I find lead free solder very difficult to work with (I bought some by mistake). I see the EU claims to have banned it altogether, yet I can easily buy lead solder ("hobbyist's solder") in the UK. I see it's not allowed to use lead free in aircraft or medical situations (because of the high chance of it suffering form vibration and heat change fatigue), but it's required to be used in cars. What's going on?
Are you so incapable of using google and finding out for yourself?
A man of your calibre with a degree in Micro-electronics, or is it Physics, and an IQ close to that of Marvin, you should already know.
and heat change fatigue), but it's required to be used in cars. What's going on?
Greenies need something to crow about. Most of that lead free soder is not worth carrying home in my opinion. The lead is bad for the enviroment, not counting how much is in the ground and that is where it came from in the first place.It started in the US around 50 years ago with the lead in paint and babies eating the paint off the walls. Moonshiners used car radiators that were soldered and the lead leached out and caused all kinds of problems to the drinkers. I told my wife about 40 years ago some one was going to decide the lead in all the water pipes would do the same. Sure enough 10 or so years later someone thought about that.
Lead solder has a tendency to grow' whiskers' of tin and short out electronic equipment.
I thought the US was one of the last countries to mandate lead free components and solder?
Don't you mean lead free? That is one of the reasons why silver is added to tin to reduce whiskers. Tin-lead solders still grown whiskers but not as badly as in SAC solders.
Well the stuff I just tried to use is utterly useless! It seems to solidify instantly. It's not conducting heat more than a mm from the tip of the iron, impossible to solder a big joint. I set the iron to 450C and it's still doing it.
I've put it on sale and I'm buying some lead stuff instead. On the lighter side of the news, it seems to be worth twice as much as lead solder, so I'm going to make a profit. Maybe I should keep doing so?
I've never seen a baby attempt to eat part of a wall.
My parents had lead pipes, I see no evidence in them of any problems.
I've never noticed that.
Ralph , I think you meant to say :
That is why I only use lead/tin solder on electronics projects .
yea, lead free. Brain was moving faster than the fingers.
Yes, lead FREE. I only use 60/40 or better yet 63/37 tin/lead.
One neurological symptoms of lead ingestion is sociopathy.
They say it's not the sort of thing an individual will notice themselves and furthermore likely to be in denial of the mental state.
I think you meen mead FREE solder
Hypereutectic
Soldering while drinking is probably not good for accuracy.
That makes more sense. Although how does a metal "grow"? Is this after or during application?
I also only use lead solder, but I'm wondering how I can buy it so easily since the EU banned it. Yes I know the UK left, but I could buy it before then too.
Rather concerning they're using it in cars when it's not safe enough in aeroplanes. Renault electrics is bad enough as it is!
It doesn't matter what temperature you set your iron to or which solder you use if the joint is larger than your iron can cope with. Not so much the joint but the effective heat sink it's attached to be it either a large area of copper or a tag connected to a metal chassis.
It's one reason I have more that one soldering iron, a low wattage one for general small component work up to a 100W+ gun where the heating tip is a piece of thick copper wire.
As long as the water is treated and/or a protective scale has built up on the inside of the pipe it's not that big a risk as some may claim. There may be still lot of UK homes where the underground pipe between the road and their house is still lead.
Flint in the USA had a major lead poisoning water problem when they stopped treating the water with inhibitors (they had a change in suppliers)
It became (more of) a problem when some lead free solders were used especially when the pitch between component legs or balls became so small. A conductive whisker can grow and short out two joins <0.5mm apart.
My Spanish built Vaxhaul had the worst electrical problems. It wasn't so much the electronics but some of the spade type connectors behind the dash. The plastic used for the connectors was so soft that when the spade was pushed into the mating half the plastic failed to hold the mating half firmly and it pushed out of the back of the connector. The spade bit was only just making contact with the mating half and With vibration eventually the connection failed :(
When something fails in an aeroplane it could fall out of the sky.
When something fails in the car the most likely thing to happen is it stops.
Just because lead solder CAN be used in certain applications it doesn't mean that all the electronics are using lead free solder. There are other ways of mitigating a risk of failure such as double or triple redundancy.
I have retained several 4lb reels of 20swg and 16swg Ersin Multicore lead solder from the sixties. 15W and 25W soldering irons should be sufficient to do most electrical connections.
Finding that the power was cut in the third lane of a very busy motorway, with the hard-shoulder closed for roadworks, persuaded me that lead should still be used in car soldering!
Much of the time it is not the wattage, but the size of the tip in relationship to the work. I use an iron of over 50 watts to solder SMD electronics. The tip is very small and I set the temperature to around
300 deg. The older small irons depend on the ambient air to control the temperature but the modern irons control heat by adjusting the power going to the iron.I change tip sizes depending on the components I am soldering.
I have an electric soldering copper where the tip is a chunk of copper an inch in diameter and 4 inches long - works great for soldering radiators - and even gas tanks. Originally used for soldering #14 knob and tube wiring connections
The problem was a shift in Ph. Alkaline water protects the lead. Acidic water leaches the lead. Hard water deposits a protective coating. Soft water strips the coating. The flint water was switched from lake water to (flint) river water and the river water was "softer" and lower Ph which scoured the manganese and calcium carbonate coating off the lead in short order - exposing and corroding the lead.
Yip, inconvenience is not necessary when we had a perfectly good alternative. They recycle the lead anyway don't they? They certainly take the gold off circuit boards.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.