Is flux smoke dangerous to health?
william chan
Posts: 1,326
Hi,
I was wondering whether any of you hobbyists feel any bad effects or brain damage from breathing all the soldering iron smoke.....
Has there been any study on this?
Thanks.
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www.fd.com.my
www.mercedes.com.my
I was wondering whether any of you hobbyists feel any bad effects or brain damage from breathing all the soldering iron smoke.....
Has there been any study on this?
Thanks.
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www.fd.com.my
www.mercedes.com.my
Comments
Then it might explain my nutty fascination for playing for hours with bits of electronics.
OBC
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Addendum: I agree with OBC. To me, soldering is a form of meditation, and the smell of rosin smoke is like incense. Soldering just wouldn't be the same without it.
Post Edited (Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)) : 5/5/2008 4:42:31 AM GMT
is handling solder hazardous? I was told that lead can be absorbed right through the skin.
do we need latex gloves, safety goggles and a respirator to solder? or should I just stop holding an extra piece of solder in my mouth
that we both used to get old mercury switches from automobiles and bust them
open to use the mercury to coat pennies and so forth without suffering ill effects as kids.
(Of course I was instructed not to eat it or let it get into a cut by my parents)
Now if I did that, the police would roadblock the area and call in a Hazmat team.
Back on topic, don't forget that life itself is terminal and no one gets out alive. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Getting started with the Protoboard? - Propeller Cookbook 1.4
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
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Post Edited (Oldbitcollector) : 5/5/2008 4:39:28 PM GMT
And is a form of religion for myself.. Amen Brother Phil... <SMIRK>
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Getting started with the Protoboard? - Propeller Cookbook 1.4
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
Got an SD card? - PropDOS
Need a part? Got spare electronics? - The Electronics Exchange
www.all-spec.com/1/viewitem/wsa350/ALLSPEC/prodinfo/w3path=cat
One could argue against someone not using any form of ventilation·and say "well, that explains a lot", wink and just leave it at that, knowing full well what the implication is.
Use your head, most of us are intelligent enough to know that handling lead in any form is bad for you.· Let's not try to convince ourselves otherwise against something that has already been proven harmful.
·
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Beau Schwabe
IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
for a safety class and had a pile of paper 2 inches thick. However, has anyone
done a study to determine how much of the vapor is actually lead and how much
is flux? Personal observation would say that 95% of the smoke I get from heating
solder is from the flux center which wouldn't result in life threating implications.
People have been using lead solder for more than two generations, and I don't see
the ill health effects for lead poisoning in anyone of my father's generation.
(My father being the one who taught me to solder at an early age.)
Let's also keep in perspective that solder is usually: Standard 60%-tin/40%-lead Rosin Core
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Getting started with the Protoboard? - Propeller Cookbook 1.4
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
Got an SD card? - PropDOS
Need a part? Got spare electronics? - The Electronics Exchange
Post Edited (Oldbitcollector) : 5/5/2008 4:41:59 PM GMT
-Phil
The mung bean is used in Chinese medicine to remove heavy metal poisining and is well documented. The skin of the bean does the job, but it is also quite cooling and may not be good if you already have the flu or a cold. You can use that if you really are worried.
Welding is really where metal converts to fumes due to the higher energy. Anything plated or coated with a paint of heavy metals is extremely bad to breathe. Welders regularly get cancer from these. But I have never hear of a TV repairman with heavy metal poisoning or cancer related to such.
Just plain old dust from fabrication may do far more damage to lungs and health thansoldering fumes.. I looked into dust removal for a DIY project and found that no matter how serious I was about removal, levels of wood dust in a carpentry shop would still be higher than any of today's safety standards. In fact, I might be sued for creating a false sense of safety in a dangerous environment. There appears to be no environment that is safe from a lawyer's interpretation of hazard.
In many ways I fear we have been over educated in toxins to the point that people fear many of the traditional jobs that in the past craftsmen took great pride in. Also in many ways, the 'information age' has created many more urban legends and health hazard myths than we can keep up with. On the other hand, we have even recently recognized that people with dogs are less prone to asthma, due to the dirtier environment actually helps develop a child's immune system.
I am a healthy 60 year old, that soldered a lot when I was a kid. In university, I heavily smoked tobacco while holding art brushes in my mouth that were coated with cadium red, cadium yellow, lead white and other nasty pigments. I've been exposed to a lot of pentachlorophenyl and chlorodane while doing termite work and foundation repairs. I have breathed in a lot of gypsum dust in building new homes.
