Soldering each type of solder and alloy has different melting temperatures. The term "silver solder" denotes the type of solder that is used. Some soft solders are "silver-bearing" alloys used to solder silver-plated items. Lead-based solders should not be used on precious metals because the lead dissolves the metal and disfigures it. The distinction between soldering and brazing is based on the melting temperature of the filler alloy. A temperature of 450 °C is usually used as a practical demarcation between soldering and brazing. Soft soldering can be done with a heated iron whereas the other methods typically require a higher
Mechanical–electrical analogies using a topological network diagram even when components needing a distributed element analysis are present. In the electrical domain, a transmission line, a basic distributed element component, can be included in the model with the introduction of the additional element of electrical length. The transmission line is a special case because it is invariant along its length and hence the full geometry need not be modelled. Another way of dealing with distributed elements is to use a finite element analysis whereaby the distributed element is approximated by a large number of small lumped elements. Just such an approach was used