Lead free solder - exposed in a UK national newspaper

Instead of banning polluting substances, we should be regulating the pollution they create.

In other words, it doesn't matter how much of a harmful substance you use in manufacturing a product, but how much of it gets into the environment. It's the latter we should be worried about, not the former.

I've read "news" stories on that, that said that in some (many?) cases, they just take the money and dump the equipment in their own landfills, so the materials are never recycled.

I don't know how true that is (if at all) but it brings up the issue of verifying that recycling is actually done, and done _properly_. Things that are simple in theory can get really complicated in actual practice, so it's hard to say whether we're better off (not just right now, but long term) dealing with the recycling issue or just doing away with lead and being left with the tin whiskers.

Again, I hope in the future there will be solutions that aren't actually just compromises.

Jay Ts

ship

dismantle

"recycling" as pictured here

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

Mettalic lead has been shown to have very little impact on the environment. Especially after it has built up an oxide layer.

Ah, but we aren't talking about running a smelting operation, are we?

I don't know. Comparing burying metallic lead VS a smelting operation, that borders on pinheadiness.

Until they come up with better alternatives, I'll stick with good old lead/tin. When I left my last job, I had a full physical including a lead test, and even though I had been "exposed" to lead solder almost daily for 13 years, my blood lead levels were almost not measurable and that puts me below the national average for people that don't work with solder at all. Why would that be if lead/tin solder were so dangerous?

Jim

I think you have hit on something here.

Sentiment seconded.

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Re: Lead free solder - exposed in a UK national newspaper Arfa Daily Lead Generation Computer Systems liukaiyuan ...

I expected to see an advert for cpus soldered with 63/36 or 60/40 ;)

Michael

In days gone by, prisoners in the UK sewed mailbags. It seems to me that there is a vast untapped pool of labour there now, languishing at my expense, in the jails. So why not set up electronic recycling plants in the prisons? That way, you get the job done in a properly supervised manner, and the cost of labour is not an issue. Ever. Bish bash bosh, the jobs a good 'un, as they say ...

Just as a matter of interest, I saw a documentary on TV a while back, where a UK company is recycling computer hardware for the gold that's used to plate connectors and so on. In order to get at the gold loaded components, it is necessary for them to dismantle and effectively recycle virtually the whole machine. Even given the fact that they have to do this, which is a useful side effect of the process, and the fact that they then have to put the stuff through assorted chemical processes to recover the pure gold, they are still recovering enough to be covering their costs plus making a very large profit on the whole operation.

So if a few politicians pulled their fingers out of their arses, and started thinking outside the box on how to manage the pollution as William suggests, instead of trying to stop it with inane directives such as RoHS, we wouldn't need to have so much ecobollocks thrust at us.

Arfa

Unfortunately, if you are professionally involved in the repair of electronic equipment in Europe, continuing to use leaded solder, unless the equipment was placed on the market prior to June 2006 or is manufactured in leaded solder now due to an exemption, is no longer a legal option. I am required under threat of law, to use only solder and components, which preserve the RoHS approval of the equipment in question. I don't suppose realistically, that any 'solder police' are going to come knocking on my door to enforce this, but with some of the jobsworths that there are in local government departments now, it's just not worth the risk of a whopping fine and even the potential for prison, for disobeying the directive.

Arfa

Y'know, normally I'm not of a political bent, but this one just screams for it...

Didn't you fools in Europe learn *ANYTHING* from the examples of the USA, USSR, and similar "one government over all" schemes? Take a hint: Big Central Government equals Big Central Screwing to all persons unfortunate enough to be subject to its whims.

Look, mommy! See how much better life is under the nuturing wing of the EU?

(So says an American victim...)

Not if you can get all your lead from recycled materials, and won't have to dig up any more ore and process it.

Otherwise, we have to look at the entire process. That's just good engineering.

Maybe we go on different definitions. To me, "pinhead" refers more to people who have very pointed, narrow ways of thinking, and foolishly fail to choose wisely in regards to the big picture.

Easy one! Blood tests often fail to show up heavy metal toxicity. You shouldn't expect them to, because the problem with heavy metals is that they build up in body tissues, not the blood. That's exactly the problem! They hang around in the body, building up in and causing problems with vital organs (e.g., liver, colon, brain, bones) and *don't* easily dissolve out in the blood and get flushed out.

The blood test may be good for cases of extreme (acute) toxicity. I suppose that's why the doctors have them. They like to get credit for saving lives. But there is also chronic low- to moderate-level heavy metal poisoning. It is bad too.

