Best Solder?

[TUBEDUDE]

+1 on the WBT solder. I touch it for a sec @ 666 deg. Melts quick, makes good joints and best of all, no halogenated gasses or chlorine as the flux melts.

[Structo]

What gets me about the ROHS mandate is that they could have recycled most if not all the lead from circuit boards.
How many are buried by drinking water?

The lead free solder I have tried is garbage and when repairing circuits soldered with lead free, it crumbles and doesn't make a good joint when you touch it up.

Silver solder is nice I have some I use on special areas but I can't afford to use it exclusively.
That is silver/ lead solder.

hywelg is correct, lead does not vaporize at the temperatures we solder at so you just need to avoid breathing the flux smoke and wash your hands to avoid any problems.

[brentm]

Yeah, I'm sure that generally, at proper temps, lead solder is fine. There are always times when reworking, when turning up the temperature powers through the issue you're faced with. And boiling lead is when you run into issues with vaporization.

I bought 42 grams of the WBT lead-free stuff. It's lasted me a while and I'm just about 1/2 way through it.

I did make a home made fume extractor using some carbon filter stuff I have for a Honeywell air purifier and an old 12" fan Works good to draw that flux smoke away and capture it.

How long does it take you guys to go through a pound of solder? Seems like that'd be a lifetime for me.

[brentm]

Oh, my favorite story on lead tinsolder is our A/V installers at work. I walked by during construction and he's holding his mobile phone to his ear with his shoulder listening to something (a conference call I presumed).

He had about 8" of solder folded in half and pinched in his lips like a cigarette. His hands were holding the cable/wire he was soldering together as he pushed the solder into the solder lug of the cable assembly by moving his head forward.

I stopped and asked him if it was lead tin solder and sure enough. He said it didn't touch his tongue or mouth, but just the outside of his lips... heh. anyway, way off topic.

[diagrammatiks]

radio shack still sells 62/36/2 which is what i use since i'm always running out and can't wait to buy a pound from somewhere else.

going price of 62/36/2 is about 40-50 dollars a pound now though.

worth it.