Does multicore solder deteriorate with age?

It's normal:

Wipe the unused solder's grey oxide layer off with a tissue taking care not to stretch the solder and break up the flux inside it and then see how it solders.

Rosin flux always goes brown as the volatiles come off as smoke and then the remainder goes brown and then black. That's why you have a damp sponge handy to wipe off the gunk with.

In message , Jack Jones writes

Unlikely. I've got solder from over 40 years ago, and I can't say I've noticed any oddities with it. Are your new tips hotter than they used to be? Does your iron have a thermostat, and is it stuck? Have you tried a different iron?

won't be any good...you need the new improved DIGITAL solder with things removed so you don't hurt yourself .......

In message , Jack Jones writes

Solder flux was definitely different - I was convinced it smelled different in the 1960s

And I dug this up :-

"As I mentioned, pine rosin is often the main ingredient of the flux. In a pinch, I have used raw rosin scraped from a pine tree, but the smell is pretty bad. [Still, I prefer it to the perfume several manufacturers added to solder in the 1960's that smelled of cheap incense. But hey, it WAS the 1960's.]"

Brian

Sad to say it has definitely gone off. Safe disposal will be costly so please pack it carefully and send it to me QTHR where I will dispose of it at no cost to you (probably on ebay).

I have solder well over 20 years old that is still fine to use...

I was also going to suggest that, but I realised that it would be being a bit cheeky!

For rosin read resin. Or as multicore called it - "Ersin"

As a youth I used Bakers Soldering Flux and Aluminium foil to make Hydrogen for our lighter than air balloons. Bakers Soldering Flux was

Ouch! But the old analog solder sounds so much smoother!

hee hee hee

I have an ancient reel of solder. I can't say I've noticed it 'go off'. It may vary with the flux formulation.

Graham

A few years back I bought a pound roll of fine Ersin multicore. I do so little soldering nowadays that this roll is likely to outlast me, even if I live another 20 years.

The flux isn't exposed to air, so the only way it can deteriorate is the normal thermal degradation that any organic substance undergoes. I suspect this occurs very slowly.

Again, we turn to the Lady from Philadelphia for advice: "Why don't you just try soldering few test joints and seeing how well the solder works?" Duh.

PS: I'm bothered that electronic products increasingly have RoHS labels on the box, and statements that they use non-lead solder. I really /don't/ believe that a lot of lead is leaching from waste sites into the water supply, so we aren't likely to see much, if any, reduction in the amount of lead (and lead compounds) in our water supply (is there any hard science on this?), while the reliability of electronic products is likely to decline.

I like to say that there is no such thing as a hazardous substance. The hazard occurs from how the substance is used (or misused).

I believe - in Europe at least - it's more to do with H&S in the work place rather than the environment.

I know of no cases of lead poisoning from the use of lead-based solder. I touch solder directly when I work with it, and am not worried about lead getting into my system.

I have no argument with people worrying about the huge amounts of electronic equipment being dumped into landfills. The issue is whether potentially hazardous substances in that equipment actually get into the air or water.

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

More like job creation for the legislators in Brussels.

Caustic Soda and Aluminium works much better for producing hydrogen, but you have to watch the temperature as the mixture gets mighty hot and tends to produce steam too.

In the days of coal gas, I used to inflate balloons using our gas tap under the sink. I once let one go with a card attached and I got a reply from over

The gas we get now jest aint light enough!

You're quite right.

I discovered that the real reason for going lead-free ( at least in the EU ) was to make recycling less hazardous, yet the associated WEEE ( recycling ) legislation is now about a decade behind. We have products here that have a symbol that says they mustn't be disposed of with normal domestic waste, yet nothing has been put in place to deal with it.

So what do people do ? They put it in with the normal domestic waste anyway.

In the meantime, commercial concerns have found that electronic waste has a bitter taste and contains no profit to recycle, so THEY aren't going to do anything about it.

And of course, the absence of lead leads to reduced product life and unreliability, hence MORE total waste will result. Lead was added to tin in solder precisely to make it more reliable in the first place.

This is what happens when 'politicians' run things. 'Off with their heads', I say.

Graham

Not even remotely. Aside from the non-existent electronics recycling plants.

Graham

Certainly in the UK, landfills should be surrounded by impermeable clay. The likelihood of lead getting through that is miniscule ( as is the amount of lead tipped ).

Graham

I'm not so sure, here in Western Australia we had hundreds, if not thousands of birds literally falling out of the sky from lead poisoning. The whole town of Esperance was polluted and had to be cleaned at great expense. Lead is still being found in rainwater tanks. Lead is a deadly poison that accumulates in the body, it's not excreted.