Rosin Flux Alternative

[keith801]

I'm new to soldering and have pretty bad Asthma and don't want to make it worse. Has anyone had experience with Superior No. 30 SuperSafe, a rosin alternative or anything else like that? I can get a fume extractor but I'm curious if anything is safer as I only do a little soldering.

[janoc]

Recommending petroleum jelly as a flux for electronics - and when the OP complains about asthma ...    You are not that dude that was recommending mercury as a low temp solder for component desoldering in one rather infamous video, by chance?
 
OP, get a decent fume extractor. That will do you much better service that messing with different fluxes. Even water based fluxes "stink" and are irritants, so if you don't want to mess with your health, a fume extractor is really the only way. Flux is only one thing that produces irritant fumes during soldering, things like wire insulation or various plastics release nasty stuff when heated as well.

I would probably go with a fan to exhaust the smoke away and a good ventilation as a minimum if I had bad asthma.

[jpanhalt]

I am not convinced Superior 30 flux is any less irritating than rosin fluxes.  What causes you to have an attack is not predicted by what causes attacks in others.  The only listed ingredient is glutamic acid hydrochloride salt.  However, SDS's do not have to list all ingredients.

Paste:
https://superiorflux.com/sds/30_Paste.pdf
Liquid:
https://superiorflux.com/sds/30.pdf

Acute exposure for either:

SECTION IV- HEALTH HAZARDS Primary Routes of Entry:  Fume inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eyes.Signs and Symptoms of Exposure: 1) Acute Effects:  Reddening of eyes and skin, acid stomach if ingested, inhalation may cause  respiratory tract irritation.

Be careful.  Use with good ventilation.

[Kleinstein]

To a limited extend one can use glycerin as a flux. It does help removing the oxide, but it hardly helps getting better surface forming on small SMD parts.
Even this simple chemical can still produce toxic products when decomposing - the active reaction is likely from the decomposition products. So good ventilation or a fume hood is still needed.
A good point is easy cleaning, as it's well water and IPA soluble.

[Martin Miranda]

 i have a bad asthma too. but changing soldering flux won't help.

1. buy a good fume extractor. i cannot stress this enough. 
2. get a room air purifier. any air purifier will do.

[Martin Miranda]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001814277240.html

[KD0CAC John]

Is soldering a toy for your interests - then quit soldering for health reasons .
If you are soldering & serious , then do not play with bs fluxes - " safe " , " super " , and with any thing your interested in --- always avoid any of the BS adjectives - super etc. - this is almost always a sign of marginal products !

So if your serious about anything - use the best performing tools [ solder ] for each application - there are multiple fluxes for various applications - choosing the flux depends on the application !
Not your perspective !       Performance is !

So once you have picked the correct flux for a specific application --- for the best performance .

Then use safe operating procedures for the job at hand .

Again my point is the best performing tool for the application - this is 1st ----- the work is the perspective to have in mind .
Safe is a 2nd -1st , find the safest procedures for the best tools !

It's not about you - it's about the job      

[BrokenYugo]

I always heard the water based (which tend to require immediate thorough cleaning totally incompatible with a prototype or hobby workflow) and synthetic fluxes have harsher fumes.

Pumping the smoke outside or through a good filter is the answer regardless.

[tooki]

I'm new to soldering and have pretty bad Asthma and don't want to make it worse. Has anyone had experience with Superior No. 30 SuperSafe, a rosin alternative or anything else like that? I can get a fume extractor but I'm curious if anything is safer as I only do a little soldering.

For what it’s worth, that flux — being a water-soluble organic flux — cannot be used in all situations. They describe it as beginning to work at room temperature, and that residues must be cleaned with hot water. That means any of the product not fully cleaned will be corrosive, which means you can only use it for joints where complete cleaning is possible. (That means 100% removed. Not 95%, not 99.9%.) That rules out using it for tinning wires, many connectors, switches, etc, where it may wick into places you can’t clean it.

If you’re going to be soldering occasionally as a hobbyist and just need to avoid smoke in your face to prevent triggering an asthma attack, then a small desktop extractor or even just a small fan will do.

