Does lead solder harm you?
Microcontrolled
Posts: 2,461
I'm one of the few that still has leaded solder, and I'm starting to wonder if it has any lasting damage. Is it really worth going unleaded?
Comments
Also, wash your hands after handling and don't breathe the fumes - I'm sure you already knew that.
Rich H
Dave
-Phil
Like so many things we have safe (lawyer) guarded ourselves to the point of ridiculousness. I did a study on the effects of lead in the body a while back. I was able to print (2 sided) a stack of materials nearly four inches high, so lead is pretty nasty stuff. Yes, it was a very good idea to remove lead from paint, and if we can convince China to quit painting toys with it even better, but I suspect it is profitable both for litigation, environmentalists, and congress to go past the point of reason.
Did you ever break open a mercury thermometer and use it to coat a penny when you were a child? The rule in my house was that if you played with it, you had to make sure to wash your hands well before eating. Talking to my local fire chief a while back, he said that if someone broke a thermometer now, and it was reported a hazmat team would be called in to take care of the "spill" after a city block was blocked off. (He wasn't kidding)
Think of all the jobs that are maintained because of our caution!
Will lead solder in a circuit board break down and leech into our water supply? I doubt it highly, but who dares go against what is PC.
OBC
'Not to mention all the lead sinkers, jigs, and cannonballs used for fishing that get lost. I'm sure a profitable lead mining operation could be set up just by dredging the bay offshore from where I live. Yet, there it sits, inert and harmless.
OTOH, banning lead shot for hunting was the right thing to do, since birds do eat the stray pellets, and their stomach acid will dissolve the lead, resulting in lead poisoning.
-Phil
Isn't the ban only for hunting waterfowl?
Rich H
I used to hold solder in my mouth sometimes, if I needed my left hand to hold a component in place while I soldered it.
@Microcontrolled: Lead solder still flows best, and I bet most of us here still love it and use it regularly; I do! Satellite makers went back to lead solder after finding that many lead-free solders grow tin whiskers in space that can cause short circuits and other problems: http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/background/index.htm
@Rich: Regarding breathing the fumes, I agree it's best to avoid. But I like to think that 99.9 % of the smoke from soldering is the rosin and harmless. The tin/lead mix goes to liquid when soldering, but hopefully the vaporization temperature is much higher.
Check this article which says that lead-free solders may pose a bigger health risk than our old friend 60/40: http://www.okinternational.com/binary/articles/Lead-free_Fume_Extraction.pdf
The worry from solder is that with very large amounts of electronics going into landfill and the groundwater percolating through, that even relatively stable alloys eventually leach out. I can understand encouraging manufacturers to be ROHS compliant when they're pumping out millions of units that will almost all be discarded in a few years. But nothing we do is in that kind of quantity.
Even if you don't eat it you can be affected by the fumes if you are constantly exposed, such as working at a factory that does wave soldering. All liquids evaporate and liquid solder is no exception; the amount of lead vapor in the air around your PCB assembly project is miniscule, but it can build up if there is a pool of liquid solder at the bottom of your wave solder machine and you spend 8 hours a day 5 days a week standing next to it.
I'm aware of the dangers so I take precautions now but I, as a hobbyist, still use leaded solder.
I agree the ultra-safe pack everyone in nerf patrol is out of hand. When my kids were sandbox age, I went to home depot and bought some bags of play sand. Sand contains silica dust which is carcenogenic when used in sand blasting. So bags are labeled that they contain something known to cause cancer in state of California. Just avoid sand blasting and it is no big deal right?
Wrong. It turns out there's an industry around putting fear into parents and making "safe sand" which is washed to remove silica dust. Ultra cautious parents acutally buy this stuff at outrageous prices to avoid exposing this child to this danger. I was asked about this several times until my kids aged past sandbox age.
Now this is sand, one of the most common materials on the surface of the Earth! More silica dust is blowing in the air around you though the day than you'll get exposed to playing in a sand box. But common sense doesn't apply here.
Erco, since you live in the state of California consider yourself warned!