Don't expect an allopathic doctor to help you discern heavy metal toxicity. They are too busy putting them *in* your body while avoiding lawsuits to be of much assistance.

If you want a good test for heavy metals, you need to use other methods. The one I'm most aware of is using a small sample of hair. Removing bits of liver, bone or brain aren't really practical, so this is the only method I know that's practical and that naturopathic practitioners seem to prefer.

I've actually never heard of anyone having that test done and finding out they had an issue with lead. Usually, its cadmium or mercury. In my area, arsenic and copper are a problem. That is a result from a local copper mine that was very active about 100 years ago. The processing of the ore put a lot of arsenic and copper in the environment, and it's been leaching into the local water supply. This is in the middle of a huge national forest, where you'd think the water would be not as bad. Maybe that has something to do with my concern for the effects of mining and processing.

The people who ran the mine probably had no idea at all this would ever happen. Instead of being more concerned, they just shrugged it off and did what made them the quickest money. I think a more careful and conservative approach is prudent. Sometimes, "better safe than sorry" applies.

Jay Ts

I understand. I'm sure we will have something similar here soon too, and I will be forced to comply. Resistance is futile.

That is true, but you are still comparing apples to accordions here. You brought up problems with a smelting operation that took place 2K years ago as if it were applicable to the problem at hand. Yes, we know that lead is "bad" and recycling is "good".

How does that lead GET to the tissues of a human? It has to get into the blood supply first. A blood test is the best indicator of recent exposure and considering I worked around lead solder 5 to 6 days a week, more when I worked on hobby projects, the results would help determine if further tests on tissue would be indicated.

Jim

The slag they skimmed of wile refining the lead is what is toxic, not the lead. Those compounds already existed. They were just mixed up in the ore.

Don't bother trying to educate 'Exray'. He knows everything about everything and listens to no one. Hundreds of companies run annual tests for lead in the blood, and rarely ever turn up anything. Those that do are usually traced to other sources. Some employees at Microdyne soldered every day, all day for over 20 years and still came up clean every year. No one there had ever failed the lead tests.

Lead is an element, it is composed of lead and can't decompose. It is so soluble that water pipes and roofs are made out of it......

Ditto. I have half a pound right here that I bought at a hamfest in the eighties. Used it to put together a Wersi Delta years back, used it for other kits and copious repairs. Even waste a ridiculous amount tinning my soldering tips (the current one is from the seventies and helped with the Delta).

We 'fools' learnt plenty Don. Which is why most people in the UK don't consider themselves part of Europe, and never will. If you know anything at all about the UK, you will know that we are a free democracy. Free, that is, to be controlled by a government that has now been in too long, and thinks that it is a dictatorship. You may have seen on your news - because from what I've seen on your TV when I've been there, just occasionally, the TV companies do look up on a map wherabouts the UK is, and carry the odd interest piece - that our wonderful leader Brown (are you aware it's not Blair any more ?) has just signed up to a new European Treaty that we had already rejected, along with a couple of other countries. They said it was different, but all they had actually done, was rename it. Despite promising the country a referendum on the original treaty, Brown then reneged on that, contending that it was not the same treaty that they had promised to ask us whether we wanted ...

You just cannot fight that sort of thing, so whilst we learnt, and understand all about it, we have little option now but to be swept along in Euro-hysteria, and comply with all the nonsense self justifying crap that comes across to us from Brussels :-\

So speaks a British victim ...

Arfa

On Apr 3, 7:13=A0pm, exray wrote: > snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote: >

Heavens no. I don't fight. I just try to state facts to the best of my knowledge with as little embellishment as I can. I don't know about your soldering tools but we now use only Metcal soldering stations at work besides my personal one at home. Point is a Metcal has a very well defined temperature not likely to vaporize solder - though what tool would?

Tried a very small amount of lead free solder, didn't like how it behaved and then set it aside to keep using leaded solder until I can't get it anymore. The antique stuff I work on has leaded solder so it seems proper to repair it with the same type solder

Oddly, using lead free solder on copper pipe was kind of fun in that the solder had a very well defined melt point that seemed to almost instantly flow. IIRC it was 95% tin, 5% antimony.

GG

Try tin/silver, *no* copper. Nice shiny (sexy looking?) surfaces, easy to solder, have seen no problems in 2 years where circuits get a lot of temperature cycling.