I recently did my own Surface mount SX based PC board and now I hate soldering.

pwillard

I mention this beacuse of the SX-KEY production issue.

I made the mistake of buying new tips and solder at Fry's to assemble my new toner-transfer method SX-28 surface mount project boards .· So far, 1 out of 3 worked.·I'm just wasting parts now and I'm starting to blame the lead free solder...

I'ts really a shame that leaded solders get such a bad reputation as being hazardous.· Me with my conspiracy theories say·that this lead free·campaign that is·attacking leaded solder·is yet another EU and far east·plot to screw with the rest of the·world. Let me remove my tinfoil cap... ok ok· I was kidding about conspiracies.· [noparse]:)[/noparse]


As Chip said in the SX-KEY thread, the new alloys have higher melting temperatures.··They wet the metal surfaces a lot more slowly not to mention how much fun I'm *not* having with the new lead free soldering iron tips. This new behavior is something I do not enjoy when working with SMD in my hobby-lab.··I personally dislike that the joints look different·from what my years of experience taught me.· I was PC·board assembler and Wave Solder operator starting in the late 1970's. I know what a good joint looks like by now.··The new soldered surfaces are not as reflective as tin-lead joints and I keep thinking they are·messed up·cold solder joints.· Oh, and If I might add... I've had enough exposure to solder in my life that I should have an addled brain by now if we believe the hype.· My biggest gripe is that the fluxes and cleaners·that worked well with a leaded·solder are maybe·not·good·for for lead-free soldering and I have no idea what works best yet.· Everyone has to deal with this now.

Long Live leaded solder!· I guess I'm in the "I hate when things change" camp... eh?


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There's nothing like a new idea and a warm soldering iron.

RobotWorkshop

I am certainly not a fan of this new RoHS lead free solder either. With the grainy look of the solder the finished connections do look like cold solder joints and makes me wonder ow they will hold up. When I made up a module based on the surface mount SX48 the discussion came up about the RoHS solder too.

http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=7&p=1&m=166781

At the moment I still use the normal leaded solder to attach the CPU and MAX232 chip. The only place i've started using the RoHS solder is with the larger caps on the board (for the max232) and sometimes the voltage regulator. For now i'm using it here because I happen to have a spool of the RoHS solder and need to use it up somewhere.

I'm curious as to why cleaning the boards may be causing problems with the new solder. Are they that much different? For my own stuff I just use a combination of rubbing alcohol with a tooth brush and sometimes some regular flux remover from a can. I try not to use the flux spray unless I have too since that is pretty nasty stuff.

Are there any plans on making RoHS mandatory in the US?? If so I suppose we should all stock up on our regular solder now while we can still get it.

Robert

pwillard

I am now trying Silver bearing solder versus the Tin/Copper variety to see if that makes a difference. I now use the flux remover spray and I find I have worse results. It's not removing the residue.

I'm trying water soluable flux again to see if I get better results but it's nasty stuff.

ROHS compliance is still voluntary in the US, but I see it as I do ISO 9000. If you can't say it, you just aren't cool and the rest of the world will use it against you.

It is certainly making hobby projects more of a challenge.

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There's nothing like a new idea and a warm soldering iron.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

For hobby and prototype applications, there's simply no good reason to mess with unleaded solder and a bunch of reasons not to. It's only appropriate for production work that gets shipped to Europe, and that's not something that one would do in a home workshop anyway. Leaded solder isn't any more hazardous now than it was ten years ago, so the handling precautions that applied then are still adequate today.

I'd jettison the lead-free stuff completely and go back to the leaded solder you're familiar with and that's easy to work with.

-Phil

T'Saavik

I read an article about the rohs in europe coming about due to lead being used in soldering drinking water plumbing pipes. Supposibly the legistration to deal with the issue was a little too loosly worded and now we have to deal with the aftermath.

I intend to continue using 63/37 leaded solder. And if it ever looks like it will become unavailable i intend to buy a bunch of spools [noparse]:D[/noparse]

The silver solder I've been told is really only suppose to be used on surface mount components that include silver in their contacts. I've been told that without the silver in your solder you can "leech" the silver off the surface mount point. I don't know this to be true, just been told by a large manufacturer friend.

Guenther Daubach

Here comes the amazing part:

According to the current European regulations, lead-free soldering is NOT allowed in medical appliances, and some other possibly life-threatening environments. Why? Because so far, it is not proven that led-free solder joints do have the same lifetime as leaded ones.

Now that most European board assembly companies have adapted their machinery to handle lead-free soldering, it is hard to find manufacturers here that still can do leaded soldering - Arrrrghhhhh !!!

Besides this, lead-free soldering is not that bad at all but it is much more critical to use the right soldering temperature, and to maintain this temperature within a small window, even when larger solder joints draw away heat energy. I have bought a new soldering station (Ersa i-CON) with a very fast re-heating solder tip. With this soldering station, and some experimenting, I have found the right temperature setting for the lead-free solder I'm currently using but I'm pretty sure that I'll need to find another optimum temperature setting as soon as I switch to another brand of solder with a different composition.

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Greetings from Germany,

G

dkemppai

Guenther Daubach said...
Here comes the amazing part:

According to the current European regulations, lead-free soldering is NOT allowed in medical appliances, and some other possibly life-threatening environments. Why? Because so far, it is not proven that led-free solder joints do have the same lifetime as leaded ones.

Now that most European board assembly companies have adapted their machinery to handle lead-free soldering, it is hard to find manufacturers here that still can do leaded soldering - Arrrrghhhhh !!!

Besides this, lead-free soldering is not that bad at all but it is much more critical to use the right soldering temperature, and to maintain this temperature within a small window, even when larger solder joints draw away heat energy. I have bought a new soldering station (Ersa i-CON) with a very fast re-heating solder tip. With this soldering station, and some experimenting, I have found the right temperature setting for the lead-free solder I'm currently using but I'm pretty sure that I'll need to find another optimum temperature setting as soon as I switch to another brand of solder with a different composition.

Don't forget military organizations are exempt from ROHS also. Also space agencies are exempt...

That part that gets me, is that all of the ROHS parts are going away in the US. There's no demand for them, so distributors are starting to drop them. At Digikey, many of the devices I used are replaced by ROHS parts, at usually a 25% to 50% increase in cost.

The only·good utectic blend of non leaded solder is expensive, because it contains·silver. (about 4 times per roll). It also has a has a 221C melting point as opposed to the 183C melting point of utectic tin lead. On top of that it's tensile strength is higher.

So, in my little corner of the US, EU lawmakers are making my products more expensive, and harder to make!

-Dan



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"A saint-like quantity of patience is a help, if this is unavailable, a salty vocabulary works nearly as well." - A. S. Weaver

Guenther Daubach

Dan,

"So, in my little corner of the US, EU lawmakers are making my products more expensive, and harder to make!"

The same is true for me here in Germany. Besides increased costs, we have to handle all that formalistic and bureaucratic paperwork which is required to prove ROHS compliancy for the whole production process.

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Greetings from Germany,

G

pwillard

Ok, now the LEAD-FREE junk is in a strorage drawer... I can still buy Normal solder... but not the tips (go figure) so I'm using my rather old and worn, but reliable standard Weller tip. My foray into Lead-Free was short lived and now a revisit will be post-poned as long as I can manage it.

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There's nothing like a new idea and a warm soldering iron.