Lead free solder - exposed in a UK national newspaper

My usual supplier was doing small samples of just about every type that he carried. I'll have a look and see if he still is. What's the melting temperature of that mix, and what's the price like ?

Arfa

Absolutely. When repairing old kit use leaded solder.

Graham

All this being obviously true, it is inconceivable that the ROHS thing has been done out of sheer stupidity - noone is that stupid, even though those in high offices routinely want to look that in order to be left alone. I can think of no plausible explanation for this ROHS madness other than a well planned and executed sabotage action agaist the countries which have (and rely on) an electronics industry. At a scale that large, even the most expensive to bribe officials cost peanuts.

Dimiter

------------------------------------------------------ Dimiter Popoff Transgalactic Instruments

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Original message:

By this I meant that if it's deeper than groundwater, there's a nearly zero chance of it getting into the water, or being a problem in any other way.

Also, I had run into some information about lead toxicity several years ago that said that naturally-occurring lead compounds are not as much a problem as artificial (industrial) ones, because living beings are evolved to handle the "organic" (I think it was orthophosphate, but am not sure) form of lead, and can more easily flush it out of the body, preventing bioaccumulation. I tried just now to find that info again, but couldn't. :(

Lead is an element, it is a toxic element, and it can react chemcially to make toxic compounds. It can corrode when exposed to water, and the corrosion by-products are soluble enough that lead found in drinking water comes mostly from the lead in pipes and solder used to hold the pipes together.

References:

I went to the EPA site and did a search on "lead" because it became clear to me from previous discussion here that I really didn't know enough about lead toxicity to write at my usual level of knowledge. As I've said, I know more about other, more toxic, heavy metals, and lead has not been of big concern to me.

What I read at the EPA's site confirmed that there isn't much cause for concern with regards to the lead in solder. They say that although there is cause for concern, lead doesn't have as great a bioaccumulation factor as other heavy metals. And they didn't say anything at all about electronic solder or people who work with it, so it looks like those who said they got blood tests that showed no problem are justified to feel they are ok. (If it were me, and maybe it is, I'd still get the test done that uses a hair sample, just to make sure.)

Most of the fuss in the past was about lead-based paint and lead from car exhaust. Both of those have been phased out. (Although recently there have been problems with lead paint being used on toys made in China.)

The EPA hardly mentioned solder at all. As far as I could find, only with regards to water pipe and tin cans (where it is also no longer used).

Looks like I was right about the lead smelting operations, though. And wouldn't you know it, most of that is done in the general region of the planet in which I live (SW USA). By far, most of the lead in use is for car batteries, so I don't see any need to give up leaded solder just for that.

In the Wikipedia article for "solder", it is said that smoke from solder flux can contain a little lead oxide, and that the flux smoke itself can be toxic. So I'll be a little more careful to have good ventilation while soldering. Pretty simple!

Although the EPA noted that metallic lead does corrode, resulting in toxic soluble compounds, they didn't say anywhere (at least that I could find) that lead in landfills is considered a significant problem, and there was no mention of danger from tossing used electronics in the trash.

Jay Ts

I don't think that I would say that it has been done out of "sheer stupidity" - more out of misinformed madness. My feeling is that once lead had been determined to be a potential health hazard, as it probably was when lead compounds were added to petrol as anti-knock agents, then all uses of the material became automatically 'demonised', irrespective of whether any threat from them was real, or imagined. The ecobollocks that I have referred to elsewhere in this thread, has reached the point of unjustified hysteria amongst both the politicos and, worryingly, the scientific establishment, who should know better.

Governments rely heavily on so-called scientific advisors, but it seems to me that many of these are receiving commercial grants from government, and will tell them whatever they want to hear. Much of the current ecohysteria that is reported in the press, is based on very dubious science, that in my day, would have been thrown out of school for poor methodology. I, and most others in the electronic service industry, simply do not believe that lead in solder represents any threat to health, or the environment at all, and I personally have seen no persuasive evidence from any quarter to convince me otherwise.

I think that lead based solder is just an unfortunate victim of someone's over-enthusiastic approach to anything containing lead, and the whole RoHS thing has just swept it along with itself, without those who caused it in the first place, understanding the full implications of just what they've done. Apart from anything else, just consider how much extra power is being used every day world wide, to run all of the production solder baths and hand soldering tools, 30 or 40 degrees hotter than was needed for lead-based solder ... Eco-friendly, or what ...?

