Author Topic: Low-thermal EMF Solder (Read 11789 times)

Simon · « **Reply #25 on:** February 25, 2018, 03:10:55 pm »

What part of it contained cadmium? It's not by chance shielded within a sheath is it? As I said above it's not necessarily just the substance it's the form in which it is sold. Can you find me 60% cadmium solder wire for sale in the UK? No I thought not. And I did not see any mention of cadmium in the one product from your list that I looked at.

zhtoor · « **Reply #26 on:** February 25, 2018, 03:20:49 pm »

so it is legal to sell the cadmium solder under a sheath.
why did'nt you say so?
i think BG5TOX(xuda) should keep that in mind

and by the way, do READ the datasheet in DETAIL.

regards.

-zia

Simon · « **Reply #27 on:** February 25, 2018, 03:27:06 pm »

I'm not an expert in materials and what is and is not allowed in the EU and hopefully remains the rules after the UK leaves the EU so that we have full compatibility with how we deal with such substances. I don't know if cadmium solder under a heat shrink sheath is legal or not. If it is being sold by farnell I presume it is and if TE are making it I am sure they have done their homework as one of if not the largest successful manufacturer in the world of such items (having bought every single piece of competition off of the market).

As I explained its about concentration and handling. The parts you linked to are designed in such a way that the user would not come into contact with the solder. As it is contact with a toxic product that causes the problem then I would assume that in this usage case it is safe to handle. However if you are handling directly wire which is 60% made of cadmium I would expect that the regulations take quite a different view on that. It's the same with anything. Anything can be used for good or bad and many things that if used very badly or with a total lack of knowledge are still useful and required but do require safe handling.

I know that some countries do not have the same sort of rules as the EU and to a degree that is probably why it is cheaper to produce things in those countries. However Europe has opted not to make its own back yard a toxic waste dump or to have workers continually handling toxic materials where it is not strictly necessary.

If you want to talk about cadmium solder then talk about it but all you are doing is arguing with me and derailing the thread you hold so dear.

zhtoor · « **Reply #28 on:** February 25, 2018, 03:32:15 pm »

Quote from: Simon on February 25, 2018, 03:27:06 pm

I'm not an expert in materials and what is and is not allowed in the EU and hopefully remains the rules after the UK leaves the EU so that we have full compatibility with how we deal with such substances. I don't know if cadmium solder under a heat shrink sheath is legal or not. If it is being sold by farnell I presume it is and if TE are making it I am sure they have done their homework as one of if not the largest successful manufacturer in the world of such items (having bought every single piece of competition off of the market).

As I explained its about concentration and handling. The parts you linked to are designed in such a way that the user would not come into contact with the solder. As it is contact with a toxic product that causes the problem then I would assume that in this usage case it is safe to handle. However if you are handling directly wire which is 60% made of cadmium I would expect that the regulations take quite a different view on that. It's the same with anything. Anything can be used for good or bad and many things that if used very badly or with a total lack of knowledge are still useful and required but do require safe handling.

I know that some countries do not have the same sort of rules as the EU and to a degree that is probably why it is cheaper to produce things in those countries. However Europe has opted not to make its own back yard a toxic waste dump or to have workers continually handling toxic materials where it is not strictly necessary.

If you want to talk about cadmium solder then talk about it but all you are doing is arguing with me and derailing the thread you hold so dear.

lets just count the words in our posts and lets decide who is arguing with who.

peace and regards.

-zia

Simon · « **Reply #29 on:** February 25, 2018, 06:05:57 pm »

I thought America was RoHS compliant. I had a problem with a customer insisting on and therefore not wanting cadmium plated connectors because their customer was in America. Although in America the distributor of connectors does not have any problems selling cadmium plated connectors. So I think it's a case of the Yanks don't mind their own toxins but they won't take anyone else's even if they originated in America only to be shipped back!

Yes in the past a lot of materials have been used that were either easy and nobody cared about the consequences for we were just ignorant of what the stuff did. The regulations are a combination of what we have learnt over the years about materials and the desire to control people's attitudes to these materials. If there is not a law in place and the toxic material is cheaper guess which one will be used? The toxic one. I think this is one of the reasons why here in Europe we fear a trade deal with America where regulations are more lax and we do not wish to see our own watered-down in order to become compatible for the sake of trade. We would rather American standard to be raised to the same as ours.

In China the manufacture of solar panels has led to a loss of pollution from byproducts which could be integrated back into the manufacturing process but aren't all at least weren't because of the cost of the machinery to do that. Hopefully that is now being done but is perhaps one of the reasons why Chinese panels are much cheaper to buy than we can make them fall in any other country. If somebody is willing to turn their backyard into a chemical waste dump order to produce goods more cheaply because there are no regulations to stop that this is what happens and is the reason why Europe and to a degree America has strict regulations and I'm sure regulations are coming in in China as well.

