If you're building something that has to meet RoHS standards, then -- yes, of course -- you have to use lead-free solder. Outside of that, there's no good reason to.
No good reason? Other than dumping toxic material into the environment you mean?
Sorry guys but the whole 'I am but one man, what can I do to make a difference?' argument just doesn't cut it anymore. If everyone thought like that then nothing would ever change. If individuals can't be bothered to change then why should small companies? If small companies don't change then why should large companies? If large companies don't change then why should global corporations? If global corporations don't change then why should countries?
I do share your desire not to pollute the environment.
However I'm convinced that the tiny amount of lead in electronics is not a big concern. It does not leach into the environment and there is also evidence to suggest that switching to lead free increases the impact on the environment rather than decreasing it.
Do read the presentation from NASA that makes these arguments that I linked to above. With supporting facts. Who are we to argue with NASA?
Sorry guys but the whole 'I am but one man, what can I do to make a difference?' argument just doesn't cut it anymore.
Raise your hand if you have burned yourself more than once with a soldering iron...
It's not 'if' you will learn that an iron is hot, but 'when', and how often...sigh.
I have all eight in the air. Mine and four cat paws. I've been doing this for so long it's practically an every day job. Wait a minute, it is.....
No kidding, the only place that was thoroughly annoyed at what I did for a hobby was my school (high school), turned out there was someone who knew less than the inhabitants of most of the beginning electronics classes, and as it happens he was causing more damage then they would have. And they wrongly thought I'd be in the same bucket.
Yeah, I still use it, so sue me. Nothing flows like leaded solder. My 0.025" spool of is running low, so I went looking on Ebay. TTYTT, I expected to see a lot from China, and was fully prepared to make some wisecracks about how solder is the only thing you WANT lead in from China...
So what happens when MG goes out of business? Will lead futures skyrocket? Is lead the new lithium? Should I stockpile now? Make my garage a toxic material storage facility?
For the small amount of soldering I do, I still use the old, garden variety 60/40 rosin core solder. Erco's post got me thinking (and I promise not to do that too often!)... before the demise of the 'Shack, I picked up a few spools on the cheap. All 60/40 except one lead free.
In the dusty confines of my tool cabinet I came across a partial spool from my days of missile repair back in the 70's and another of Archer solder. NO idea of how long that's been around!
Anyhow, with that supply, I figure my grandkids will be set for life! :-)
Amanda - Remember: A hot soldering iron looks just like a cold soldering iron!
I almost never throw away my old projects. I took the time to build them and I don't consider them trash, even when I no longer use them. The issue with lead in solder is that it could end up in landfills, where the lead can then leach out over time thanks to acid rain and hit the water table. Things that aren't thrown away aren't the problem.
For those that DO throw away their project boards, you can always recycle them instead. Look for a "recycling event" in your town where you can bring in discarded electronics. They recycle the gold, silver, and even lead from old boards, and then crush up what's left and resell that, too. People should be doing this even with RoHS-compliant products. (RoHS doesn't mean environmentally friendly, just more friendly than if it used some other materials; all electronics manufacturing involves the use of toxic chemicals.)
Lead-free solders are obviously more difficult for individuals to use or else there wouldn't be a debate. So why make something even more difficult for the newcomers? Don't we want to encourage fresh faces in this field? We should be talking about handling and disposal safety for one-off circuits, not the global initiative for mass-produced products that are sold to the clueless masses.
Do read the presentation from NASA that makes these arguments that I linked to above. With supporting facts. Who are we to argue with NASA?
Sorry guys but the whole 'I am but one man, what can I do to make a difference?' argument just doesn't cut it anymore.
I don't see anyone making that argument here.
I do see a lot of us making that argument though. I found the NASA report very interesting, and as usual, in the grand scheme of things, it is complicated. All the metals, tin, copper, silver have issues from the mining operation to the kitchen table. At least lead is practically gone from gasoline in the present day, but still, per NASA, the bulk of lead is still in automobile batteries, way too few of which are recycled. Recycling of consumer electronics still unfortunately ends up in Asia in the worst of situations where the discards are heated over an open fire in order to extract the metals.
I send my production boards out to a CM for lead-free assembly using water-based fluxes, and they have the equipment for making squeaky clean finished products. When those need rework or modifications I do have the equipment to do some that in house, lead free, with no-clean flux. I still manage to justify to myself (in the grand scheme of things), doing prototypes with PbSn, especially if it is a more complicated fine pitch pcb. What to worry more about, the solder or the antistatic bag that it ships in (Microplastics in Mesopelagic Fish)?
