Lead Free Solder 1

[Vladpl]

Hello All

As most of you know there is a big movement towards lead free solder. Europian Union has a law that from 1 July 2006 you will not be able to use lead solder ( military, medical, aircraft will be exempt).

My question is that there is only 7 moths till that takes effect and I am unable to find a good lead free solder to use. Is there anyone that knows where and what brand of lead free solder there are on the markets.

I was looking at a sample (can't remeber the brand) lead free solder but the problem with it is that it crackes easily. Basicaly anything I saw out there isn't good enough to use. Since I am from Australia I was unable to find it here.

 

[zeitghost]

Yes.

It goes something like:

"We're worried about all this electronic stuff going into landfill."

"I know, we'll take the lead out of solder, that'll make things better".

Except that it makes things worse because suddenly everything is unreliable.

So even more stuff ends up in landfill...

Aside from the fact that lead in solder only makes up about 1% anyway.

 

[bigmantony]

Dear Vladpl,
Getting back on track to your initial question.
We tried Multicole Solder (for hand soldering)

96SC Crystal 511
96SC Ersin 309

We preferred the 96SC Ersin 309.

In the UK I contacted the multicore tech help: Ian.Williams@uk.henkel.com
He will help you find a source in the Great Oz....

These things are dirty dear though, but we have no choice.

 

[Comcokid]

Some statistics on worldwide lead usage:
Storage Batteries 80.81%
Paint, Ceramics, Pigments, Chemicals 4.78%
Ammunition 4.69%
Sheet Lead 1.79%
Cable Covering 1.40%
Casting Metals 1.13%
Brass, Bronze - Billets and Ingots 0.72%
Pipes, Traps, Extruded Products 0.72%
Solder (for non electronics use) 0.72%
Solder (electronics use) 0.70%
Miscellaneous 2.77%

Discard of Lead in Municipal Solid Waste (from EPA):
Lead Acid Batteries 48.1%
Leaded glass in CRT and picture tubes 35.8%
Glass and Ceramics 5.5%
Consumer Electronics (i.e. solder) 4.4%
Plastics 2.5%
Cans, packaging Containers 1.4%
Building waste and other 2.3%

Statistics source -

http://www.cmap.ca

 

[felixc]

Pity!

 

[ScottI2R]

OH NO!!!! First they take away my paint chips and NOW they want my solder! I guess I'll have to switch to a NiCd diet. Bummer....Maybe I'll switch to breathing the combustion byproducts of PTFE.

Well, at least they are leaving aerospace and medical alone.

Does this mean I will be arrested entering the EU to work on a machine and having leaded solder in my tool kit? I'm glad I'm going to France next week and not this summer! Jeez!


Hope the humor is found enjoyable!

Scott

In a hundred years, it isn't going to matter anyway.

 

[daveylynx]

With just over 6 months to go, the electronics manufacturing industry in the UK (what little there is of it) is in complete turmoil. I expect the rest of Europe is in the same position. Talk to the PCB makers and they tell you this is going to be a major headache. Remember, they have to plate all the boards that we solder the components to. I have spoken at length to my board supplier and they tell me that they can think of no positive aspect of this lead free nonsence. Not only is this stuff difficult to use and inspect, it's also corrosive. Their existing stainless steel baths are no good any more. The shelf life of the boards will be as low as a few days unless kept in a protective atmosphere and one of the replacements for the lead, antimony, is far more poisonous than the lead itself. We saw the same thing when they removed the lead (TEL) from petrol, the refinaries just found something far more noxious to replace it with!

Lead free is going to give the industry a bad name. The reliability of the already flakey consumer products is going to get far worse. Consumers are going to get pretty pissed when their DVD recorder gives up after 13 months! The QA process in some of the Chinese factories is virtually non existant anyway, make the QA more difficult and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that we're heading for disaster. The people that dreamed up this crazy idea *know* that lead free is crap and unreliable, that's why they have made exemptions for aerospace, military and computer server products. The exemptions are a tacit admission that lead free is unreliable. After all, why did we add lead to tin in the first place?

Another point not mentioned here - spare a thought for repair houses. Lead free solder is not compatible with leaded solder. Reworking existing leaded boards isn't going to be an option. It's effectively going to kill the repair business - yet more stuff in landfill. Aren't these European policy makers clever people - not!

Personally, I'm stockpiling leaded solder while it's still freely available. In a couple of years I reckon it will be worth a fortune on Ebay!!

 

[jraef]

Given that ammunition places almost 7 times more lead in the environment than solder, maybe we should ban ammunition.

And drip molten solder on the violators!