If you’re going to be doing production soldering professionally, then proper extraction (either filtered or exhausted outside) is essential to prevent occupational asthma.

Try ChipQuik SMD291NL paste flux: it’s a no-clean flux that, instead of the usual acrid smoke, smells like toasted hazelnuts when heated. (Note that this only applies to the NL version; SMD291 without “NL” is a typical acrid-smokey flux.) This flux, like most no-clean fluxes, is NOT inert if incompletely heated, so use it only for hand soldering where cleaning is possible. It’s my go-to flux for PCB work.

Classic RMA (≈ROL0/ROM0) fluxes are better for other stuff, and it’s the flux core I’d choose in solder wire.

I always heard the water based (which tend to require immediate thorough cleaning totally incompatible with a prototype or hobby workflow) and synthetic fluxes have harsher fumes.

Exactly. Most modern fluxes have horrible acrid fumes, and water based is not universally usable. (I did some testing with a bunch of no-clean and rosin flux liquids and pastes, and almost none were truly safe for hand soldering: if not fully heated, most were slightly corrosive. Liquid flux applied sparingly so that it can dry quickly was the best.)

[tooki]

Hi, have you tried any of these?
https://weldingmastermind.com/heres-this-soldering-flux-alternative-you-must-check-out/

I tried making rosin paste flux by melting pure rosin into Vaseline. The result was an oily mess with practically zero fluxing activity.

I don’t know where he gets the idea that Vaseline works as a flux. It might be able to prevent future oxidation, but it has zero ability to remove oxidation already present.

Pure rosin is also surprisingly inactive. It doesn’t come anywhere close to even the mildest of commercial fluxes.

[cdev]

Do a search on PubMed for colophony disease..

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?sort=date&term=colophony+asthma

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?sort=date&term=colophony

I'm new to soldering and have pretty bad Asthma and don't want to make it worse. Has anyone had experience with Superior No. 30 SuperSafe, a rosin alternative or anything else like that? I can get a fume extractor but I'm curious if anything is safer as I only do a little soldering.

Rather than a fume extractor, which claim to clean air but rarely do much more than dilute it by blowing it around, get a double fan that (both) sucks up the smoke and exhausts it outside, while at the same time bringing in fresh outdoor air to replace the exhausted air. To save energy you can use a heat X-changer between the two lines, so the outward going air warms the incoming stream.   This is done using a sort of X shaped vent and heat sink structure..The X denotes the two air flows in close proximity to one another.. made of folded aluminum.  That should be able to recover more than 60% of the otherwise lost heat.

See "heat recovery ventilator"   This will also help prevent COVID transmission without people freezing at work.  Saving a lot of money year round.

Most if not all of the supposed fume extractors I have seen are probably expensive and near worthless for people with colophony allergy because activated charcoal is used up very quickly, and even gets used up when the fan is not on.

The only activated charcoal filters that work for removing toxic fumes are very large, require huge stic pressures in other words large motors, and are expensive, the filters are very pricey.

Fresh air is the best, is still free and likely to remain so for at least the next few years in all but a few countries (Canada, and UK) where its now being sold, creating a legal precedent and prohibiting government from allowing its noncommercial provision. That creates a complicated, ambiguous legal situation, for air users and miners both, even though air mining is still an embryonic business, it has huge growth potential because of the high demand for air in government controlled situations, like workplaces, prisons, schools, etc.

Water is being mined too. Some say water is the oil of the 21st century.

Trade rules make sure that commercial water mining has precedence.



Water mining is controversial in Australia, but they committed to allow it when they joined the WTO in 1995. Now they are one of the founding parties of TISA.

[bill_c]

Fume extractor vented outside!
I have a "wet/dry vac" outside but sheltered.  I run a pipe through the wall where I can connect a hose to extract fumes, clean the floor and such, suck up spilled drinks, unclog drains, etc...
No dirty vacuum smell and its very quiet for me since the noisy part is outside.  It should be law that every house or building have central vac.