In California, we have Prop 65, so each of the doors to the manufacturing floor have the typical Prop 65 disclaimer.
In comparison to lead free solders, there have been studies that have shown that lead free solder is actually more detrimental to the environment when viewed as an entire process. An easy example of one of the factors is the increased amount of electricity our reflow ovens consume to process lead free at the higher temperatures which increase our carbon footprint. When viewed as a simple material make-up competition, lead free wins every time.....
-Phil
I'm not a hunter either, though I have hunted. Maybe pheasant, quail, rabbits, skeets...
Rich H
I think that in some cases the "lead poisoning" fear is overrated and unneeded, as lead is not a direct poison, as mercury is. The ban on lead shotgun pellets was only for waterfowl, as lead shot is still sold almost everywhere. The lead can supposedly poison fish that may later be consumed. I guess I shouldn't be too worried about my little soldering iron making that much of a difference.
@Phil: What can you use a shotgun for? Grouse, squirrel, rabbit, turkey, etc. BTW Photos of your car are requested. :-)
Just a thought. "Microcontrolled" is, afterall, a young person. Children are precisely those who are most effected by exposure to lead. Responsible people wouldn't encourage a dismissive attitude in this regard, leave that to the parents.
Here's the despised Pinto, having gotten its just desserts. That @#$%^&! rattletrap left me stranded in more inconvenient places than I care to count. For example, it stopped cold in the middle of the Mercer Island bridge (Seattle) one dark, rainy, winter Friday during rush hour. Fortunately, the police officer was kind enough to hold the flashlight in the rain as I readjusted the points in my distributor. ('Always had to carry a dwell meter with me.) When I bought the car, I asked the lady why she was selling it. "Because it reminds me of my ex-husband", she replied. That should've been a warning, I suppose. OMG, how I hated that piece of $#!+ car!
Anyway, filling it full of holes was cathartic like you wouldn't believe! Rust in hell, you piece of Smile!
-Phil
Jim
DJ
(smiles)
A relative of mine worked around asbestos for 47 years and then he retired. He developed incurable cancer from it and died when he was 77. Some things are dangerous but it will take a while to hurt you.
Cripes! Now that I think about it, I'm lucky still to be alive! If this isn't my last [cough] post, it'll be a freaking [wheeze] miracle.
-Phil [Struggling ... to ... click ... Submit ... Reply]
Here in Norway, lead shotgun pellets are banned. Just that. No mention of waterfowl or other game. It's banned, period.
Our soldiers are using 'environmentally friendly' 5.56 x 54 mm rounds in their H&K HK416 assault-rifles, but there are reports that some soldiers get 'metal fever' after long sessions on the shooting range.
(They're using 'good old' lead in the HK417 and else anything that uses 7.62 x 51 NATO, though.)
I know people who suffers from damages caused by evaporating thinners that they breathed in when working as painters. And don't think that welders are any better off, either.
How many commercial Helicopter pilots from the 60s and 70s, or even 80s are still flying?
(Assuming they're not just too old)
A lot of those ended up being permanetly grounded because of Tinnitus.
(This is still a problem.)
Regarding lead batteries, the solution of battery acid has lead in solution and that is the first entry of lead polution (or other heavy metal polution) from batteries. Just consider that I have seen several Asian battery rebuild/recycle shops just pour all the battery acid down the local sewer. No wonder the fish are getting full of heavy metals.
We have a new green industry in electric and hybrid cars that seems to have feet of clay - batteries and batttery electrolyte pollution.
I wouldn't worry too much about lead in hobby soldering. I am 63 years old and so far no bad results. Lead poision in infants and young children is a much larger hazard as they have less body mass to handle some lead in the environment.
But I wouldn't set up a vegetable garden next to a major road in America as the lead in leaded gas has created fallout to land near these roadways.
In sum, the lawyers are doing a great job of confounding the issues while exempting uses that we truly are dependent upon. But the real hazards are contining to evolve. Nickel is carcinogenic, and it seems we cannot really build any batteries without a toxic mix in order to get an efficent electrolyte.