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It's more about producing toxic waste and contaminating the environment - no one's licking the solder joints in their electronics either, but you still have to

• JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > more about producing toxic waste Compared to refining traditional conductors and recycling/disposing of used electronics? > you still have to use lead-free solder One, fumes. Two, people touch their solder and then grab a cookie. We're premature. The results need to be proven. But the benefits of RTP superconductors is mindblowingly high enough that risks from lead contamination (far from a novel problem, I might add) can be safely ignored.
  • amatecha 3y ago
    It's like fundamental best practice to always wash your hands thoroughly with soap if you handle leaded solder. You might want to read more in the links I shared about the harmful effects of lead before "whatabouting" to other problems of electronics recycling/waste. and yes, it's entirely possible this application would get an exemption from usual restrictions on lead. For example in the EU directive, one of the exemptions is: > Lead in solders for servers, storage and storage array systems, network infrastructure equipment for switching, signalling, transmission, and network management for telecommunications
    • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > fundamental best practice to always wash your hands thoroughly with soap if you handle leaded solder But people don't, particularly students, and sometimes they also let their irons run too hot at which point fumes become an issue. Also, there is an easy alternative, so why not. If the choice is lead superconductor or not, nobody is going to pause on a use case because there is lead. If they do, and if this is real, please let me know--I'd love to have them as competition. > might want to read more in the links I shared about the harmful effects of lead before "whatabouting" to other problems of electronics recycling/waste The point is, whether a RTP superconductor does or doesn't contain lead is irrelevant to its adoption. The advantages are too large. What current directives say are, similarly, irrelevant.
      • amatecha 3y ago
        Oh, sure. You could have just said that then. You instead originally said something about "no one licks the insides of the computers", which isn't the reason lead in electronics/PCBs/etc. is restricted, and what I was pointing out.
        • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
          Was being cheeky in response to OP claiming "the use of lead would restrict the use cases fairly heavily."
        • refulgentis 3y ago
          Usually people who are making the argument you were making with the words you were using are signalling that lead is "lump of rock from center of nuclear reactor" dangerous. Honest to god, a lot of people believe this
  • mrob 3y ago
    Soldering temperatures don't produce significant lead fumes. The fumes you see are flux fumes (which are also bad to inhale). IMO, the most dangerous thing about lead solder is cleaning the iron. Both the common methods (damp sponge and brass wool) create many tiny little balls of solder that are hard to see and bounce about all over the place. Because of the high density of lead they're less affected by air resistance than you might expect, and they roll easily, so they can move surprising distances. They can easily end up caught in clothing, and from there fall into food. This will result in much higher lead ingestion than just touching solder then touching food. I personally always use lead-free solder. If you have a good temperature controlled soldering iron it's nearly as easy to use as leaded solder.
    • segfaultbuserr 3y ago
      Lead-free through-hole soldering is easy and practical. Unfortunately, for SMT prototyping (including reflow soldering), lead-free work is no longer that easy. Another problem, even in through-hole devices, is when you have large metal parts - a tough problem for RF/microwave circuits full of SMA and BNC connectors, backed by 1 or even 2 layers of solid ground planes, providing excellent a heatsink and a lot of cursing during work and rework. With lead-free solder, I found the iron needs to be cranked up to 420°C for a usable experience (but a larger iron tip may reduce that to a more reasonable level), and I don't know what temperature does it take to desolder them. The last time I checked, low-temperature bismuth-tin alloy is only available as solder paste, unfortunately not available as flux-core solder wires (they're not really a good choice for connectors to begin with as the alloy is brittle, but I only need it to survive before the next prototype...)
  • segfaultbuserr 3y ago
    > One, fumes. It's trivial to experimentally demonstrate that solder fume contains almost no lead, the quantity is negligible. Claiming the contrary is the electronics equivalent of saying HTML is a programming language. Please don't do that again. The fume is indeed toxic, but it's due to the VOCs from the flux core, not the lead in the alloy. A more solid (no pun intended) argument can be the hazards of debris. Furthermore, in my opinion, a newer and more serious problem of leaded solder today, in a workshop setting, is its use in solder paste. Solder paste and a reflow oven are required for prototyping any circuit boards with surface-mount components (SMT) - basically any modern circuit board today. Solder paste is a tube of toothpaste-like chemical mixture that contains tiny, micrometer-sized metal particles, mixed with sticky flux. If they're used without care, a solder paste spill is a sure way to contaminate the floor or work surface of your workspace. The sticky paste is also hard to wash away from skin. Unfortunately, reflow soldering of surface-mount components can be really challenging, even more so when doing it by hand. Thus, classic lead-tin alloy is often used to reduce difficulties of assembly during workshop prototyping due to its technically superior properties. Switching to lead-free is only possible when you have a tightly-controlled and consistent work flow. If you want lead-free, for small-scale prototyping and rework, a non-toxic bismuth-tin alloy is sometimes a good alternative to standard SAC305 lead-free solder thanks to its low melting temperature, which is one main reason that makes most lead-free alloys difficult to use (it even has considerable popularity in mass production of LED devices, as they are heat-sensitive). But its surface tension is slightly different, weakening the self-alignment effect of components during reflow soldering, increasing the chance of defective joints - a concern in prototyping. Its brittle nature also increases failure rates in the field, among other caveats. Lead is really a gift from the devil.
    • petertodd 3y ago
      > Solder paste and a reflow oven are required for prototyping any circuit boards with surface-mount components (SMT) - basically any modern circuit board today. This is incorrect. You can easily do small scale work with almost all SMT components without solder paste. Solder paste is required for automated assembly processes. But almost anything done by hand can also be done with conventional solder. Source: I worked as an electronics designer for a few years, and assembled prototypes and small production batches by hand with SMT parts (0603's, TTSOPS, etc) every day. The one exception is BGA devices, because the solder pads are underneath the device. But doing those by hand requires precise alignment that is difficult enough that few people do it. Also, for smaller BGA devices with fewer pins, skilled operators can still solder them in place with a heat gun by covering the pads with solder and flux and just melting them into place.
• amatecha 3y ago
  Why is this being downvoted into oblivion? It's a completely valid, good-faith point explaining why lead has restrictions on its uses other than "someone might lick it"... It would be nice if people actually responded and vocalized their disagreement or described the flaws in my reasoning, rather than just suppressing my message.