[BrokenYugo]

A good point, this can be as simple as a vacuum cleaner ducted outside. I've not tried it but have often wondered if a cheap 12V bilge fan would pull hard enough.

[mazurov]

See if you can find Amtech LF-4300 product. Someone with similar issues once told me that this is the only flux they can use.

[keith801]

Thanks for all the help and suggestions!

Looks like most of you don't trust the alternate fluxes and I didn't think about other chemicals and fumes besides the rosin being a problem.
Pulling the fumes outside is the most important thing it sounds like. A wet/dry vac may work well for me as well.

With the proper venting is there still a particular solder/flux/rosin you would recommend that's on the cleaner/safer side but good to work with?

[keith801]

i have a bad asthma too. but changing soldering flux won't help.

1. buy a good fume extractor. i cannot stress this enough. 
2. get a room air purifier. any air purifier will do.

Thanks for the advice, good to hear from someone with Asthma. I will definitely get both of those.

[tooki]

Do a search on PubMed for colophony disease..

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?sort=date&term=colophony+asthma

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?sort=date&term=colophony

I'm new to soldering and have pretty bad Asthma and don't want to make it worse. Has anyone had experience with Superior No. 30 SuperSafe, a rosin alternative or anything else like that? I can get a fume extractor but I'm curious if anything is safer as I only do a little soldering.

Rather than a fume extractor, which claim to clean air but rarely do much more than dilute it by blowing it around, get a double fan that (both) sucks up the smoke and exhausts it outside, while at the same time bringing in fresh outdoor air to replace the exhausted air. To save energy you can use a heat X-changer between the two lines, so the outward going air warms the incoming stream.   This is done using a sort of X shaped vent and heat sink structure..The X denotes the two air flows in close proximity to one another.. made of folded aluminum.  That should be able to recover more than 60% of the otherwise lost heat.

See "heat recovery ventilator"   This will also help prevent COVID transmission without people freezing at work.  Saving a lot of money year round.

Most if not all of the supposed fume extractors I have seen are probably expensive and near worthless for people with colophony allergy because activated charcoal is used up very quickly, and even gets used up when the fan is not on.

The only activated charcoal filters that work for removing toxic fumes are very large, require huge stic pressures in other words large motors, and are expensive, the filters are very pricey.

1. It might be wiser to search using non-archaic terminology: “rosin”, not “colophony”.
2. Is your reply based on any facts? It sounds an awful lot like pure opinion.
3. Activated charcoal isn’t even reeeeally that critical for flux fumes: the problem particulate matter is trapped by purely mechanical filters. A HEPA filter will already do wonders. (Look at the secondary filters on desoldering stations to see what it looks like.) Fume extractors are basically very expensive, comparatively quiet vacuum cleaners with big filters.

This goes back to my question for the OP: is the concern avoiding long-term exposure to prevent general aggravation of the asthma, or is the concern avoiding sporadic acute exposure to fumes because they can trigger asthma attacks? These scenarios have very different demands.

[tooki]

A good point, this can be as simple as a vacuum cleaner ducted outside. I've not tried it but have often wondered if a cheap 12V bilge fan would pull hard enough.

How about a bathroom exhaust fan, or one of those newfangled kitchen exhaust fans that sucks the cooking fumes down into the slits near the burners? (I’d expect those to need quite substantial airflow and negative pressure.)

[cdev]

People dont use fans that make their live or work space freezing cold, thats why the HRVs are the way to go. for fresh air..

Panasonic makes a cheap HRV for bathrooms. Its around $350 last I looked. Would be a good choice for an electronics shop. Better than the "extractors" IMHO.

I swear, Tooki, I did my homework on this issue. The info I shared came from IAQ, not electronics, pros. Charcoal in most of these "extractors" is woefully inadequate to the task at hand. See how they treat respirators, and how rapidly the filters become ineffectual.

There also is a tiny miniature Fantech. Its their smallest HRV, for apartment dwellers, or something. It has a tiny aluminum core. Which is good. Given a choice, I would take the fantech. They make the best HRVS.   Easy to clean.

