ROHS Question

Sure. I prefer the TSSOP16 and such on prototypes to be soldered with leaded tin.

Rene

Well, yes and no.

The tin in the RoHS parts dilutes the tin-lead solder, and makes it a funny alloy that usually looks frosty when it cools. I would suggest using 60-40, as opposed to 63-37 solder. The resulting alloy sure looks better. As the tin heats up on the part, it wrinkles and looks really nasty where it is exposed to oxygen.

All that aside, once you get a decent looking joint with tin-lead solder, on RoHS parts, things are great.

When you start working with lead free solder, you will notice that "good" joints look like cold solder joints with normal solder.

Also, in storage, RoHS parts oxidize and that prevents them from taking solder, so be wary of older stock parts.

The electronics industry is going to be hurt really bad by this stupid diversion into giving the euronation that warm and fuzzy feeling of being lead-free. Their time and efforts would be better spent ridding themselves of lead plumbing. Lead, the "plumb" in plumbing.

-Chuck Harris

What date is set for RoHS? I just bought a reel of lead-tin solder, if the cut off date is still to arrive I can wait till it passes and go repeat the order and see what happens!

I like that term "euronation" ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Lead-tin solder will be available for a long time: It's still allowed for repairing legacy equipment and for personal (creating devices you won't sell) use. The date for RoHS is in one week.

Philipp

Some of my 40 year old junk box parts are oxidized ;-) So my standard practice is to burnish the leads (I only do DIL thru-hole) before soldering.

...Jim Thompson

Thanks for the info - at UK£30 per 0.5kg reel I don't mind leaving it longer to buy another one!

On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 08:37:39 -0700, Jim Thompson Gave us:

Yes, but then your product loses any chance it had at RoHS compliancy.

I have original leaded lights in my cottage which are in need of repair. Will I have to get hold of some lead free lead to re-lead them?

Will I have to advertise my cottage when I sell it as having lead free leaded lights or partially lead free releaded lead free lights or what???

Slurp

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

I'm a seven, you're an eight...

Tim

Hello Jim,

Did it last week, worked fine. Kester 15mil no-clean is really nice stuff, tried that as well for the first time in my lab.

Several categories of equipment are still allowed to use tin-lead processes too.

Graham

OTOH, their collective madness may actually be caused by the led leaching out of solder joints in discarded electronic stuff in their landfills. Maybe they really need Lead-Free? :-)

Absolutely! Just do not try to sell it in Europe.

What LEAD you to this question? LEAD on to more of the same...

I think there is more lead in a single UK water main than exists in the entirety of manufactured electronic equipment.

-Chuck

From here

"Nevertheless some infants and children may still be at risk. Studies have shown that lead can have a small effect on the mental development of children. It may also be a factor in behavioural problems."

I looked at this some time ago and it isn't true. Some studies found small correlations between IQ test results and the measured lead content of children, some didn't.

No studies could prove it was causal. When you consider the mechanisms by which lead got into the children it is fanciful to imagine that environmental and behavioural factors could not be involved and that those factors are not also effected by IQ or IQ is effected by them.

Wouldn't you expect that a child who goes round chewing 40 year old paint work or licking exhaust emissions from the pavements or who's family bought the house next door to the lead smelting plant would not be quite the brightest pin in the cushion?

So yes there is madness involved but not caused by lead. Whacking the dumb fscks around the head with a lump of it would probably do them some good.

Ever had a kid? My boy is top of the top in his school, but you should see what he did to the edge of the coffee table when he was 1 yo and those teeth were coming in: Chomp, chomp, chomp... I was with him, as best as I could be all the time, but he still found time to chew away.

Now, imagine that lead makes paint a little bit sweet (it does), and that it was used for interior paint in houses (it was)... and oh, do you feel lucky?

The lead that is outside becomes a problem when a child's hands get in the lead contaminated dirt, and then get in the child's mouth. An event that happens dozens of times per minute with 1-2-3 yo's.

I am quite certain that ingesting lead will damage your mental capacities. What I am not convinced of is that the lead in electronic circuit boards is significant in the over all scheme of things.

The solder used in electronics is only 37 to 40% lead. Metallic lead is not overly prone to becoming a water soluble salt. Lead entombed in a properly designed landfill tends to stay entombed. It doesn't show up to any great extend in the leachate.

Car batteries are a far better vector for lead to enter the environment, than electronics... One has only to look at the quantity of lead in a battery, and the ubiquity of lead acid batteries to figure this out.

-Chuck Harris

So does the euronation have lead-free car batteries?