4 ms·

Sorry, but as someone who has had to use them, lead-free solders are garbage. They are difficult to work with, require higher temperatures to use, don't last a

by jki275 3y ago

Sorry, but as someone who has had to use them, lead-free solders are garbage. They are difficult to work with, require higher temperatures to use, don't last as long, whisker and destroy equipment they're used in. This is all well known, it's not a mystery, and lead in solder is the least of the problems with lead in the world today.

Brian_K_White 3y ago
How come I have no problem? Even with plain old sac305 let alone the supposedly nicer ones. From big old chunky point to point, to manually drag soldering 0.5mm pitch tssop. I have no problem doing something that you claim is impossible or too difficult, and somehow this makes me the crybaby? Ok. Frankly if it was me I wouldn't be so keen to tell everyone how weak and incapable I was. I grew up on leaded as we all did. I used to really like the radio shack 0.015in 62/36/2 silver bearing. Did indeed work very nice. And yet after an inconsequentially short maybe a single hour of effort, I was able to adjust to 305. You telling me I'm just better than you? Well if I'm just better, then shouldn't you be listening instead of arguing? If I'm not better, then how do you explain my lack of difficulty with something you claim is difficult?
- jki275 3y ago
  You're putting a whole lot of words in my mouth and setting up a whole field of straw men there. Good luck with that.
exmadscientist 3y ago
If all you've used is crappy old SAC305 lead-free solder, you owe it to yourself to try a modern alloy like SN100C (& friends, it has several names and similar competitors). It's generations newer and with the right flux (I like AIM's Glow Core wire) it's just great for routine work. It runs a little hotter, but most people already solder too hot anyway, so who cares. I still use 63/37 or 62/36/2 for anything challenging, though. Or for old rework: many people in this thread are missing that you really, really shouldn't mix alloys on a joint, so you've got to get the old stuff out before switching to lead-free, and at single-joint scale that's a lot more polluting than just grabbing the spool of 63/37.
- jki275 3y ago
  I'll definitely agree that you shouldn't rework old joints with different solder.

by jki275 3y ago

Brian_K_White 3y ago

How come I have no problem? Even with plain old sac305 let alone the supposedly nicer ones. From big old chunky point to point, to manually drag soldering 0.5mm pitch tssop. I have no problem doing something that you claim is impossible or too difficult, and somehow this makes me the crybaby? Ok. Frankly if it was me I wouldn't be so keen to tell everyone how weak and incapable I was. I grew up on leaded as we all did. I used to really like the radio shack 0.015in 62/36/2 silver bearing. Did indeed work very nice. And yet after an inconsequentially short maybe a single hour of effort, I was able to adjust to 305. You telling me I'm just better than you? Well if I'm just better, then shouldn't you be listening instead of arguing? If I'm not better, then how do you explain my lack of difficulty with something you claim is difficult?

jki275 3y ago
You're putting a whole lot of words in my mouth and setting up a whole field of straw men there. Good luck with that.

exmadscientist 3y ago

If all you've used is crappy old SAC305 lead-free solder, you owe it to yourself to try a modern alloy like SN100C (& friends, it has several names and similar competitors). It's generations newer and with the right flux (I like AIM's Glow Core wire) it's just great for routine work. It runs a little hotter, but most people already solder too hot anyway, so who cares. I still use 63/37 or 62/36/2 for anything challenging, though. Or for old rework: many people in this thread are missing that you really, really shouldn't mix alloys on a joint, so you've got to get the old stuff out before switching to lead-free, and at single-joint scale that's a lot more polluting than just grabbing the spool of 63/37.

jki275 3y ago
I'll definitely agree that you shouldn't rework old joints with different solder.