MisterDiodes · « **Reply #30 on:** February 25, 2018, 06:43:49 pm »

A couple thoughts to add....

A) Cadmium itself is NOT toxic in certain solid forms; for instance we get parts cad-plated all the time. For aerospace / mil electrical connectors this is a practical (and only) choice when stainless steel won't work. Now -WHERE_ you get your parts plated is another story, since the process itself is a bit toxic and requires safe disposal / PPE. It does get expensive. Harmful? No, not in certain forms. Ship to EU?? Of course if its essential to aerospace / stationary industrial or telecom equipment...a least it was OK last month. That's like leaded solder...if it HAS to work with some "banned" substance then EU will let it in, RoHs is more strict for consumer devices for sure.

Handling a cad plated screw is NOT going to kill you, and never was dangerous in a typical handling situation.

Snowboards are millions of times more harmful, and yet you can buy those anywhere. It's weird how politicians decide what is dangerous or not for us naughty children to play with. For instance: If it comes down to protecting the Earth, then let's ban Sex: That creates people, and people harm the Earth, therefore let's get on with reducing the population...The political arguments are useless when carried too far.

B) If you crimp or press fit your conductive parts together FIRST, so there is a solid mechanical connection between copper to copper conductors, the solder ain't gonna make any difference - it's not part of the conductive current flow path.

Look at well designed older equipment and look at how the copper wire is crimped or overwrapped with a copper wire cinch or sleeve crimped onto the output connector and wire - THEN soldered. That way you don't need cad solder in the first place.

So a lot of the time you don't even need Cad solder, other times it's handy when used only when you really need to. Just ventilate your soldering area, keep your hands clean and don't eat cad OR lead solder for dinner and you'll be perfectly fine.

Simon · « **Reply #31 on:** February 25, 2018, 06:47:11 pm »

I think here in the UK it is the opposite. A lot of companies don't really care. Example where I work electronics gets chopped in the bin yet we live on the same road as the "recycling centre". Under regulations these are supposed to be disposed of properly. The view here is that we are been forced to care about the environment therefore people don't actually care because they are been told by the government what to do.

I have long and repetitive arguments with a co-worker that sits across the desk from me as he basically hate anything electric because he is old-fashioned idiot that will not accept change and thinks older is better. We have a customer wanting to heat water for their vehicle for the heating of the cab with an electric heater yet he can't get his head around the fact that electric is the primary source of power and this is why we are not using a good old-fashioned diesel fuelled heater. I hear no end of stupid anecdotes from him about why an electric car is not a good idea.

When it comes to trading and obviously the not so minor detail that what a country imports has to comply with its own regulations ideally hope that we keep the current regulations as it is pointless coming up with a parallel set of regulations that say the same thing and that then need constantly amending sustained step. I would guess that in actual fact we will have to have our own set of rules that constantly mirror the CE rules. With regards to America I think a lot of the concerns are about food. People don't necessarily realise that every aspect of our lives is subject to regulations for better or worse. Usually for the better as they prevent people taking shortcuts to save money. Ultimately companies want to make money and it very easy for everybody to say "but I about the environment". They will harbour that sentiment until it makes their life difficult and because it is very easy in a larger organisation where one person makes the decision and another person has to actually carry it out things are more likely to get out of hand. The classic case being the VW scandal where everybody is both innocent and guilty and at the end of the day you are left wondering where was their conscience and what happened to morality.

I hear tales from a friend of him being threatened at work when he was the health and safety representative and he pointed out that people were putting solder down the sink. This is a big no-no but in this country always want to do what is convenient never what is right you have to make the right thing convenient for it to work or the sanctions for being caught so heavy you would never dare to transgress.

Where I work they were putting too much acid down the drains. The solution was not to work out how to put less acid down the drain but to put more water down the drain instead in order to die loot out the acid. The water board comes along and checks the manhole at the foot of our car park entrance where I assume all of the wastewater comes through from our building if they find too much of a concentration of the acid they will first warn us and then fine us. So the answer is to just put the same amount of acid down the drains but to swap it with water by leaving the water running non-stop to wash it through. Regulations are one thing morals are another and will is something that never really unites the two.

Simon · « **Reply #32 on:** February 25, 2018, 06:51:28 pm »

Quote from: MisterDiodes on February 25, 2018, 06:43:49 pm

A couple thoughts to add....

