Need advice on lead-free soldering

As I have an infant at home and lack a dedicated room for my projects, I find that I cannot in good conscience solder with lead solder at home. Not soldering at all is terrible of course, so I'd like to try lead-free soldering. However, there seems to be conflicting information on what solder to use, wether to use separate flux or not and what temperature is best. Any hints? I'll also have to start with some SMD soldering soon, so if that raises unique issues I'd like to know about those too.

Thanks in advance for any pointers!

-Geert

Hi Geert,

... you've only one real option - exhaust the fumes.

Beside - lead isn't banned because of the toxicity (it's mostly flux in the fumes, not the lead), but because of some recycling processes, where lead contaminate some steps ...

Viktor

Fumes I can indeed deal with by ventilation. My biggest worry is ingestion of tiny splatters of solder that are mostly lead. In my apartment with wooden floors there is just no way to clean everything up 100%. Anyway, the decision.not to use lead-based solder at my current home has already been made. I'm just curious if anyone here has experiences with thatand wouldn't mind sharing some useful tips or insights.

-Geert

What I always use is a piece of paper, for example the newspaper of yesterday and put it on your desk/whatever you want to save... You can make a huge mess on it, and when you are finished you just fold the paper and throw it away. Thats how I do it on my wooden table...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2009 04:32AM by Mr. Seeker.

I think the fumes from lead free flux are more toxic than leaded solder flux so actually leaded soldering is safer to do at home. You need extraction for unleaded.

I find lead free soldering much harder to do than leaded. The iron has to be a lot hotter so it is easier to lift tracks and damage components. That means you need a temperature controlled iron, whereas you can away with open loop for unleaded.

It does not flow as well as leaded and it oxidises on the bit much faster so you are constantly having to clean the bit.

The joints always look dull, whereas with leaded that is a sign of a bad joint. You tend to have to add flux to get descent results, whereas I have always been able to get by with the inbuilt flux in leaded solder.

All in all a PITA and if you want your electronics to last a long time lead free has a problem with tin wiskers.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2009 05:44AM by nophead.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I personally only use lead free solder, and find it pretty straight forwards to use. I use a 150-420 degree C soldering station (generic non-branded, about £40) and flux cored solder, and haven't encountered any problems yet. While you could probably get away without a temperature controlled iron with leaded solder, I find the temperature control very useful. It enables you to solder to large cables or heavy switch connections, and also smd parts. Ventilation is a must, and will be if you build a reprap as well.

same things here, I got a spool of leadfree solder by mistake (because of the issues listed above I heard before I intentionally wanted leaded solder)
I just raised the temperature of my soldering iron, that's even cheaper than the one james has (20€; zhongdi) it went pretty well.
But to be honest I first soldered some blank wires to a blank pcb to see how it goes.
Big heat but short time, so that the tracks and parts wont get hurt.
And it went pretty well.
But the indeed slightly dull looking joints made me buy leaded solder again.

'sid

Yes the higher temperatures don't do much damage when soldering, but if you have to do any rework it is very east to lift pads off the board. The glue that holds the copper to the fibreglass doesn't take the higher temperature for as long.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I have always used lead free solder. I have a xantronix super power iron that has a digital temperature control that I bought for $100. I set my iron to around 620F it works great until I need to desolder. I find that a desoldering wick works better than a pump for lead free solder... not sure why