And yet I am fine except for a pesky whiplash from an auto accident.
It just seems God gave us all about twice the organ capacity we need and if we have a healthy childhood, it takes nearly a century to wear them out.
It never hurts to be neat and clean, as well as safe. A messy workplace is a wasteful one, work in progress gets damaged and parts get lost.
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PLEASE CONSIDER the following:
Do you want a quickly operational black box solution or the knowledge included therein?······
Post Edited (Kramer) : 5/5/2008 5:58:46 PM GMT
The flux I use always give out too much smoke immediately after adding it to the solder bath.
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www.fd.com.my
www.mercedes.com.my
·
The fluxes in solder vary from Vitamin C (used as a deoxidising acid) in isopropyl Alcohol through to rosin/colophony (pine rosin – hence the name rosin solder). Here in the 3rd World, all wire solders uses rosin. I don’t know what you use in the US of A.
·
Colophony from rosin isn’t so tame though. The pamphlet that Phil attached should be read by anyone dealing with rosin. The asthma is very debilitating and affects about 2% of the population. It’s 3 times more common in smokers. If you’re one of those guys who gasp for breath when someone’s burning PINE logs nearby, be careful. Extraction, even very mild extraction makes a huge difference. For example, a small fan that draws the air back across your workbench away from your face is sufficient. For those that are likely to get it, the length of time you’re exposed has a direct influence on your chances of getting colophony asthma. Therefore, hobbyists are, in my opinion, fairly unlikely to suffer from this problem.
·
Once you get colophony asthma, you have it for life and various other irritants then trigger it. In South Africa, it’s listed as an occupational hazard and employers are required to take reasonable steps to protect workers. (It’s a bit disturbing to see the blue tinge on some ones face as they collapse gasping for air – The blue tinge is visible, regardless of skin colour, black people get it too)
·
8 years ago, I experimented with the rosin free wire solder but, like lead free, it didn’t work for us. The rosin gives you that satisfying flow of the solder. You’re able to solder that tarnished copper wire without cleaning it. Rosin works on tin, lead, zinc copper, gold, silver and a variety of other metals. etc etc.
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But, we always complain that Acetone is considered a hazardous substance in our company. We are to wear gloves and a face sheild when using it. But my wife can go to Wal-Mart and buy nail polish remover (which IS acetone) and it's recommend use is to PUT IT ON YOUR SKIN.
Now that makes no sense at all to me...
Bean.
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Did you know that 111,111,111 multiplied by 111,111,111 equals 12345678987654321 ?
www.iElectronicDesigns.com
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Regarding acetone: I once had a job laminating fiberglass boats. The polyester resin we used got on everything, of course, including our hands. The boat-builder provided a drum of acetone outdoors with a spigot that we could use to "wash up". On a cold winter day, the evaporation alone was nearly enough to induce frostbite. I shudder to think now what hidden damage I risked from the chemical exposure. That was more than thirty years ago. So far, I've dodged any ill effects from it.
-Phil
More info
http://www.devonline.gov.uk/index/information_and_services/environmental_health/eh-healthandsafety-intro/eh-hs-guidance/eh-hs-soldering.htm
I have heard through different safety meetings that it may or may not also be carcinogenic (could cause cancer) though this is hinted at in the pdf thats linked from the above link but not substantiated (as yet)
Apologies to Phil I didnt realise hed already published the link to the pdf.
Post Edited (skylight) : 5/6/2008 8:34:27 PM GMT
We have extensive pine forests (renewable source of wood and paper) and the mills burn the wood not suitable for planks or paper in their boilers. Employment is scarce in Africa so each mill attracts a substantial community hoping to find work. Colophony asthma is 20 times more common in these very vulnerable communities than the international average. The communities are not covered by our OSH act and the multinational mills say they have no commitment to these people and see no reason to fit scrubbers to their smoke stacks to remove the colophony. What also probably contributes to the problem is that the pine tree is not indigenous to Africa so the local population have not had generations to grow acclimatised to pine trees and colophony. Rosin dermatitis is also a bit of a problem, particularly among the lumberjacks.
At Sundimbile 50 miles north of here, the local clinic has several thousand cases of colophony asthma (12 thousand in June 2003). Their local Mandeni paper mill could fit scrubbers to their stacks for under US$1.5 million (42% of which can be claimed back from taxes over a 5 year period).
