[Tomo]

Hello,

I just attended an exposition for soldering/processing ... (well this expo got fibre-optics to lithography machines) I took this opportunity to ask around about Lead-Free Solders.

Good many people told me "gray-looking-soldering contact make no difference so who cares." I am sure they are not aware of the problems. Nonetheless, some people are deeply concerned and mixing some new elements or new type of flux.

Most of these junk ain't available outside of Japan. ... But one of them might be of your liking. ALMIT makes high quality Lead-Free's called "KR-19 RMA + LFM48." This is used at NASA and flows much nicely. I think you can buy them in USA. (www.almit.co.jp)

Hold on, this isn't all. I ask them HOW to solder the bi-ch; after all we all gotta abide by the law some day. Few people (some presidents of tiny manufacturers) gave me some tips.

1. Tip temp gotta be ~360C (~680F). They told me it had better NOT be hotter than this. In fact, Lower the Better.

2. DO NOT USE STANDARD PENCIL TIP (looks like a cone). Heat contact area is small, thus poor melting capability. Slotted-Screwdriver-like tips or 45degree-cut tips came recommended.

Tomo

P.S. There is a new solder that mixed Tin with Cu, Ge, Ni. Supposedly it flows like water.

Thanks for the correction ayt999. Appearently KR-19 is the name of their flux. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[ayt999]

did you mean 60% to 63% lead-free for the KR-19 RMA?

the LFM series they have is lead-free though.

 

[Tomo]

Sorry KR-19 was the name of the flux. LFM48 is the solder.

KR19SH RMA LFM48 Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu 217-220C

Got confused I thought the first thing is the name of the thing.

There are other cool stuff. Gummix was interesting ... strange. Who uses that stuff?

Tomo

P.S. I will be careful when I go buy the thing. I am pretty sure store-dudes don't know which name is the flux.

 

[rickcr42]

"lone voice in the wilderness speaks"

WE ARE ALL SCREWED AS IS EVERY CONSUMER OF ELECTRONIC GEAR THAT VALUES CONSISTANTLY RELIABLE PRODUCTS !

The facts are we are all being handed a bucket of crap and told to deal with it the best we can even though those doing the telling are also not happy about it.

As I have said before I get a serious amount of electronics industry trade journals weekly (hardly finsh reading the first round and round 2 arrives !) and across the board the picture is not a good one once you get past the "politics" involved.It is more "I know this sucks but this is the hand dealt to us so here is how we are compliant and here is the story with pictures how maybe your product will have at least a little bit of reliability" (my words but the gist without the doublespeak).

It is a crap sandwich and the menu is nothing but.There is a reason why things have been done a certain way for years and those on the SCIENCE not on what is the political agenda of the EU who are forcing these limitations on anyone wanting to do business in europe (everyone

)


They are worried about lead ? I am more worried that our "disposable society" has just upped the anti and increased the garbage tonnage at the same time we are running out of room to dump all this crap.what do you think happens to "soil quality" when tons of electronics begin to corrode and seep into the soil and from there the wwater table ?

What next ? Ban electronics and go back to the Flintstones era ?

Cell Phones in the year 2010 :

there just gotta be a better way than this sham (LIE for those needing an interpreter) being handed to us all

 

[skyskraper]

i feel sorry for the lead miners

/sarcasm

 

[rickcr42]

Quote:

I feel sorry for the lead miners-sarcasm

you should feel sorry for the consumer for the next twenty years while the electronics industry tries to figure out how to make it all work.They are not ready no matter what the press is telling you and the product reliability will be way down.

Proof ? how about the military has a dispensation for sensitive electronic equipment.Hospitals for life sensitive electronics,emergency medical gear,police radios and such.
If this crap was so good then why would the rich and powerful or governments shun it while forcing it on the average Joe as they do all other things they IMPOSE on US while not themselves ?

Same old story but buy into the propaganda machine if you want or be smart and do some actual research rather than post wise cracks on a topic you obviously know absolutlely zero about

 

[skyskraper]

oh rick, i know how u feel on the topic. agree completely. i cant wait for everything to start failing. maybe ill just become a vintage electronics user

 

[Garbz]

OMG i have a pair of thoes. I could be rich. New technology before it arrives.