Here's a photo of a Metcal UFTC fine tip next to a µUSB connector, and 0.015" Pb-free solder for comparison. I don't think it's possible to drag-solder that kind of shrouded connector. The fine tip eases one-pin-at-a-time rework on that connector and on fine pitch ICs, and getting in at the side of DFNs.
The 2nd photo shows a couple specialized Metcal SMTC tips, one that allows removal of a Propeller QFN chips from a PCB, and one I just got that is great for rework of long connectors. For anyone who has a Metcal that uses SMTC tips, here's a heads' up that Zephyrtronics <http://www.zeph.com/> has a closeout sale on a variety of aftermarket tips, mostly for lead-free (but okay for PbSn too).
If you're building something that has to meet RoHS standards, then -- yes, of course -- you have to use lead-free solder. Outside of that, there's no good reason to.
No good reason? Other than dumping toxic material into the environment you mean?
In my defense Brian, I never throw anything away.... ask my roommate. :-( Not too long ago I grudgingly tossed my 286 motherboard with an ISA drive controller card. Still hanging on to my Sun Ultra 5 and SGI Fuel. :-)
'Seems I've become the poster child for heavy metal pollution. But I don't throw anything out, either. And a one-pound roll of 63/37 has lasted me more than 20 years -- so far. 'Looks like another 20 years to go before I have to buy another one. So I stand by my assertion.
Going along with what Mickster said, I've put vastly more lead in the environment through shooting than I ever will through electronics, even if I were to chuck everything I've ever soldered straight into a lake.
OTOH, the only bullets I've shot since the turn of the century were cast from wheel weights collected from public thoroughfares. There was a time when three hours of walking in the right places would net 50 lbs of lead alloy. So, in a way, I'm sort of lead-neutral.
One final comment: These days I do most of my recreational shooting in an area that, ironically, hosted numerous heavy mines back-in-the-day. Nature provided more than seven orders of magnitude more lead (in the form of galena) to that area than I have. There is also a lot of cinnabar remaining.
Raise your hand if you have burned yourself more than once with a soldering iron...
It's not 'if' you will learn that an iron is hot, but 'when', and how often...sigh.
I'm not sure I get the point here.
Of course we have burned ourselves with soldering irons on occasion. You seem to imply it's some kind of mega catastrophe like a nuke plant meltdown that should be avoided at all costs. Kids also fall off their bikes, injure themselves in sports, trop out of trees, and all kind of other painful things. We can't keep them out of all such dangers. Everything has risks. The odd scorched finger from a soldering iron is the least of our worries.
"The odd scorched finger from a soldering iron is the least of our worries." That be my point exactly.
We can't avoid some danger in our learning, I think that's why it's called a "knowledge bump'...
Having said that..., Don't lick the solder, or the soldering iron, under any circumstance.. Very bad for you!
Also, don't spit into the wind, or tug on superman's cape.
So, how do you learn to not spit into the wind?. I don't thinks it is an instinct, you just had to try it, find out the hard way.
I am all about learning the hard way, so i will always have a clean hanky, and a supply of band-aids,.. oh, and a fire extinguisher.
I've hit the iron cord quite a few times and melted it, and of course I get solder splatter quite often when I tin the tip. I was taught to protect the tip with a blob of solder.
Not only holding it all wrong, it's also the wrong type of iron, on the wrong type of board, and what a dirty board it is too. (I think she was trying to solder the battery!)
They did photoshop her face though (missed everything else)
Not only holding it all wrong, it's also the wrong type of iron, on the wrong type of board, and what a dirty board it is too. (I think she was trying to solder the battery!)
~~
They did photoshop her face though (missed everything else)
At least they didn't give her a new computer to "work" on
Comments
Had to be done
No good reason? Other than dumping toxic material into the environment you mean?
Sorry guys but the whole 'I am but one man, what can I do to make a difference?' argument just doesn't cut it anymore. If everyone thought like that then nothing would ever change. If individuals can't be bothered to change then why should small companies? If small companies don't change then why should large companies? If large companies don't change then why should global corporations? If global corporations don't change then why should countries?
Dave
I do share your desire not to pollute the environment.
However I'm convinced that the tiny amount of lead in electronics is not a big concern. It does not leach into the environment and there is also evidence to suggest that switching to lead free increases the impact on the environment rather than decreasing it.
Do read the presentation from NASA that makes these arguments that I linked to above. With supporting facts. Who are we to argue with NASA? I don't see anyone making that argument here.
I have all eight in the air. Mine and four cat paws. I've been doing this for so long it's practically an every day job. Wait a minute, it is.....