And we worry about a little smoke from our soldering irons…
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These days we see a huge array of allegedly high toxicity solvents and chemicals when in fact the problems lie more in that they enable people to make illicit drugs, explosives, or just plain old handy ways to 'accidentally' kill you spouse. For instance, toluene that was a mainstay of spraying automotive lacquers for that keen 'candy apple red metal flake', but it can just as easily be used to make TNT. It is not longer available. Pure household ammonia seems to have either disappeared or only comes dilutely mixed with soap because it may make a kind of primative plastic explosive. Mercury can be used in detonators and it has disappeared. The list marches on and on.
Up to a point I can't complain as we really prevent both a lot of curious teenagers from serious harm and also those disliked spouse end up alive in divorce court.
But when oil-based house paints were mainly replaced for water-based; the durability and wash-ablity of the paint suffered. We see industry after industry selling a new material as being more environmental, but in many ways we have inferior materials resulting in inferior products. Or jobs in the manufacturig base are removed to other countries that are willing to work with the materials.
Examples abound..... Taiwan provides much of the U.S. supply of galvanized steel because it requires cyanide to bond the zinc and cyanide is extremely regulated in the U.S. now. The U.S abandoned the industry but still needs the product. Copper sheet roofing with lead solder seams is a traditional roofing material in European capitals. The rooves last for centuries and the copper and lead ions actually prevent moss from growing on them. The amount of lead pollution was never very much from it. Instead, America covers its homes with a mixture of crude oil tar and fiberglass mat that lasts for 10-15 years at best. Of course, if you look around, all the streets and roadways of the U.S are covered with blacktop - which is nothing more that crude oil. Now in California, one has to silver solder all copper water pipes because people are concerned with lead leaching into the drinking water. I grew up on lead soldered copper water pipes without any problems, even with chlorine and flouride in the water. But at the same time, kids living near freeways were getting lead poisoning from leaded gasoline fumes. Printers used benzene to clean their presses for many decades until it was banned as a carcinogen, but very few have really suffered cancer from prolonged exposure.
This all begs the question of whether we are protecting people or merely manipulating the marketplace with fear. Personally, I would rather have kids learn to carefully use and respect materials than to keep them isolated from realities that evolve in to useful and pragmatic job skills.
We even try to regulate materials that occur everwhere in nature. Though asbestos requires suiting up for its removal in even the slightest quantities, much of San Francisco's underlying bedrock is outcropings of serpentine which is natural asbestos ore. Many be we should just evacuate San Francisco, the Peninsula, and Marin County to properly protect everyone. Or at least ban them from outdoor activities in the hillsides and along the beaches. Removing rocks from your garden might require a hazmat team and transporting the material all the way to a southern California toxic waste dump with tons of documents and specially certified trucks.
It has all gotten kind of silly and bit over dramtic. It kind of remains me of when everyone was building atomic bomb shelters in their backyards in the 1950s.
Are we going to stop fishing for trout or bass because of the lead sinkers and nylon fishing line?
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PLEASE CONSIDER the following:
Do you want a quickly operational black box solution or the knowledge included therein?······
There is a huge discussion on DDT at our local “Thought Leader” blog where the young influential people discuss current issues.
The banning of the insecticide DDT has caused millions of deaths in Africa, As a small example, over a million and a half died from malaria in 5 years to 2006 in the triangle where South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe meet yet the DDT ”research” has now been exposed as a deliberate lie. No bald headed eagles ever died as a result of DDT and it appears to have had almost no measurable long term impact on the US environment. Even huge quantities in breast milk have NO negative impact on the human baby.
Was the banning to clear the way for the newly patented but less effective US and German parathyroid insecticides of the 1960’s? Is it now being cleared of the unjust stigma because those same patents have now expired and anyone can make pyrethrum based insecticides? Local mosquitoes are now totally immune to parathyroids.
We don’t much believe in corporate conspiracies in Africa because life is a bit to “rough and tumble” and a bit too short. We sometimes wonder though. We less fortunate 3rd World countries just wish that when the corporate and senate Elephants of the West start fighting, it wasn’t the grass that they fought on (often Africa) that got so badly trampled.
Hey, this is a heavy post for a bright an breezy Autumn Friday morning, SORRY!.
Kind regards from Kwa Dukuza in Darkest Africa
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