A) Cadmium itself is NOT toxic in certain solid forms; for instance we get parts cad-plated all the time. For aerospace / mil electrical connectors this is a practical (and only) choice when stainless steel won't work. Now -WHERE_ you get your parts plated is another story, since the process itself is a bit toxic and requires safe disposal / PPE. It does get expensive. Harmful? No, not in certain forms. Ship to EU?? Of course if its essential to aerospace / stationary industrial or telecom equipment...a least it was OK last month. That's like leaded solder...if it HAS to work with some "banned" substance then EU will let it in, RoHs is more strict for consumer devices for sure.

I assume you are referring to the same 5015 reverse bayonet connectors that I have had to deal with. These are the ones that the Americans would not accept on our products. There is an answer it is black zinc plating. As the promotions for the 38999 connectors put it black is the new green. You can also get a non-cadmium green plate but I am assuming the colour has been switched to black so that there are no arguments about what the green actually is. Unfortunately people are still holding onto those connectors that were originally designed for the second world war and it really is a case of older is not better as the minimum size of the pin's size 16 most of the time and these days lots of connector pins are usually carrying signals only and can be size 22. The pins for those reverse Bain connectors are also not easy to obtain in PCB form which makes the design of ECU is harder. I'm constantly trying to get people to switch away from them. Usually a customer nominates their own choice of reverse bayonet connector and demands it be in irridisciant blue or black. While both colours are compliant neither is available unless you want to hang around for six months and by a batch of 100.

zhtoor · « **Reply #33 on:** February 25, 2018, 08:54:06 pm »

Quote from: MisterDiodes on February 25, 2018, 06:43:49 pm

B) If you crimp or press fit your conductive parts together FIRST, so there is a solid mechanical connection between copper to copper conductors, the solder ain't gonna make any difference - it's not part of the conductive current flow path.

Look at well designed older equipment and look at how the copper wire is crimped or overwrapped with a copper wire cinch or sleeve crimped onto the output connector and wire - THEN soldered. That way you don't need cad solder in the first place.

So a lot of the time you don't even need Cad solder, other times it's handy when used only when you really need to. Just ventilate your soldering area, keep your hands clean and don't eat cad OR lead solder for dinner and you'll be perfectly fine.

provided that the press-fit / crimped etc. does not have wickable spaces where solder (lead based) capillary-burrows into.

regards.

-zia

chickenHeadKnob · « **Reply #34 on:** February 25, 2018, 08:57:26 pm »

Quote from: MisterDiodes on February 25, 2018, 06:43:49 pm

A couple thoughts to add....

A) Cadmium itself is NOT toxic in certain solid forms; for instance we get parts cad-plated all the time. For aerospace / mil electrical connectors this is a practical (and only) choice when stainless steel won't work. Now -WHERE_ you get your parts plated is another story, since the process itself is a bit toxic and requires safe disposal / PPE. It does get expensive. Harmful? No, not in certain forms. Ship to EU?? Of course if its essential to aerospace / stationary industrial or telecom equipment...a least it was OK last month. That's like leaded solder...if it HAS to work with some "banned" substance then EU will let it in, RoHs is more strict for consumer devices for sure.

Handling a cad plated screw is NOT going to kill you, and never was dangerous in a typical handling situation.

Since I have played around in the aviation field and handled AN grade fasteners, which are all cadmium plated by regulation I don't have any particular fear from just skin contact. None of the aircraft mechanics I have witnessed working wear gloves or are fussed about touching bolts. And they really are special when compared to hardware store fasteners, see here:http://spenceraircraft.com/hardware/fasteners-screws-bolts/airframe-bolt.html

As Andreas points out it is the low vapour pressure and inhaling fumes that gets you.

There are other reasons besides trying to achieve low EMF to add cadmium to a solder formulation. The low EMF use in electronics is really a boutique niche. The Kapp Alloy company in Oil City Penn. U.S.A. has an informative website:http://www.kappalloy.com/products-solder.php

They sell a few high ratio cadmium solders, one they call Kapp Tec is 95% Cd 5% Ag !!!
They also sell Kapp TecZ , and Kapp Rad.

Simon · « **Reply #35 on:** February 25, 2018, 09:13:24 pm »

I'm still alive and when having handled a few cadmium plated connectors. Like you say it is the particular use in solder which seems to be particularly hazardous.

xuda · « **Reply #36 on:** February 25, 2018, 10:44:56 pm »

I think no one will use Cd/Sn solder in general product...
Pls use a scientific view of it, it’s just a common experimental material.
Many experimental materials are more or less toxic.
The key is the right person to handle it in right way, and must take good protective measures.

