At work, we have a need to fabricate some thin nichrome "brackets". These will get soldered to another component to add a small amount of resistance to an electronic assembly.
It turns out that no other "easily available" material is quite the right resistivity, about 60 times more resistive than copper.
However, there are two problems.
First, soldering to it seems to be a right b%%%h. I understand that one has to get the oxide off, but..... so far we can't get solder of any sort to actually "do the solder thing" on some sample nichrome wire we have.... We don't have the option of directly brazing, as the component won't take that heat.
And we haven't the equipment to do a reliable spot weld. This has to hold up, as there will be a couple hundred kW available to burn up parts that fall off from vibration.
All I can come up with is to possibly braze on a piece of copper which we could then solder to normally.
Second, that "easily obtainable" thing is not so true for sheet.... Wire we can get, but we really have to have sheet, because the parts must be flat wide pieces for electronic reasons. Even flattened wire is not good enough, we are looking for 0.015" x 0.25" strip, wider where a screw connection is made.
I checked the web, no joy, aside from an obscure reference to sheet at some UK stove company.
I realize that I am not giving full information, but I can't, for competitive reasons. The questions I really need answered relate to soldering to nichrome reliably, and source for thin nichrome sheet.
Any suggestions?
It turns out that no other "easily available" material is quite the right resistivity, about 60 times more resistive than copper.
However, there are two problems.
First, soldering to it seems to be a right b%%%h. I understand that one has to get the oxide off, but..... so far we can't get solder of any sort to actually "do the solder thing" on some sample nichrome wire we have.... We don't have the option of directly brazing, as the component won't take that heat.
And we haven't the equipment to do a reliable spot weld. This has to hold up, as there will be a couple hundred kW available to burn up parts that fall off from vibration.
All I can come up with is to possibly braze on a piece of copper which we could then solder to normally.
Second, that "easily obtainable" thing is not so true for sheet.... Wire we can get, but we really have to have sheet, because the parts must be flat wide pieces for electronic reasons. Even flattened wire is not good enough, we are looking for 0.015" x 0.25" strip, wider where a screw connection is made.
I checked the web, no joy, aside from an obscure reference to sheet at some UK stove company.
I realize that I am not giving full information, but I can't, for competitive reasons. The questions I really need answered relate to soldering to nichrome reliably, and source for thin nichrome sheet.
Any suggestions?