I fully agree. They can't fix the problems in their ****ing environments so they work form the bottom up, not the top down. OMG they can make lead free solder, it's crap, but it works, that means it's a solution, that means we can force them to use it. Next problem, deal with devices on standby power, meanwhile they are driving their big american fuel guzzlers, I won't go on otherwise i'll be banned! I'm a bit opinionated.

Let me just say if they put even a quater as much effort into research into hydrogen which does work, and works well as BMW has constantly shown, instead of protection the oil companies we'd all be much healthier.

 

[rickcr42]

Quote:

oh rick, i know how u feel on the topic. agree completely. i cant wait for everything to start failing. maybe ill just become a vintage electronics user

Vintage electronics have a lot to offer but only when mated to modern materials.the designs wer great but the limits of technology at the time held back the sonics.

I am not the nostalgic type wanting to turn back the clock but when I see a con job on a grand scale going on where most buy into the lie just because those who want you to beleive it pump up the propaganda machine I worry about any decisions made since from where I sit the human race has become the most gullable bunch in the history of.

Modern technology has been more step back than step forward and that for going on five years.Look around.Everything is falling apart,things made twenty years ago are baffling to modern techs,skilll means you can walk AND chew gum yet these idiots speak and we are to beleive the crap coming out of their mouth ?

Kinda off topic : yesterday they scrapped theNASA Pluto Probe launch because of "high winds".

High winds ? High fkn winds ? IT"S A DAMN SPACECRAFT !


"oooh noooo.The spacecraft just blew over ! what ever shall we do ?"

Be afraid folks.Be very afraid.We are under the watchful eye of idiots and they have all the power

Quote:

OMG i have a pair of thoes. I could be rich. New technology before it arrives.

Me too.I am still having a hard time transferring AAC files and jpegs but I figure what man has figured out once he will again so am not too worried (reads the above again

)

Quote:

Next problem, deal with devices on standby power, meanwhile they are driving their big american fuel guzzlers, I won't go on otherwise i'll be banned! I'm a bit opinionated

fuel cells.They work like crap yet there are busses using them and the chatter in the journals is "you need this" while at the same time the knowledgable write "run away ! Run away fast !"

Cool article in this months Electronic Design Magazine on how the race to miniaturization and efficient portable power has all our portable processing devices right at the edge of thermal runaway and how "devolution",that is a technology back step is the answer

Ground up ? top down ? how about no fkn clue and the blind leading the blind

 

[skyskraper]

what we need if they insist on making an issue of the lead is to create more efficient recycling processes for electronics gear. i know im more worried about the other nasty chemicals in the environment then a few dabs of solder

 

[rickcr42]

Quote:

what we need if they insist on making an issue of the lead is to create more efficient recycling processes for electronics gear.

And that goes to making it MORE reliable first not less reliable and cheaply made which means disposable.ever wonder why we even HAVE vintage gear yet eveything built in the last ten years us garbage ?

There was a time when things were not only made to last but built with being serviced in mind and why we have a better shot at updating the old than we do repairing the new.Tiny little nothing parts with all parts on a substratel enclosed in plastic is not condusive to repair work.
Add in even lower relaibility than the crap we have now which lead free will bring and watch as the manufacturers rack up the $$$$ in replacement cost while the refuse haulers look for a depp hole at night to dump all the crap we toss out daily.
You want to save the world and clean up the environement ? Ban all plastics and artificial rubber products and go back to real rubber from a rubber tree (renewable resource) and bakelite in place of plastic.At this point if an asteroid ever hit the earth it would probably bounce off from all the old car tires laying around with no way to get rid of them unless it hits all that plastic laying around from last years electronics garbage.

i wonder how many cell phones along have been tossed into the garbage in the last three years ? Lead is the least of our problems

 

[rickcr42]

Quote:

just attended an exposition for soldering/processing ... (well this expo got fibre-optics to lithography machines) I took this opportunity to ask around about Lead-Free Solders. Good many people told me "gray-looking-soldering contact make no difference so who cares." I am sure they are not aware of the problems. Nonetheless, some people are deeply concerned and mixing some new elements or new type of flux.

to get poor tomo's thread back on track (because it was me that derailed it

) :

It is not the "gray" or the "dull" you need to worry about as in traditional soldering but the actual molecular bonding going on which if put under a microscope would likely make you shout out when you actually seen there was NO BONDING going on !
But that is only the beginning.This BAD connection will actually deteriorate and get worse meaning anything constructed using the "approved" method will start out questionable and then over time get worse meaning "see you later bye" when you chunk it into the garbage.
Since electronics is getting cheaper by the hour most don't give a rats a*s since once this garbage is out of their sight it becomes someone elses problem but I wonder how many would take this stand if tomorrow they made it illegal to pick up your trash and you had to keep everyhing you ever purchased !

