Posted By
MMS
on 2019-08-17
13:38:39
 |  Re: Plus/4 black screen : TED, CPU, PLA, and ROMs are good
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Frankly speaking, soldering became complicated since they introduced lead-free soldering and you cannot get lead for soldering. You need flux and so.
I do not lie: lead is poisinous to your body, but only if you do not handle with care. If you eat after that with unwashed hand, or eat/dring during work. Otherwise...
There were several side effects of the lead-free soldering too, namely the strong acids and their fumes you breath in (and you really cannot prevent flux if you want to go lead-free). In fact, after introducing lead-free soldering, several ppl hospitalized due to poisonuous gases they inhaled (was not the case with lead)
I am also not a soldering master, but receintly I tried to do some for hobby, and it was a very bad experience. I remember how much easier it was when I made my Covox card soldered with lead.
So I will surely buy some old lead soldering mat to make my stuff. Otherwirse I just overheat these old PCBs (anyhow soldered with lead).
If you are for lead-free, I highly suggest to buy good quality soldering mat (they are pretty expensive) with flux loaded inside the wire, with low melting point.
Typically the ones containing silver get close to the 210°C meltig point.
(Stannol, Weller are really good, but there are some good ones too. Do not choose high Cu contetnt version, you will bot able to manage those ones have more than 1% copper content)
A random quote from someone on the internet:
"As a newbie solderer I found the temp controlled iron was a big help with lead free solder.
I had a big reel of lead solder handed down from my wifes dad. No idea how old it was but its lasted me a long time and gave great results even with a cheap iron.
The difference I found is that the lead solder is more forgiving.
The lead free solder needs extra flux and everything immaculately clean.
I find rubbing the solder pads with the pcb rubbers/cleaners, even if they look clean, essential."
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