Since solder is such a poor conductor, why use it?


Why would we not weld all joints. Welded silver or copper wire would not have the loss of conductivity of going through solder.
tbg
1)Consider the hundreds and in some cases possibly even thousands of solder joints within many electronic components. Why worry about a few more external ones?

2)In a properly soldered joint there will be extensive direct contact between the conductors being mated, so the resistance of the surrounding solder shouldn't matter.

3)The resistance of a properly soldered joint is likely to be negligible compared to the resistance of the wire being soldered, due to the great disparity in length.

4)In many applications, especially line-level analog interconnects, fraction of an ohm resistances will be totally unimportant anyway. Assuming, that is, that the line-level components being connected are not susceptible to ground loop issues as a result of poor design (in which case the resistance of the ground conductor might be of some significance).

Regards,
-- Al