Really RS Components, I am not allowed to order solder anymore??

[Bassman59]

As children, we smashed old batteries, shook the plates out of them with our bare hands, and melted them on the bonfire... 

My generation is not impressed by anything. But people are getting weaker and more afraid of everything. 

Just because you managed to survive doesn't mean that a lot of kids didn't.

I see whinging about how all of the playgrounds here in the US have gotten rid of many of the old play structures, and replaced the concrete pads with the softer recycled rubber, and all of the whingers say, "kids today, they're weak, i didn't get hurt!" And that ignores the kids who did. Who were hurt seriously enough for those old structures to be outlawed and for safer structures to be mandated.

Am I glad my kid has safer play environments? Absolutely. Am I glad he hasn't broken any bones or lost any teeth like many of my friends did? Absolutely.

tl;dr: OK, boomer.

[Bassman59]

...it's bureaucracy. ...

That's the trouble with society, we should have seen this coming, its always the bureaucrats who take the lead...

If I started a poll, most users of this forum would likely be in favor of banning sales of teratogens to consumers.

I very much doubt that. I think this forum leans quite heavily on the side of personal responsibility and away from heavy regulation.

It leans away from heavy regulation but the assertion about "personal responsibility" is made without facts in evidence.

it's more like "freedom to do whatever the fuck I want, fuck the man."

[penfold]

...it's bureaucracy. ...

That's the trouble with society, we should have seen this coming, its always the bureaucrats who take the lead...

If I started a poll, most users of this forum would likely be in favor of banning sales of teratogens to consumers.

I very much doubt that. I think this forum leans quite heavily on the side of personal responsibility and away from heavy regulation.

It leans away from heavy regulation but the assertion about "personal responsibility" is made without facts in evidence.

it's more like "freedom to do whatever the fuck I want, fuck the man."

It would be a very different story if authorities were more open and honest about policies such as these. Soldering is listed by the UK-HSE as not "significant exposure to lead" and the quantities of lead solder consumed by "consumers"(which I'm interpreting as hobbyists) is surely minimal compared with all other sources of lead into the landfill waste stream... surely there is another reason

[james_s]

Lead is harmful.  In sufficient quantities.  But even when lead was used freely everywhere most people saw no detectable problems with lead poisoning.  But those who lived near heavily travelled roads did suffer from the tetraethyl lead used in gasoline.  Some, but not all people who had lead pipe plumbing had problems. Depended on both the water chemistry and their usage pattern (water dwell time in the pipes).   And children who ate dirt around lead painted houses and chewed on the walls of such houses.

By quantity lead in gasoline was by far the most usage.  Orders of magnitude greater than others.  Paint and plumbing next.  Lead in ammunition was down the list.  Electronics some where down in the decimal places.  We have long since eliminated all of the real problems with lead exposure.  These residual attacks on any lead use at all are a combination of theater and lack of understanding.

That's how it always is. Any sort of program or movement created to solve some problem takes on a life of its own and does not simply go away once it has accomplished the goal it was created to accomplish. It will start digging deeper and deeper looking for problems it can solve.

[james_s]

As children, we smashed old batteries, shook the plates out of them with our bare hands, and melted them on the bonfire... 

My generation is not impressed by anything. But people are getting weaker and more afraid of everything. 

Just because you managed to survive doesn't mean that a lot of kids didn't.

I see whinging about how all of the playgrounds here in the US have gotten rid of many of the old play structures, and replaced the concrete pads with the softer recycled rubber, and all of the whingers say, "kids today, they're weak, i didn't get hurt!" And that ignores the kids who did. Who were hurt seriously enough for those old structures to be outlawed and for safer structures to be mandated.

Am I glad my kid has safer play environments? Absolutely. Am I glad he hasn't broken any bones or lost any teeth like many of my friends did? Absolutely.

tl;dr: OK, boomer.

I struggle to think of a more condescending and stupid dismissive comment as "OK, boomer", it tends to make me think a person who says it is a smug moron, and I'm not even a boomer. It's just disrespectful, and a euphemism for "shut up idiot" or something along those lines.

The soft rubber pads on playgrounds is a nice improvement. Removing all the play structures that anyone could ever possibly get hurt on is stupid. I'm really glad I grew up in the 80s-90s instead of now, the bizarre obsession with safety beyond any sensible degree has just gone to ridiculous levels. You'd think bodies were piled up in heaps on playgrounds across the nation. Kind of circles back to my previous comment on organizations/efforts taking on a life of their own. Having solved more serious problems they start going after increasingly petty "problems".