No kidding, the only place that was thoroughly annoyed at what I did for a hobby was my school (high school), turned out there was someone who knew less than the inhabitants of most of the beginning electronics classes, and as it happens he was causing more damage then they would have. And they wrongly thought I'd be in the same bucket.
For the small amount of soldering I do, I still use the old, garden variety 60/40 rosin core solder. Erco's post got me thinking (and I promise not to do that too often!)... before the demise of the 'Shack, I picked up a few spools on the cheap. All 60/40 except one lead free.
In the dusty confines of my tool cabinet I came across a partial spool from my days of missile repair back in the 70's and another of Archer solder. NO idea of how long that's been around!
Anyhow, with that supply, I figure my grandkids will be set for life! :-)
Amanda - Remember: A hot soldering iron looks just like a cold soldering iron!
For those that DO throw away their project boards, you can always recycle them instead. Look for a "recycling event" in your town where you can bring in discarded electronics. They recycle the gold, silver, and even lead from old boards, and then crush up what's left and resell that, too. People should be doing this even with RoHS-compliant products. (RoHS doesn't mean environmentally friendly, just more friendly than if it used some other materials; all electronics manufacturing involves the use of toxic chemicals.)
Lead-free solders are obviously more difficult for individuals to use or else there wouldn't be a debate. So why make something even more difficult for the newcomers? Don't we want to encourage fresh faces in this field? We should be talking about handling and disposal safety for one-off circuits, not the global initiative for mass-produced products that are sold to the clueless masses.
I do see a lot of us making that argument though. I found the NASA report very interesting, and as usual, in the grand scheme of things, it is complicated. All the metals, tin, copper, silver have issues from the mining operation to the kitchen table. At least lead is practically gone from gasoline in the present day, but still, per NASA, the bulk of lead is still in automobile batteries, way too few of which are recycled. Recycling of consumer electronics still unfortunately ends up in Asia in the worst of situations where the discards are heated over an open fire in order to extract the metals.
I send my production boards out to a CM for lead-free assembly using water-based fluxes, and they have the equipment for making squeaky clean finished products. When those need rework or modifications I do have the equipment to do some that in house, lead free, with no-clean flux. I still manage to justify to myself (in the grand scheme of things), doing prototypes with PbSn, especially if it is a more complicated fine pitch pcb. What to worry more about, the solder or the antistatic bag that it ships in (Microplastics in Mesopelagic Fish)?
The 2nd photo shows a couple specialized Metcal SMTC tips, one that allows removal of a Propeller QFN chips from a PCB, and one I just got that is great for rework of long connectors. For anyone who has a Metcal that uses SMTC tips, here's a heads' up that Zephyrtronics <http://www.zeph.com/> has a closeout sale on a variety of aftermarket tips, mostly for lead-free (but okay for PbSn too).
In my defense Brian, I never throw anything away.... ask my roommate. :-( Not too long ago I grudgingly tossed my 286 motherboard with an ISA drive controller card. Still hanging on to my Sun Ultra 5 and SGI Fuel. :-)
Amanda
-Phil
OTOH, the only bullets I've shot since the turn of the century were cast from wheel weights collected from public thoroughfares. There was a time when three hours of walking in the right places would net 50 lbs of lead alloy. So, in a way, I'm sort of lead-neutral.
One final comment: These days I do most of my recreational shooting in an area that, ironically, hosted numerous heavy mines back-in-the-day. Nature provided more than seven orders of magnitude more lead (in the form of galena) to that area than I have. There is also a lot of cinnabar remaining.
Of course we have burned ourselves with soldering irons on occasion. You seem to imply it's some kind of mega catastrophe like a nuke plant meltdown that should be avoided at all costs. Kids also fall off their bikes, injure themselves in sports, trop out of trees, and all kind of other painful things. We can't keep them out of all such dangers. Everything has risks. The odd scorched finger from a soldering iron is the least of our worries.
We can't avoid some danger in our learning, I think that's why it's called a "knowledge bump'...
Having said that..., Don't lick the solder, or the soldering iron, under any circumstance.. Very bad for you!
Also, don't spit into the wind, or tug on superman's cape.
So, how do you learn to not spit into the wind?. I don't thinks it is an instinct, you just had to try it, find out the hard way.
I am all about learning the hard way, so i will always have a clean hanky, and a supply of band-aids,.. oh, and a fire extinguisher.
-Tommy
Never flick molten solder off of wires and such. It will end up in your eye. Or on those naked legs I mentioned above. Eye protection is a good idea.
They did photoshop her face though
At least they didn't give her a new computer to "work" on