Think about that.........


Lead Free sucks,RoHs sucks even harder and I for one am not buying into the propaganda machine since even the lies are weak when analized in depth and I do my research on all things important.
A con job of grand proportions forced on us by a political view,NOT science just because they can when they sit back and allow other KNOWN danger areas to go unnoticed hence no actions taken.Why ? Who is paying who off (or ******* who ?) ? Who has a "daddy" in what industry ? And why don't people just come clean and tell the damn truth about things instead of always lying to us ?

 

[aerius]

I'm in full agreement with Rick. I used to work in electronics assembly industry and well, to say we had issues is an understatement. I went to the industry conferences and got lots of shiny brochures saying that the new lead-free solders & solder paste mixes were great and all we had to do was bump up reflow oven temperatures about 10-20 degrees. If only it was that easy. We had a hell of a time getting solder to stick & flow, the manufacturer's temp profiles were highly optimistic to say the least and it took us over a week to get something approaching our previous quality. But whoops, now we have a problem, to get the solder to flow we had to crank the temps up about 40-50 degrees which means a lot of parts can no longer be reflowed.

So back to the drawing board. What we finally had to do was get fancy inert gas reflow ovens, the inside of the oven is flooded with nitrogen and there's lots of separate temperature zones in the oven so we can set fine temperature profiles. Let's just say the oven was worth about $350,000, used about $10 of N2/hour, and we needed 30 of them for our production lines. You do the math on how much that upgrade cost us. And it still never flowed quite as well as leaded solder and when we x-rayed it & did all the rest of our quality checks it wasn't pretty. Not only were the actual molecular bonds crap, there were an alarming number of voids & other defects. Put it through a few hundred heat/cool cycles and it's toast.

One of our clients was Sun Microsystem, we built big $10,000 motherboards for their fancy computers. They saw the results and insisted that we stay with leaded solder for their products. Thank god they did because there's no way to build their boards with lead-free without scrapping at least half of them, and it later became our policy to use leaded solder products unless the client insists otherwise. If we didn't the costs would go through the roof.

Bottom line? The guys who make the solder, the parts, the assembly machines, and sell the end product will all tell you lead-free is great stuff. The guys who do the assembly work and actually work with it will tell you that it's probably more fun to get kicked between the legs than to suffer the joys of working with lead-free products.

 

[PinkFloyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickcr42 "lone voice in the wilderness speaks" WE ARE ALL SCREWED AS IS EVERY CONSUMER OF ELECTRONIC GEAR THAT VALUES CONSISTANTLY RELIABLE PRODUCTS !

Ditto to that.

 

[Tomo]

Hey,

But Sn-Cu-Ni-Ge hold pretty nicely.

They had a small machine for mixing your own stuff. Cool huh? Mr. Solder for you.

You should ask check out Sn-Bi. Cool stuff. You use it to desolder stuff. This stuff melts under 100C and stay molten for like a minute! Geez you can desolder your SMD DAC chips and "wipe" the solder off in that time. Yes! You don't need to use desoldering gun/tapes. You wipe the molten solder with tissue! ... I almost fell out of chair! Cool.

Anyways, there are many stuffs on the way. (No thanks for the policy-makers.) Whisker problems, I hear, can be solved with alloy contents. Also, there are some solder that sticks like a stick of gum. It is actually better at it than Sn-Pb. (I saw it!) Only problem is it melts at 230C.

Someone told me that this flow crap is not about melting temp. He told me it's because of poor surface tension. I sorta agree since most of our irons are like 350-400C (~700F) anyways. So this guy told me to make the soldering-pad small so the solder "ride-up" the component-lead.

Tomo

P.S. Sorry I have forgotten some stuff and they are coming back to me as we discuss. Yeah ... and Tomo likes to keep it fact-oriented and not passionate tirade as Tomo likes to do as well as the next guy/girl. (See? I am politically-correct, too)