They use very nice almost silent, German fan motors.

[cdev]

What exactly does a "fume extractor" do in your opinion? I can tell you right now that nomatter how much the sellers hype them up, few of them do what they claim adequately.

If they did, the filters would be huge, expensive and the device would need  huge motor to pull air through the filter, which would have to be replaced too often to be affordable.

i have a bad asthma too. but changing soldering flux won't help.

1. buy a good fume extractor. i cannot stress this enough. 
2. get a room air purifier. any air purifier will do.

 

Also, when you are investigating something, its smart to use its name, right? Colophony Disease is the name.

[Teledog]

Using home brew natural "violin" rosin mixed with IPA as a flux for years.
Fume extraction?  Place your vacuum hose near your work area and the vacuum out the window/outdoors.
Can't get more un-complicated than that

[keith801]

Do a search on PubMed for colophony disease..

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?sort=date&term=colophony+asthma

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?sort=date&term=colophony

I'm new to soldering and have pretty bad Asthma and don't want to make it worse. Has anyone had experience with Superior No. 30 SuperSafe, a rosin alternative or anything else like that? I can get a fume extractor but I'm curious if anything is safer as I only do a little soldering.

Rather than a fume extractor, which claim to clean air but rarely do much more than dilute it by blowing it around, get a double fan that (both) sucks up the smoke and exhausts it outside, while at the same time bringing in fresh outdoor air to replace the exhausted air. To save energy you can use a heat X-changer between the two lines, so the outward going air warms the incoming stream.   This is done using a sort of X shaped vent and heat sink structure..The X denotes the two air flows in close proximity to one another.. made of folded aluminum.  That should be able to recover more than 60% of the otherwise lost heat.

See "heat recovery ventilator"   This will also help prevent COVID transmission without people freezing at work.  Saving a lot of money year round.

Most if not all of the supposed fume extractors I have seen are probably expensive and near worthless for people with colophony allergy because activated charcoal is used up very quickly, and even gets used up when the fan is not on.

The only activated charcoal filters that work for removing toxic fumes are very large, require huge stic pressures in other words large motors, and are expensive, the filters are very pricey.

1. It might be wiser to search using non-archaic terminology: “rosin”, not “colophony”.
2. Is your reply based on any facts? It sounds an awful lot like pure opinion.
3. Activated charcoal isn’t even reeeeally that critical for flux fumes: the problem particulate matter is trapped by purely mechanical filters. A HEPA filter will already do wonders. (Look at the secondary filters on desoldering stations to see what it looks like.) Fume extractors are basically very expensive, comparatively quiet vacuum cleaners with big filters.

This goes back to my question for the OP: is the concern avoiding long-term exposure to prevent general aggravation of the asthma, or is the concern avoiding sporadic acute exposure to fumes because they can trigger asthma attacks? These scenarios have very different demands.

I should have clarified the question, it would be to avoid long-term effects, not making my asthma worse than it already is.

[m3vuv]

just buy a surplus nbc suit and mask and wear that,if it dont help the athsma at least it will freak the neibours out! lol.

[JohanH]

Rather than a fume extractor, which claim to clean air but rarely do much more than dilute it by blowing it around, get a double fan that (both) sucks up the smoke and exhausts it outside, while at the same time bringing in fresh outdoor air to replace the exhausted air. To save energy you can use a heat X-changer between the two lines, so the outward going air warms the incoming stream.   This is done using a sort of X shaped vent and heat sink structure..The X denotes the two air flows in close proximity to one another.. made of folded aluminum.  That should be able to recover more than 60% of the otherwise lost heat.

In this northern climate, mechanical heat exchangers for ventilation is something that is commonly installed in houses up here. My house has this model:
https://www.enervent.com/product/pingvin/

Note that rotating heat exchangers such as this one do not completely separate incoming and outgoing air. There is a small amount of mixing happening.

The house ventilation is not enough to disperse or exhaust solder smoke fast enough. I imagine you would instead have to install a small unit only for your lab/work room.