[CatalinaWOW]

I've long had the theory that the "Hot Wheels" style tricycles were/are the cause of many serious automobile accidents.  The low center of gravity of this style tricycle makes them much safer for young children.  And because of this they learn and try many crazy things that would have resulted in bumps, bruises, broken bones and worse on the older style tricycles.  Those opportunities to learn the relationship between actions and consequences must be learned later when the consequences are much more severe and the potential for learning may not be as great.  Those young years are called the formative years for a reason.

The same theory applies to many of the safety features that have been mandated over the years.

[thm_w]

You are entirely correct.  Which is why lead flashing is not such a problem. It stays in large sheets which get recycled.  Domestic use of lead solder will end up in landfill.  All of my bench sweepings at work get dealt with in the same waste stream as other electronics waste.  How many home-gamers have a dedicated waste bin for solder scraps that gets properly dealt with by a licensed hazardous waste contractor?? 0%?

Do you not have a local recycling facility? I would never throw electronics waste in the trash, it all goes to the recycling depot.
https://www.recyclenow.com/dont-bin-it-bring-it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Waste_Recycling_Fee

[coppercone2]

cider, red meat and cigarettes

[zl2wrw]

And you're not even living in EU... those fuckturd want to even ban lead ammunition. (To be replaced by much more dangerous steel one)

The British army were considering banning lead 20 years ago due to it beeing "hazedous to health" Like it made much difference to you when travelling through you at supersonic speeds.

Actually the concern in that regard is lead dust on indoor ranges. Adequate ventilation is a sufficient solution, however.

As far as "health hazards" are concerned, the whole point of bullets is to be dangerous (if you couldn't use them to tear a hole through an animal from a distance, they would be kinda useless...), but arguably there is nothing to be gained by having a bullet continue to be dangerous for quite some length of time after it has been fired and has come to a stop.

Part of the concern about lead in indoor ranges is not just the projectiles, but the primers (the part of the cartridge that ignites the gunpowder when struck by the firing pin) - Lead Styphnate is a common priming composition, and you can probably figure out what happens to the lead when the priming composition burns...
(Mercury Fulminate used to be used for primers before lead styphnate was common, but it was replaced with lead styphnate mostly because of corrosion issues with firearm barrels rather than concerns about mercury exposure)

As far as outdoor shooting is concerned, there are also concerns about environmental lead contamination. Rain water picks up CO2 from the air forming (dilute) Carbonic Acid, which reacts with metallic lead to form Lead Carbonate (which is water soluble). In New Zealand, when hunting waterfowl, it is illegal to use lead shotgun pellets because waterfowl swallow small stones, about the size of shotgun pellets, and use these to grind up food inside their crop. In California, hunters have to use non-lead bullets because of concerns about scavengers like the California Condor ingesting lead fragments in the entrails etc left behind by hunters.

Quite recently our great illustrious leaders here in NZ banned steel shotgun pellets (and pretty much all other steel ammunition), but after a small farce, they had to go back and change the rules so that steel shotgun pellets were specifically exempted from the ban 

[Monkeh]

Quite recently our great illustrious leaders here in NZ banned steel shotgun pellets (and pretty much all other steel ammunition), but after a small farce, they had to go back and change the rules so that steel shotgun pellets were specifically exempted from the ban 

This is what happens when you legislate without comprehension. Are they related to Yansi, by any chance?

[james_s]

Quite recently our great illustrious leaders here in NZ banned steel shotgun pellets (and pretty much all other steel ammunition), but after a small farce, they had to go back and change the rules so that steel shotgun pellets were specifically exempted from the ban 

I can understand banning lead, at least in certain instances, or perhaps they could compromise and make reduced lead ammo made of some kind of alloy, but steel? What was their reasoning for banning steel pellets? Iron decomposes in the natural environment and as far as I know it's quite harmless.

I would go so far as to say a majority of our lawmakers are not very knowledgeable about the things they legislate, and the laws tend to be rushed through on emotion after some incident without sufficient time being taken to consider unintended consequences. The result is a great many laws that do not accomplish their intended goal, and in many cases make the problem worse or create other worse problems. I'd be kind of surprised if the situation was much better in other countries, I tend to think politicians are pretty similar no matter where you go.

[Monkeh]

Quite recently our great illustrious leaders here in NZ banned steel shotgun pellets (and pretty much all other steel ammunition), but after a small farce, they had to go back and change the rules so that steel shotgun pellets were specifically exempted from the ban 

I can understand banning lead, at least in certain instances, or perhaps they could compromise and make reduced lead ammo made of some kind of alloy, but steel? What was their reasoning for banning steel pellets? Iron decomposes in the natural environment and as far as I know it's quite harmless.