Although I'm not sure if making/owning/transporting it is illegal in the EU, it is not illegal in China.
BTW,here is a global forum, not just Europeans ...

Please consider whether to add in the forum rules "Not allowed to sell RoHS incompatible items" HaHaHaHa..

TNX~!
BG5TOX(XuDa)

texaspyro · « **Reply #37 on:** February 26, 2018, 06:08:11 am »

Why 60/40 Cd/Sn? The standard lowest thermal EMF solder is 70/30.

A few years ago, I had to make my own Cd/Sn solder, but I had a proper lab to do it in. I'd love to get some real Cd/Sn solder. I know what it is, what it does, when and where to use it, and how to work with it. It's a very special purpose stuff, and not some use-it-everywhere-everyday material. For certain applications, there is no substitute that works as well. Companies that made precision metrology test equipment used to stash a small spool of the stuff inside the equipment that they sold... and not without good reason.

Simon · « **Reply #38 on:** February 26, 2018, 07:55:35 am »

well I suggest you have a word with Xuda, sounds like your man.......

xuda · « **Reply #39 on:** February 26, 2018, 09:13:17 am »

Any detail info about the different between 70/30 and 60/40 ?

LT's application note show it was 60/40 but Wikipedia show 70/30~~~I'm not sure.

Tnx~!

Conrad Hoffman · « **Reply #40 on:** February 26, 2018, 05:49:24 pm »

A previous discussion- https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/low-thermal-emf-solder/

xuda · « **Reply #41 on:** February 27, 2018, 06:35:14 am »

Thanks~!

ramon · « **Reply #42 on:** February 27, 2018, 04:00:14 pm »

Which are the cases when Cd cannot be substituted with any other options?
And what are the Cd substitutes? Ag and Au only?

PartialDischarge · « **Reply #43 on:** February 27, 2018, 05:05:57 pm »

It seems to me Simon that you made a mistake and dont want to admit it. Unless you appointed yourself a planetary customs officer with your own set of rules, I mean you can ban the seller for any forum rule you deem comvenient, but not on the grounds of non-rohs compliance of what he is selling simply because that solder does NOT have to comply with rohs by any means.

ogden · « **Reply #44 on:** February 27, 2018, 08:57:05 pm »

RoHS regulates "manufacturing various types of electronic and electrical equipment using hazardous materials". It does not regulate sales of hazardous materials, nor possession of them. It is strictly defined which kind of products are under regulation. DIY instruments which are used by creator are not in the list.

perdrix · « **Reply #45 on:** February 28, 2018, 02:51:50 am »

Sorry Simon,

But your ignorance of the existance of Low EMF Cd containing solder is no excuse for banning someone.

You should according to your arguments ban yourself as your sigline is very much advertising ...

Quote

The µCurrent has landed in Europe and now also selling Probe Master probes: http://www.simonselectronics.co.uk New stock now in

Also Cadmium containing solder is not toxic to handle. The only risk arises when soldering as some fumes can be given off (far less than people think) but proper ventilation solves any risk from that.

There are many of us here (myself included as I've almost run out of what little I have) who would like to purchase this sort of solder so please un-ban this guy.

ROHS is well intentioned, but goes WAY OTT - Keysight have a somewhat crippled verison of the 3548A for the EU because some Eurocrat decided that ROHS applid to that (really shouldn't as it's not a consumer product).

David

zhtoor · « **Reply #46 on:** February 28, 2018, 03:44:19 am »

Quote from: perdrix on February 28, 2018, 02:51:50 am

]The µCurrent has landed in Europe and now also selling Probe Master probes: http://www.simonselectronics.co.uk New stock now in

a picture is worth a 1000 words.

-zia

xuda · « **Reply #47 on:** March 01, 2018, 03:43:02 am »

found another previous discussion about Cd/Sn ratio :

http://volt-nuts.febo.narkive.com/fntPRIOB/low-thermal-emf-solder

martinr33 · « **Reply #48 on:** March 03, 2018, 06:20:01 am »

I've made my own cadmium solder. I used it to solder copper wire into audio copper banana plugs. You can get the materials off of eBay. Then, a good scale and a cheap solder pot will give you a lifetime supply (obviously, you could self-limit the lifetime...). The solder pot tins the copper, and you can leave enough on there to complete a joint. Not as convenient as flux in, of course, but I don't plan on making many joints wth it.

ogden · « **Reply #49 on:** March 03, 2018, 10:31:34 am »

Quote from: martinr33 on March 03, 2018, 06:20:01 am

obviously, you could self-limit the lifetime...

Sure. Either you limit lifetime of the solder or solder limits yours


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Author Topic: Low-thermal EMF Solder (Read 11789 times)

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