Lead-free wire soldering?

Mmm, nothing like paranoia. All I had to see was the link on that page to an article advocating the removal of amalgam fillings (and their replacement with relatively untried, potentially carcinogenic, short-lived composite resins) to know what kind of crackpots run that particular news outlet.

Take a look at the sponsored links; compare them with a list of offenders at

Mmm, look at the sponsored links on that site ("water cures", "superfoods", etc) and compare with

Also look at the linked article advocating the removal of stable amalgam fillings and their replacement with relatively untried, potentially carcinogenic, fragile, easily-stained and short-lived composite resins.

Crackpots.

My parents were both dentists and I'm now almost 31. So, 30 years ago they were explaining this to me :)

(My play-room as a small child was a big room facing a 2m x 1m window facing into my mother's dental surgery).

That's priceless! Why can't I dream up stuff like that? Oh... that's right, I'm honest. What a handicap :(

Bob

Hello Lewin,

Yes. But I believe it's up to each individual to take care of things like that. Tooth paste can substitute the missing fluoride. Now you just have to get the children to be diligent about brushing but that's all a matter of training.

I'd rather supplement my own fluoride and not be exposed to 2ppm of chlorine in the water that I drink.

Regards, Joerg

Hello Lewin,

Well, we don't have children in the house so I guess the fluoride thing is water under the bridge for us. I like that word "erupted". Reminds me of one of my wisdom teeth a while ago.

Regards, Joerg

Hello Graham,

So IOW if you'd mount an RJ45 on a new designs for, say, a stereo it would also be exempt because it now has a network capability?

Regards, Joerg

Hello Lewin,

Now just imagine a regular consumer. How is he or she to distinguish between justified alerts and quacks on one side, scientific evidence for or against a suggested treatment such as fluoridization on the other?

My take in this case is to stick to the old values. Teach the kids to brush diligently and stay away from the bad stuff. Sodas, burgers, candy bars and so on. Mankind can live without these.

Regards, Joerg

When you get older yor teeth get worse. It is very valuable to use fluor after each time you brush your teeth, it stops and slows down the decay. I wish somebody had explained this to me 30 years ago, I could have avoided a lot of problems by using fluor all my life. Living in the mountains taking water from a well is nice and it tastes very good. But it is a very clean water, nearly rainwater, which lacks important minerals for human bodies.

A lot of mountain people suffer from lack of iodine, and get big bumps under the Adam's apple and eyes that stand out, thyroid disorder. If you live in the mountains you should take a mineral supplement. I use a kind which has both minerals and vitamins when I live in my mountain house.

Thanks, somebody, for explaining the difference between, and importance of, absorbing fluor through the food as young, and using it externally as older person.

The conspirationist article referred to in another message is bullshit. I read both that article and another one the first referred to, and it is obvious for a person with scientific education that it is based on lack of education and fear.

This fear of fluor is as irrational as the fear of mobile phone masts, or fear of electricity in general.

The people who are afraid do not understand that such medicinal substances are tested and re-tested all the time. A modern country is continously monitoring the health state of the citizens. If there was something seriously wrong with fluor, in the dosage recommended, it would have been stopped long ago.

Only people who have little education and absolutely no confidence in science can believe in these conspirationists ideas. People who have some education can see that the authors of these articles are not capable of clear thinking or rational reasoning.

There is a lot of fear around, and it is looking for a reason.

Hello Roger,

Tell me about it. But it gets worse: My last crown cost a whopping $760. Ouch.

Yes, it is a good idea to obtain an occasional analysis of your well water. That can also prevent catastrophic stuff such as mercury leaching. In our area they used that for gold mining more than a century ago and sometimes mercury still washes up.

It's the same with other deficiencies. I got frequent back pains, bad ones. Then someone from our church told me I might need a magnesium supplement. Since I take that, no more back aches even after laying lots of heavy tile.

That was Lewin. I must admit that I didn't know that at all. We learn every day.

Or "electric smog". Oh man. Did they also sell those expensive "nuclear power separators" in Scandinavia? They were supposed to block any electricity that was generated at a nuclear plant. I couldn't stop laughing but some people took that serious. Some even bought them.

Regards, Joerg

We have a growing opinion against "electric smog", some areas are declared free from electric signals, some town councils are taken over by green activists, a few people have moved out of the society to live in a world without electricity, but in general we have an educated population so most people are not worried at all.

Rather the contrary, I'm waiting to take advantage of all the surplus and heavily discounted lead solder and leaded components that will become available as the lead-free date passes.

The whole thing seems a giant euro-fools errand, as far as I can determine. They have not shown any evidence of a problem, but are simply adhering to their "Precautionary Priciple"; that states that if there's any chance of a problem, you should head it off, even despite a lack of evidence there is a problem. There is a clear problem with kids chewing lead paint and Tetra-ethyl lead in gas, but AFAIK, the Euro's have yet to demonstrate a lead-in-electronics problem.

Take a look at the following for some alternative views: (and they yet to be proven wrong)

Barry Lennox

During the early days of the California electricity deregulation experiment, consumers were allowed to choose an alternative supplier for their electricity, like wind or solar for instance. I wondered during the rolling blackouts of a couple of yeas back whether the customers who chose wind were still being powered.

Not a bad strategy.

I am not particularly moved by the lead-free movement. For electronic products, it seems to make more sense to use leaded solder, and rather just restrict landfill disposal, if that is where the real potential problem arises.

My interest in lead-free is due to a very specific set of circumstances, simply to protect an infant and future toddler who is likely to investigate every object encountered on the floor by attempting to eat it. I can rely 99% on good hygiene while soldering, but there is always a possiblity of a solder globule slipping past the field of watchfulness. I do not have the option of segregating my work area from living areas, so consideration of lead-free solder is a wise thing to do, even if I ultimately decide to continue use of leaded solder with strict hygienic precautions.

That's a good one.

Thanks for the input.

Good day!

Many will pay you for

boards. We tear down

accumulated mass off to recyclers once

While we have a good historical

Indium as a replacement.

It appears unlikely that In based lead-free solder alloys will become widespread. The Indium Corp. themselves told me this, and that they think SAC 305 and other variants will become the industry standard. Mainly because In is too expensive to use in massive quantities. It also has issues with In-Sb eutectic, that can form if the solder joints are held near it's melting temperature for a long time, which I think de-homogenizes the joint.

Good day!

Electronics in general should be banned from landfills and sent to recyclers. Many will pay you for circuit boards. This only makes sense though if you have a large quantity of boards. We tear down discarded equipment and do our own material separation and pass the accumulated mass off to recyclers once a year or so.

What concerns me about the Pb free solder is what do we replace it with? While we have a good historical base of Pb and its effects, what do we know about the long term effects of Indium as a replacement. Sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don't know.

Blakely

Hello Richard,

I doubt they were. AFAIK the rolling blackouts were simply done by opening switches. So whoever was on the other side of that switch, well, sat in the dark. If there was an installation such as an elderly care facility where a power loss could cause critical situations you were lucky that the power for that block was exempted.

Regards, Joerg

Then get ahold of some Gel-Kam.

Good Luck! Rich

I wonder how evolution produces beings that can't get along without artificial preservatives?