solder paste with lead in

[trevwhite]

Hi All

I was looking in Farnell and RS here in the UK for some solder paste. I was looking for lead free based as that is the legal requirement now. I was surprised to see them selling so  many lead based pastes still. Why are they still selling lead based pastes? I thought everyone would have been buying lead free?

Thanks

Tre

[Monkeh]

Legal requirement for what, exactly?

Nothing stops you using lead.

Next up on the myth reel: Part P stops you doing electrical work.

[gxti]

For the most part RoHS only governs consumer goods. Industrial and test equipment, aerospace, etc. aren't covered and may use lead solder for reliability and longevity reasons.

[penfold]

Just reaffirming the previous, there's nothing to stop it being used for prototyping and anything that is not a commercial production run, ie if its developed for a specific customer etc

[trevwhite]

It seems that the more I read the less exempt a lot of things are. RoHS2 seems to have less exemptions and I see a bit of text about certain large industrial machinery but for the most part if you are making something for someone else then you need to ensure you use lead free solder.

[penfold]

Yeah, that's pretty much right. Its my understanding that if something is to be sold commercially in Europe then in order to get its CE mark it must comply to RoHS.

A lot of the high reliability stuff that was previously exempt is starting to get a second look, lead-free technologies are ever so slowly maturing and reliability data is starting to come in (its very difficult to quote a MTBF near 10^7 hours when the relevant processes change every other day).  I also have a feeling that certain nuclear applications will remain exempt as the majority of it will leave the plant as low level waste and its lead content should be the last thing on anyone's mind

[mikeselectricstuff]

File it under "who's going to know?"
Do you really think there are people running around with handheld X-ray fluorescence spectrometers looking for lead in electronic products?

The fact that there is so much leaded available shows that a lot of people don't give
a toss about all the leadfree bullshit.
If everyone stuck rigidly to every rule, nothing would get made.

[Things]

Agreed, lead free is crap. If there is any push to get rid of leaded solder at any stage, I'm going to have $200 put aside to buy as much lead based solder as I possibly can

[Christopher]

At work the on-site warehouse wont give us leaded solder reels, even though 80% of the military products are leaded 

Load of bullshit, RoHS and lead-free solder is just a massive pain in the arse

[BravoV]

Load of bullshit, RoHS and lead-free solder is just a massive pain in the arse

Isn't that obvious that this RoHS is just another by product of tax creativities ? If they really care, they should ban the CFL too, cause it contains mercury, and back to using incandescence lamp. 

[penfold]

Well, unfortunately the NMO run around with what ever they need to screw non-compliers out of a sufficient quantity of cash to purchase the instruments that proved what ever they want to.

[Christopher]

Load of bullshit, RoHS and lead-free solder is just a massive pain in the arse

Isn't that obvious that this RoHS is just another by product of tax creativities ? If they really care, they should ban the CFL too, cause it contains mercury, and back to using incandescence lamp. 

I mean lead-free solder is a pain in the arse to work with.

[G7PSK]

I understood that lead free was only compulsory fo electronics that would be bought by a general public who would be at risk of letting their children chew on the live internals prior to putting the product into land fill. mind you the British military is now talking about banning lead in bullets as it may be harmful to health to have lead in them, As the military have to have full metal jackets on their bullets I am not sure if the health harm is before or after you have been shot with a bullet containing lead.

[KJDS]

The last military job I worked on was lead free.  Lead based solder is still available but mostly for repair of old equipment.

There's nothing wrong with lead free solder, it gives a far more robust joint than squidgy lead, however the inspection criteria do need modifying and you can't get away with a crappy soldering iron.