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Comment by rasz | Hacker News Reader

Solder is not the problem, soldering fumes do not contain vaporized lead as that would require >400C. They might and often do contain vaporized flux/colophony/resin. You reaaaaaaallllyyyy dont want to breath that thus fume extractors are a must.

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Solder is absolutely a problem. The life cycle of your part doesn't just include when you solder it. It includes anyone who has to handle it in the future, and it includes the E-Waste dump in an impoverished country that it inevitably ends up in.

Not really, metallic lead is pretty inert. Its lead compounds and lead dust that are dangerous.

recycled PCBs are often turned into dust.

Not just due to the Pb dust though, also Al, Fe, Cu, fiberglass:

"Mineralogical analysis of dust collected from typical recycling line of waste printed circuit boards" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09560...

Yes and Cu and fiberglass and the resins are especially toxic too

Agree with this but also want to stress the importance of washing your hands after handling solder, to be sure. And any affected surfaces in your work station / area.

You don't want to accidentally ingest tiny bits of lead from the solder, and this probably goes for solder without lead too.

Solder spatters everywhere even if it's not vaporized. The resulting lead-bearing powder gets everywhere.

This is especially true of hand soldering. Hand soldering requires regular cleaning of the soldering iron tip. Both the common methods (brass wool and damp sponge) produce many tiny balls of solder that roll and bounce easily. They can end up caught in clothing then fall into food.

one of my soldering irons regularly glows cherry red hot when under usage. So far past 400 C. I don't use that every time I solder, but sometimes I do

That being said, I think the impact of the lead may be tiny compared to the rosin fumes. The real issue is someone in a factory who may handle leaded solder ever single day. The accumulated exposure over a lifetime is a big deal

There's something extremely wrong with that iron. I've had a Tenma soldering station to that once, caused by a bad thermocouple that was lying to the controller.

thermostat burned out not longer after I bought it. Good iron design, bad thermostat design. It works great for soldering pipe and bar stock together. Don't leave it plugged in for very long.

I have a big spool of lead solder probably from the 1980s and I store it like treasure. It’s so much better than modern solder.

You can just buy SnPb solder today, probably with better fluxes than whatever they were using in the 80s. Non-Pb solders also work fine for almost everything (I keep a little bit of SnPb around but do most of my work in lead-free), the big thing is to have a good iron and good tips. Makes way more difference than the solder composition.

I have good news for you. Leaded solder never went away. It’s still available.

Modern solder and fluxes are also likely to outperform 40 year old solder.

You can still buy brand new solder intended for medical/mil use made in Europe/Poland by Cynel

https://www.cynel.com.pl/en/?view=article&id=99:sn60pb40-pro...

Fun fact - Rambo knows his stuff and uses Cynel sn60pb40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3XRrPZRJEw&t=11

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