How to use liquid flux pen?

[Jim R.]

I like using liquid flux and got tired of dipping a toothpick in a tiny bottle and then dropping a bit on the joint to be soldered, so I bought a Hakko liquid flux pen. Problem is that I'm not sure how to load/use it. It is the 4 ml model and consists of a thin plastic body, a removable internal tube of some sort, and the cap which has the little paint brush applicator and a cover for the tip that has a pocket clip. I have a largeish bottle of liquid flux and a 3 ml syringe to fill it with, but the questions are:

Do I fill it with the inner tube in place, or with it out.

If out, do you put the inner tube in after the flux is in and then gently squeeze the pen body? If so, what happens when you can't squeeze the pen enough to get all the flux at the bottom to fill the inside tube, or do you just invert the whole thing to fill the inner tube?

I'm sure this is going to be a real time saver, and there will be no tiny bottles of flux to knock over and make a nice mess.

BTW, if you've never tried liquid flux, it works really well on OCC wire as well as other typically harder to solder metals, plus you can apply it in places where it would be difficult to apply a paste flux. Of course, most of the solders we use have flux in them, but often that is just not enough -- at least for me.

Any. help greatly appreciated,

Jim

[Deluk]

I think the more pertinent question is how often do you need to use additional flux when soldering? With a good quality solder (I like Cardas) and a decent iron with a suitable tip at the right temperature, there should be no need for extra flux. Using a tiny amount when desoldering a scruffy joint is OK, that way doesn't add even more solder to remove. Using extra when initially soldering a joint will just make for extra mess. With a good iron and solder there should be little or no flux residue.

[Jim R.]

Well, that's not exactly the question I asked. I've been soldering for over 50 years now and have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing. I like the cardas quad eutectic too, but prefer Wonder solder as I find that it flows nicer, especially on PC board through-holes.

Now, back to the question at hand...

-- Jim

[diynewbie]

You can search for a manual at https://doc.hakko.com/top.php?_gs=on&l=en

It looks to me like the removable tube acts as a valve of some sort.  So you fill the pen body and replace the inner tube, making sure it is seated all the way down, and screw on the tip.

[Jim R.]

Thanks, this is the kind of thing I need, especially the descriptive part as I'm totally blind and my wife has a very hard time working with diagrams.

BTW, the liquid flux is indespensible when using aa solder pot, and is also. quite helpful when using a resistance soldering station, which I use for a lot of soldering tasks, especially when I use a high copper content solder that has very little flux of its own and requires a fairly high temperature to get it to melt, and forget about flow and wicking. :-)

Thanks again,

Jim