Most of the repairs / restorations I do are on retro equipment and I prefer not to contaminate them with this new fangle lead-free rubbish. However, my preferred supplier has just discontinued all lead based solders, despite the fact that they are (as far as I know) still being manufactured. Is this going to happen with other distributors, or are they just being over enthusiastic on the green front? Is it time to stock up?
I assume others here also only use lead solder on older equipment, or are there people here that use lead free on a PCB that was manugactured with the good old stuff?
McBryce.
In a nutshell, yes. I think it is a EU directive but I stocked up with plenty of leaded solder while my supplier still had it. My advice is to do likewise before all suppliers run out of it. I think that leaded solder is still available professionally under certain conditions, maybe someone else will be able to confirm that and what those conditions are etc?
Another issue is the quality of the flux in the remaining brands of 63/37. A lot of the cheaper manufactures are using the same halogenated petrochem flux as they use for unleaded; add that to the "recovered from old batteries" lead (which, to be fair, even the name brands are using now) and you have a recipe for ugly bubbly fillets that cool dull grey and look just like unleaded.
![Banging Head |O](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/bangheadonwall.gif)
It's getting harder and harder to find any quality solder with clean lead and simple, organic rosin flux anymore. Well, without pay a kidney and a spleen for it, that is.
![Face Palm :palm:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/facepalm.gif)
mnem
*Current mood: 60/40*