ARMOUR PIERCING!!!!!!!!1111

[Ed.Kloonk]

How would one manufacture resin core solder, anyway?

[magic]

If I started a poll, most users of this forum would likely be in favor of banning sales of teratogens to consumers.

I very much doubt that. I think this forum leans quite heavily on the side of personal responsibility and away from heavy regulation.

What I think most people would agree with is banning dangerous ingredients in consumer products that people expect to be inherently safe, like toys, clothing, toiletries, food, etc.

So no lead allowed in toys, but lead solder allowed.

Like with DHMO, it's just a matter of asking the right question such that lead isn't mentioned

So forget lead. What about all the nasty mutagenic stuff which causes children to be born with no hands and five eyes all around their head. Do you really think such evil stuff should just be available on shelves for everyone to buy? What if pregnant women ingest it by accident? What if Ahmed adds it to municipal water supply? Wouldn't it be a good idea to just ensure that teratogens in general stay where they belong, in closely controlled labs?
You don't hate unborn children, do you?

Yes, every place on the Internet and IRL has a contingent of outspoken libertarians who immediately come to answer something about "responsibility" or "Darwin". Then the silent majority votes their own way.

And yes, sometimes you would be surprised what kind of nanny-staters you will find even of forums very similar to this one. And you never know how many of them are reading your posts, greeting their teeth quietly, and later go elsewhere to rant about responsibility being a codeword of colonialism, toxic masculinity or other bullshit.

Yeah, I guess I have lost faith in modern society entirely

[coppercone2]

I mean mass market anti lead seems good enough, trying to pinch off the engineering department makes little sense, those are not mass market prototypes. Lead solder just works better, leave it for the factory engineer to figure out how to make it work with lead free optimally and let engineers and repair people use lead since it basically amounts to nothing in the environment?

This is how it goes:

Prototype count : 50

Engineering check list :
-finalize design for ROHS compatability

Manufacturing count : 500 million.

Alright like the amount of stupid reflow ovens and stuff in development labs and the amount of overhead needed for 'good' lead free work will pollute the environment more then the small amount of lead used. Usually with lead there is no problems with lead free you practically need good tools unless you wanna deal with bogies related to solder bridges and other crap. There really are better things you can use the money allocated to policing engineering people with ROHS that would have a far better and more immediate environmental impact. I call it the 'get real' policy.  If you make everything in R&D the same as 'mass market' design you will get NO WHERE.

There is a guy for turning a mechanical design into cheap thin gauge oragami mechanically, this guy does and should continue to exist for electrical bonding. To me its like someone saying "oh yea we won't allow you 1/8 inch plate to make backbones anymore, you need to figure out how to make everything from 22 gauge steel in the lab". So then instead of a drill and a tap set (wow thats actually pretty high end!!) you roll out the presses, dies, sheet metal cutters and benders. Memo: tin smith training begins on tuesday.

I have seen people that were perfectly suited for doing a job with lead be driven to basic rage from having to deal with lead free solder. Less training = better. You can have a salary and equipment budget that way.

[penfold]

I mean mass market anti lead seems good enough, trying to pinch off the engineering department makes little sense, those are not mass market prototypes. Lead solder just works better, leave it for the factory engineer to figure out how to make it work with lead free optimally and let engineers and repair people use lead since it basically amounts to nothing in the environment?

The "ban" only applies to non-professional uses at present, so it still allows for use in prototype dev, just so long as you can prove you're not just a hobbyist

[GlennSprigg]

I mean mass market anti lead seems good enough, trying to pinch off the engineering department makes little sense, those are not mass market prototypes. Lead solder just works better, leave it for the factory engineer to figure out how to make it work with lead free optimally and let engineers and repair people use lead since it basically amounts to nothing in the environment?

The "ban" only applies to non-professional uses at present, so it still allows for use in prototype dev, just so long as you can prove you're not just a hobbyist

I hear you, but I think it should be the REVERSE!   'Hobbyists' soldering a few components/wires at HOME, is not
the problem, and probably wont end up in landfill. However, the huge 'registered' Companies that manufacture
multiple millions of devices/circuits worldwide, are the ones that should be limited!   

[tooki]

How would one manufacture resin core solder, anyway?

Huh? We can and do...

[Siwastaja]

However, the huge 'registered' Companies that manufacture
multiple millions of devices/circuits worldwide, are the ones that should be limited!   

But they ARE limited, have been for a long time now. (See RoHS for example.)

[penfold]

However, the huge 'registered' Companies that manufacture
multiple millions of devices/circuits worldwide, are the ones that should be limited!   

