "cold joint" was a common occurrence. Bad and noisy joints

were the main cause of failure in early printed circuit boards and

electronic equipment until the mid sixties to early seventies.

Manufacturers learned that eutectic joints were perfectly reliable and

we do mean perfectly. Starting in the mid seventies and into the early

eighties most electronic equipment was being soldered with eutectic

solder (63/37). The reliability of printed circuit boards went up about

1000% and solid state audio gear began to sound almost tolerable. Today,

all printed circuit boards use 63/37 eutectic solder. 

Eutectic solder is a special mixture. The melting point of a eutectic

solder is lower than any of its component parts, so there is no slurry

state in these solders. They solidify as one piece and make a true

solder joint, not a connection. Now, provided that the parts being

soldered are made of the metal incorporated in the solder (tin plate in

the example of printed circuit boards and component leads, with 63/37

tin/lead eutectic solder in the solder baths), you will have a perfect

joint.

These quality joints are easy to see. Most solders are very shiny

when molten and get a haze on their surface as they solidify. Eutectic

joints are shiny all the way to the metal being soldered, if the metal

being soldered is of the same parent group as any of the components of

the solder. Many of the Cardas and other high-end connectors are plated

silver with a rhodium flash. The only wires used in high end audio are

copper and silver, so George Cardas developed a tin/lead/silver/copper

eutectic or Quad eutectic solder. Cardas reports never having, or

hearing of, a single failure in one of these joints. This solder is now

used in the vast majority of all high end cables and equipment. Properly

done, Quad eutectic joints provide the best sound with the lowest noise

and contact resistance; all with absolute reliability.

Cardas supplies Quad eutectic solder in many sizes, with either

activated rosin core or organic water base flux. Activated rosin flux is

ideal for most applications where the components are not washed after

soldering. The rosin is actually a protective coating. The organic water

based flux must be washed from the component after it is soldered.

Manufactures of boards sometimes use the organic flux to get a really

clean look to their boards, however, they must be washed carefully after

soldering to prevent corrosion. Cardas recommends the use of the rosin

core solders for most applications.

Cardas Quad Eutectic Roll

Sn, Pb, Cu, Ag

364-384º F

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