[1] https://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/
[2] https://www.edn.com/analog-guru-jim-williams-dies-after-stro...
A professional is usually working in a dedicated workspace completely separate of a working area, and that distinction alone is important.
Everyone is aware they should wash their hands after working with lead solder, but if you’re working where you live, it’s all too easy to contaminate areas that you often come in contact with.
I remember trying to clean out my solder sucker one day and realizing the sucker was literally atomizing solder. Just cleaning that thing probably contaminated a good radius around my desk.
And I mean you can say “just wipe down the desk”, but that’s where the hobbyist aspect comes in, a lot of people will do this on a desk with a keyboard and a mouse, maybe a carpet, a ton of places for little bits of solder to hide.
They’re doing things that a professional probably wouldn’t do too, accidentally getting solder balls all over the place and stuff.
I’ve decided it’s not worth the risk. 99% of my soldering is through hole components you could solder with your eyes closed.
Most hobbyists are not doing the volume of soldering that any extra work with non leaded solder is going to be terrible anyways. And they’re also often not going to take precautions like wearing gloves and buying a fume extractor for the same reason
If you're doing this in your kitchen, stay far, far away from lead.
If you're doing this in your commercial building's electronics lab, where food and drink is prohibited, and there are only electronics people around... leaded solder is going to win.
If you're doing this in your factory, where your processes are tightly dialed in and you're moving mountains of product... now you can use either one just as easily, so there's no reason to risk lead unless the customer or application demands it.
(The US generally follows the same pattern, by industry alignment rather than law. It's actually nice for the US: we get all the benefits of industry-wide RoHS adoption, but with the ability to painlessly "opt out" for any reason at all.)
I should be more careful in the future, fortunately I rarely solder and for short periods of time, like 5 minuts just to fix a wire that got disconnected or change a capacitor, so I don't think it will do any harm, still better to take precautions in the future.
Anyone with knowledge on the topic that can weigh in?
Did not get your link to Jim Williams article. Care to elaborate?
Later he developed Parkinson's disease (probably related [1]) and died of a stroke.
Tin plating has largely been replaced by tin alloys at this point which has more or less solved the whisker issue at a large scale.
More info here: https://www.indium.com/blog/pb-free-solders-are-not-the-caus...
Sometimes they need a bit more time or a few degrees or to be done more than once, but it works most of the time. Do not get your oven too hot or you risk causing components to fall off, it isn't actually reaching full melting point, just close enough for solder cracks and tin whiskers to self-heal.
I probably don't need to say this but don't do this with a card that works because it is a small risk. The key is keeping a stable temperature and not rushing it. Ive never had it fail on me, but that could just be luck of the draw.