But they ARE limited, have been for a long time now. (See RoHS for example.)

Yes, restricted from selling stuff containing lead to consumers (I've not needed to check recently but I assume even the remaining exemptions have been revoked for telecoms and other non-consumer stuff?), but professionals have never been restricted in purchasing it for prototype and legacy rework/repair stuff at their own discretion.

[coppercone2]

btw gnif you should turn that lead into work plates and hammers, they are useful tools in the shop for doing clean work.

vise jaw
lead hammer set
lead work plate (be sure to cast it with a RS logo on it for maximum grip on odd shaped parts that will dig into the various crevices of the letters).

if you want a good no slip no mar surface for doing something like drilling holes in a PCB look no further then a lead plate. Or if you need to push the PCB into something while yanking something off lead works good (you can make some lead blocks and other things also) the lead hammer is the one least likely to damage anything in your shop.

[james_s]

The "ban" only applies to non-professional uses at present, so it still allows for use in prototype dev, just so long as you can prove you're not just a hobbyist

But hobbyists frequently are the ones repairing old gear that was done with leaded solder.

Whatever the case I'm glad I don't have to deal with that level of nanny state nonsense over here, I can still get leaded solder easily. I should probably stock up on a few rolls in case that changes. I've never been satisfied with the results of lead free. I don't eat it and I do my best to fix stuff to keep it OUT of the landfill.

[penfold]

The "ban" only applies to non-professional uses at present, so it still allows for use in prototype dev, just so long as you can prove you're not just a hobbyist

But hobbyists frequently are the ones repairing old gear that was done with leaded solder.

I know, hence why I'm on the side of "this rule would be far less ludicrous if there was a cohesive foundation to it", if it was dangerous to use then they need to update professional H&S guidelines, if its to reduce lead in landfill bound waste then they need to redo their maths or consult the EU heavy-metals in waste contamination report they commissioned.

[tooki]

The "ban" only applies to non-professional uses at present, so it still allows for use in prototype dev, just so long as you can prove you're not just a hobbyist

But hobbyists frequently are the ones repairing old gear that was done with leaded solder.

Whatever the case I'm glad I don't have to deal with that level of nanny state nonsense over here, I can still get leaded solder easily. I should probably stock up on a few rolls in case that changes. I've never been satisfied with the results of lead free. I don't eat it and I do my best to fix stuff to keep it OUT of the landfill.

Maybe first-generation lead-free was bad, but modern lead-free solder works just fine, honestly, with the caveat that the joints are not expected to be mirror-shiny. No, it's not quite as nice to work with as leaded, but it's not the nightmare many people make it out to be. This is, of course, assuming you're using a high quality solder brand.

However, I would decidedly advise against using lead-free to repair equipment originally assembled with leaded solder. The components may not have been designed to handle the lead-free temperatures, and mixing the two results in weaker joints.

[tooki]

The "ban" only applies to non-professional uses at present, so it still allows for use in prototype dev, just so long as you can prove you're not just a hobbyist

But hobbyists frequently are the ones repairing old gear that was done with leaded solder.

I know, hence why I'm on the side of "this rule would be far less ludicrous if there was a cohesive foundation to it", if it was dangerous to use then they need to update professional H&S guidelines, if its to reduce lead in landfill bound waste then they need to redo their maths or consult the EU heavy-metals in waste contamination report they commissioned.

Again, it's not ONE rule. The entire issue is that two entirely distinct regulations are at work here. Each one IS cohesive within itself. They don't really tie into each other because they each have entirely different goals.

See what I wrote early in this thread:

The human body is a fairly stable and protected system, capable of recovery within certain limits. Therefore, playing at home with a solder coil can be completely safe, but a nearby factory that regularly exudes pollution for a long time is a problem.

If i am not mistaken the whole anti-lead-solder policy is not meant to protect the people using it; it is primarily meant to prevent lead entering the environment when the devices in which it is used are scrapped and / or burned. But I could be wrong 

Two regulations are at work:
RoHS (which required lead solder to be eliminated from new products) is about environmental protection.
REACH (which restricts the sale of lead solder to consumers) is about consumer safety.

Well, the big, legitimate exception is for repairs: since a) alloys with only trace amounts of lead (as happens when residual lead solder mixes into a lead-free joint) are brittle, and b) components and PCBs designed for lead solder may not withstand the higher temperatures of lead-free soldering, it is highly inadvisable to use lead-free solder to repair devices originally assembled with lead solder. That’s why RoHS expressly permits lead solder to be used for repairs, and for lead solder to be sold. (It only bans its use in new products.)

REACH, having entirely different ambitions, makes no such distinction. Stupid IMHO.