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I still wonder about all the hobbiests, including occasionally myself who might not be treating leaded solder with the caution it deserves. I use unleaded solde
by djmips 2y ago
I still wonder about all the hobbiests, including occasionally myself who might not be treating leaded solder with the caution it deserves. I use unleaded solder but I also fix older gear.
- rasz 2y agoSolder is not the problem, soldering fumes do not contain vaporized lead as that would require >400C. They might and often do contain vaporized flux/colophony/resin. You reaaaaaaallllyyyy dont want to breath that thus fume extractors are a must.
- kevindamm 2y agoAgree with this but also want to stress the importance of washing your hands after handling solder, to be sure. And any affected surfaces in your work station / area. You don't want to accidentally ingest tiny bits of lead from the solder, and this probably goes for solder without lead too.
- sidewndr46 2y agoone of my soldering irons regularly glows cherry red hot when under usage. So far past 400 C. I don't use that every time I solder, but sometimes I do That being said, I think the impact of the lead may be tiny compared to the rosin fumes. The real issue is someone in a factory who may handle leaded solder ever single day. The accumulated exposure over a lifetime is a big deal
- dicknuckle 2y agoThere's something extremely wrong with that iron. I've had a Tenma soldering station to that once, caused by a bad thermocouple that was lying to the controller.
- sidewndr46 2y agothermostat burned out not longer after I bought it. Good iron design, bad thermostat design. It works great for soldering pipe and bar stock together. Don't leave it plugged in for very long.
- Blackthorn 2y agoSolder is absolutely a problem. The life cycle of your part doesn't just include when you solder it. It includes anyone who has to handle it in the future, and it includes the E-Waste dump in an impoverished country that it inevitably ends up in.
- Workaccount2 2y agoNot really, metallic lead is pretty inert. Its lead compounds and lead dust that are dangerous.
- ta988 2y agorecycled PCBs are often turned into dust.
- smcin 2y agoNot just due to the Pb dust though, also Al, Fe, Cu, fiberglass: "Mineralogical analysis of dust collected from typical recycling line of waste printed circuit boards" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956053X15004353 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09560...
- ta988 2y agoYes and Cu and fiberglass and the resins are especially toxic too
- SoftTalker 2y agoI have a big spool of lead solder probably from the 1980s and I store it like treasure. It’s so much better than modern solder.
- 0_____0 2y agoYou can just buy SnPb solder today, probably with better fluxes than whatever they were using in the 80s. Non-Pb solders also work fine for almost everything (I keep a little bit of SnPb around but do most of my work in lead-free), the big thing is to have a good iron and good tips. Makes way more difference than the solder composition.
- Aurornis 2y agoI have good news for you. Leaded solder never went away. It’s still available. Modern solder and fluxes are also likely to outperform 40 year old solder.
- rasz 2y agoYou can still buy brand new solder intended for medical/mil use made in Europe/Poland by Cynel https://www.cynel.com.pl/en/?view=article&id=99:sn60pb40-pro&catid=13 https://www.cynel.com.pl/en/?view=article&id=99:sn60pb40-pro... Fun fact - Rambo knows his stuff and uses Cynel sn60pb40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3XRrPZRJEw&t=11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3XRrPZRJEw&t=11
- CarVac 2y agoSolder spatters everywhere even if it's not vaporized. The resulting lead-bearing powder gets everywhere.
- mrob 2y agoThis is especially true of hand soldering. Hand soldering requires regular cleaning of the soldering iron tip. Both the common methods (brass wool and damp sponge) produce many tiny balls of solder that roll and bounce easily. They can end up caught in clothing then fall into food.
- kragen 2y agoLeaded solder in electronics is not a significant source of human exposure. In jewelry, maybe, but it's unusual to use it there, and in plumbing.
- saagarjha 2y agoFor most people or specifically among those who touch electronics for a living?
- kragen 2y agoEven among those who touch electronics for a living. There are occupations that do get significant lead exposure (as the article points out), but electronics technicians have never been among them, even before fume extractors were common for soldering. Metallic lead is sufficiently hard to oxidize that even most people with lead bullets embedded in their bodies don't get lead poisoning, and, at soldering temperatures, lead's vapor pressure is not sufficient to reach a toxic dose, even taking into account lead's horrific tendency to bioaccumulate.
- the__alchemist 2y agoI concur. Recommending unleaded software to hobbyists makes people irrationally hostile. I have a theory of why...
- Aurornis 2y agoI know you’re joking, but leaded solder is significantly easier to work with on a hobbyist level. As long as you’re washing your hands properly and avoiding contact contamination it’s not an issue. I’m always amazed when I see people using lead-free solder for “health reasons” who then inhale all of the fumes from their flux, though.
- CarVac 2y agoIt's significantly easier if you have grossly inadequate soldering equipment. This is 2025, you can get properly temperature-controlled soldering irons for dirt cheap now.
- murderfs 2y agoTemperature control isn't usually the real problem, it's insufficient power to heat the board up to the liquidus temperature of the solder. This is an especially annoying pain in the ass when you're desoldering components from a board with non-thermal relief pads connected to gigantic copper pours, where you basically have to either use hot air or a board preheater.
- CarVac 2y agoI run a hobbyist open source hardware project that is user-assembled (PhobGCC) and even though our early boards had bad thermal relief a basic Pinecil is good enough to desolder SAC305 or SN99. But most of the issues with soldering came from people using uncontrolled irons that were either too hot, instantly burning off pads, or too cold thus not letting the flux punch through the oxides. When you get to big copper fills, SN63 helps, but ChipQuik helps more. So does a Thermaltronics TMT-1000S which is coming next month at $125. (love my TMT-2000S but the 1000S looks to be a steal)
- MengerSponge 2y agoYou can mitigate the risk: set up a good extraction filter and wash your hands when you finish work.
- foxglacier 2y agoExtraction fans have nothing to do with it. You don't get lead gas or floating particles in the air when you're soldering.
- userbinator 2y agoThis is just an anecdote, but I know someone who worked with leaded solder since he was a young teen, and he sometimes holds the solder in his mouth(!) when working on tricky joints. He is in his early 90s now and still very healthy.
- soupfordummies 2y agoworking on tricky solder joints in your NINETIES is kinda wild on its own!
- userbinator 2y agoI suspect there are far more people like that, and we just don't hear about them because they keep to themselves. This Youtuber is an exception: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40519095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40519095
- buildsjets 2y agoI wonder how much lead a solder sucker aerosolizes.
- relaxing 2y agoIt doesn’t.
- buildsjets 2y agoThe fine coating of solder dust on my workbench suggests that you are wrong.
- relaxing 2y agoHow do you know the dust is solder? How is the solder getting out of the sucker? Let alone turning into a fine powder? How much desoldering are you doing?? There are far more likely sources of particulate matter, such as flux which we know does get aerosolized.
- coryrc 2y agoMetallic lead isn't especially bioavailable. Lead in paint is not metallic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_paint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_paint You don't use solder in a place where it's exposed to friction (like window sashes with lead paint) which makes a dust, nor do you put it places where it's exposed to food or drink (again, hopefully) like with pewter or lead glass (crystal).
- garbagewoman 2y agoLead compounds that are formed from common reactions between metallic lead and other compounds are, on the other hand, incredibly bioavailable, and very common