Arfa

Unless, of course, it's a CFL full of nasty mercury compounds ... d;~}

Arfa

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I recently went to a lecture by Jim Thurston, Medical Engineering and Physics, King's College Hospital, London; mainly about hormesis and background to the polonium murder of Litvinenko in London.

But at the end I asked for an explanation of something that has always evaded me. Why some incinerator plants are licensed to incinerate low level radioactive waste , as it gives the impression that you can rid radioactive material be incineration, compared to landfill.

The answer, from that government scientific advisor, was along the lines that a lot of it is for the purpose of incinerating biological hazard material that is also radioctive. Then it is a matter of distributing the plume of radioctive outfall , from the smoke/gases, over as wide an area as possible, of adjascent communnities. It is some sort of ststistical exercise. Too much radiation per Kg then it cannot be allowed to be dumped but if the radioctive component from that Kg is distributed over some (unspecified) large area of land surface then that is permitted.

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

I would not know about integtrity, but the MP of the mix is a *lot* lower than lead-free (solder).

MP of Sn96.5 Ag3.5 is 430F/221C.

So that about says it, doesn't it ? 'Official' government advice from someone that you would expect better of, based on what you would have to say was at best, 'dubious science' !! It defies belief, but goes a long way towards explaining to 'eco-believers' why things such as lead-free solder, are actually nonsense ...

Arfa

Arfa

You clearly know nothing at all of Europe or its politics. If you seriously believe that the UK is responsible for bringing about ANY Europe-wide legislation, you are very seriously deluded. All Eurobollocks is driven by the likes of France and Germany, and our emasculated government just roll over at every opportunity, and follow like sheep. Do you actually know anything of the British Empire's history ? It was not about bending people's political will. It was about having a world united in friendship and trade. Admittedly, it was about ensuring that the trade was to our global advantage, but overall, the world was a better and more peaceful place back in those days. Now, we have 'superpowers' like the US, who want every country in the world to become another US state, with the same language, political views, religion, consumer and oil driven economies and so on. And you accuse US of trying to bend wills ? Sheesh.

Arfa

I assume you're being hyperbolic for humorous effect. But there is only a tiny amount of mercury in a fluorescent tube.

Not only that, but it is pure metallic form Mercury, not some dangerous compound(s).

A very small amount.... In the big, long tubes. An even smaller amount in a desktop CFL.

Brings to mind the old saying: The solution to pollution is dilution. Thus, we now have oceanic dead zones off the coasts.

You assume correctly. However, it is a serious point, because there is more mercury in there than the official maximum limit for disposal in regular household garbage in Europe (apparently). At my local dump, there is a special bin for 'regular' fluorescent tubes, but no mention of CFLs, which I'm sure that many people don't realise, also employ the same basic technology. Incidentally, in an effort to promote these hateful lights, my local supermarket is 'giving them away' for 1 penny each. Another one was giving them free with a certain amount of shopping a few weeks ago. So I wonder how that equates with the proposals to 'build in' the cost of disposal of electronic waste, to the retail price ...?

Arfa

I'm right-well pleased with the $2 21W CFLs from Home Despot. Their balance is close to daylight (as confirmed with digital photographs taken under their light), and in a glass (or even plastic) fixture, you'd never know they were fluorescents. *

They're not only cheaper to operate than incandescents (regular or halide), but they come on _instantly_. Faster, actually, than incandescents, which you can see "ramp up".

Last year Home Despot gave away 12W CFLs on Black Friday. I stuck mine in the fixture next to my condo's front door. It's always burning out, because the owners' association doesn't understand why they should use 130V, rather than 120V, lamps.

• In my kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms, I've hung beautiful glass fixtures from IKEA. They're white glass, and have the sort of utterly simple design that will be considered classic even 1000 years from now. I just hope they survive that long, because IKEA doesn't make them any more. (Natch.) I had to scramble to find the four I have. By the way, they replaced four of those awful "tin-can" spotlights.

I said "halide" when I meant to say "halogen". They're not quite the same thing.

If you've ever seen the size of a fluorescent backlight for an LCD you'd realise that scrapping even a few hundred of them produces three fifths of seven sixteenths of bugger all mercury.