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Post by drew571 on Feb 28, 2017 9:31:24 GMT -6
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Post by johneppstein on Feb 28, 2017 16:29:49 GMT -6
63/37 lead based solder is the best unless you're exporting to countries that require strict ROHS compliance. |
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Post by rocinante on Mar 1, 2017 8:42:49 GMT -6
Yeah non lead solder sucks, especially if one is just getting into diy as some components wont bond with non-lead solder.
Also keep in mind there are 10's of thousands of dudes out there who build pro audio items that have used leaded solder nearly everyday for decades that have never had a problem.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2017 11:53:41 GMT -6
Main drawbacks of lead-free solder are:
- needs higher solder temperature
- cold solder joints do not look substantially different to good ones anymore
- electronics done with lead free solder tends to have shorter lifespan. Seems the solder joints are not as stable as the leaded ones.
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Post by svart on Mar 1, 2017 12:14:30 GMT -6
Regular old lead solder is fine.
ROHS doesn't necessarily mean "lead-free", it could still contain lead a low levels.. However, ROHS solder can have much higher levels of other heavy metals that are equally or more dangerous, I.E., cadmium, etc..
They simply traded some health risks for others.
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Post by rowmat on Mar 1, 2017 13:29:56 GMT -6
A couple of years back I repaired the summing module in a Tonelux 1628 that had developed a weird intermittent problem in the left channel.
It would randomly act like a high pass filter and lose the low end.
Upon removing the module I could see the solder joints were a mess and the PCB was covered in contaminants.
After attempting to reflow some of the suspect joints I realised I was dealing with lead free solder that had been hand soldered rather than wave soldered by a machine.
I desoldered the entire PCB with a vacuum desoldering tool and then resoldered the board with leaded solder and then cleaned the board.
The problem ceased and didn't reappear.
I then saw a forum post from Paul Wolff saying Tonelux got caught in the shift to lead free solder and could not ship product to the EU until they were lead free.
Apparently Wolff's wave soldering guy took a few months to convert his setup to lead free so it appeared Tonelux hand soldered many of their products during this period.
From what I saw it appear the lead free soldering on the Tonelux I repaired was done at too low a temperature.
It's always been leaded solder for me.
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Post by jimwilliams on Mar 1, 2017 14:47:01 GMT -6
Mostly lead free here, I do have some 60/40 in case I need to wet a big power device. I switched to SN62 2% silver back in the 1980's. California is a RoHS state so I use Kester 48 3% silver, 1/2% copper formula on new productions.
I also use WBT 4% silver, that stuff sounds great.
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