Eng-Tips: Help for your job, not for your homework Read faq731-376

 

[ScottI2R]

Daveylynx,
As I recall, and correct me if I am wrong, lead free gasoline was a required evil because of the implimentation of the catalytic converter on vehicles. I was lead (no pun intended) to believe that it would plug the converter.

BTW, I loved the Ebay remark! It's going to be like trying to buy R-12! You'll need to be licensed and pay big $$$ as well.

Scott

In a hundred years, it isn't going to matter anyway.

 

[zeitghost]

Buy 60-40 tin lead now while stocks last!

Lead poisons the catalytic converter. One tank of leaded gas will write the converter off...

At the moment, if the item for repair uses leaded solder, then you are permitted to use leaded solder to repair it.

I would think that using lead free solder to repair tin/lead joints is less than optimal... and the joint looks dreadful, dull & nasty.

 

[jraef]

I had an interesting conversation at lunch today with an ex-coworker who worked for Sharp LCD division in the early 90's. I have no reason to doubt him, but this could just be his personal rant/conspiracy theory on this subject. I mentioned the data from Comcokid's post on how high the CRT lead % numbers were in the landfill sources and since he used to work in that industry, I wanted to know more about that. He confirmed that likelyhood, but went on with this story.

He says that when Sharp and other LCD mfrs were trying to get the market off the ground for LCD TVs and monitors, they couldn't compete with CRTs on price. So they formed an industry group and funded research on ways to attack the CRT industry that would help create demand for LCD alternatives. They are the ones responsible for the radiation stories, as well as lead stories, hoping to capture the green-conscious consumers as a niche that would pay more for LCDs. They supposedly funded a research project on all the hazmats that go into the manufacture and disposal of CRTs, lead being a chief target.

Then some Green Party activists in the EU got hold of this study and tried to use it for their agenda of forcing a return/recycle fee to be placed on all CRT products to prevent them from getting into landfills and fund cleanup of manufacturing sites. The CRT industry would have been devastated, so they countered by saying that if you ban one source, you need to ban them all, thinking that this would never happen and they could continue as before. They even funded their own studies on other sources of lead, over-emphasizing solder on PCBs, because of course that would hurt the LCD industry.

The unintended consequence of course, was that the Greens added that study to their arsenal, won the day and the unthinkable happened, with all lead based products, including solder, getting banned.

It sounds just Machiavellian enough to be true.

Eng-Tips: Help for your job, not for your homework Read faq731-376

 

[waross]

Does any one remember a proposition years ago in California to reduce lead in the environment by requiring a certain percentage of the cars in California to be electric by a certain date? I understand that it was passed, but never enforced after someone pointed out to the policy makers that the manufacture of the batteries needed would cause much more pollution than would ever be saved by the gasoline that was replaced by electric.
I wonder what the lead impact of the battery banks in the new hybrid cars is and how the lead volumes compare to the lead volumes in solder?

 

[itsmoked]

Landfills must all be lined now to prevent who-knows-what from leaking out the bottom into the water tables. So really it shouldn't matter what gets tossed into the landfills short of things that are gaseous pollutants or masses of liquid. Certainly not a few circuit boards that might on a bad day make up .001% of the waste stream.

 

[felixc]

If Europe saw in RoHS a way to stay competitive by being first to promulge it, they missed their target. Just the big makers will take advantage of it, with the end users paying for it. The big manufacturers are not in Europe.

 

[UKpete]

Oh no, the EU has really upset folks this time.
I couldn't help noticing that grades of lead-free solder weren't as easy to use when soldering by hand - it seemed reluctant to tin the bit. I've sort of got there in the end, by turning up the iron temperature and using a tip cleaner (mixture of solder powder and chemicals) every time I pick up the iron. Somehow the joint doesn't look as good though, more dull in appearance; no idea what the effect is on long-term reliability.

 

[zeitghost]

Hope that tip cleaner didn't have lead in it UKpete...

Lead free requires a hotter iron.

Apparently the stuff with good old activated flux (5 core) is the dog's whatsits according to an article in Television magazine.

 

[felixc]

Hehe, look a the pc boards that are in TV sets. Could you imagine something similar in an industrial control system?

The good old RA and RMA rosin? The one that needs CFCs to clean? Aargh!

 

[zeitghost]

Don't think the flux mentioned is rosin based.

 

[itsmoked]

To be "Activated" it has to be "rosin" doesn't it?


There is no better solder for creating beautiful clean solid joints then ol Kester "44". When I really have a problem joint I reach for it. But cleaning it without some CFC is a nightmare.

 

[felixc]

Yup!

 

[felixc]

I still have a tin can of Kester acid paste for the real tough ones... like those "Made in China" video cables that I need to customize.