Fun with Lead-Free soldering

Hi:

I got a roll of Kester SAC305 alloy 0.031" no-clean flux cored wire solder. Tested it out by soldering a DIP and some wires to a PCB and also by tinning some wire. The tinning went a lot smoother (wetted slightly under the skin, not just the tip near the iron) when some additional rosin flux liquid was applied. Without that, such as with the PCB, the solder definitely doesn't wet and flow like SnPb. It works, but doesn't give a very satisfying "feel." And is also harder to control how much to feed into a joint, since you don't know if it is in the mood to soak through or not on any particular attempt. Ultimately if I had to, I could get the hang of it.

I am curious to see what will come down the pike at my job, where it is likely that soon we will be banned from soldering (actually using any chemicals) in our work areas.

The point is that technician work areas are also used for eating, as we don't have separate offices and labs like scientists. But if we can't work with chemicals in our work areas, that sure cuts down on the amount of work we can do.

The next question is whether there will eventually be a push toward eliminating Pb based solders in the soldering that we have to do.

I spent some time at aimsolder.com today, looking at their CASTIN alloy, which contains a little bit of antimony. Says it wets better than SAC305 and higher Ag containing alloys. Apparently <=2.5% Ag is better for wetting. I hope that alloy works a little easier.

Which leads to my question of the day:

If the automated assembly industry will definitely move to lead-free, what about all the hand soldering that is still done? It seems it is easier to get automated processes to work well with these solders, but hand soldering will just never be the same. Is the EU banning only commercial products from Pb solder processes, or will lead solder be simply unavailable, such as to hobbyists and engineers doing R&D work?



Good day!



--
_____________________
Christopher R. Carlen
crobc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5
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