General > General Technical Chat
Really RS Components, I am not allowed to order solder anymore??
drussell:
--- Quote from: tooki on February 15, 2021, 11:50:08 pm ---What's weird is that the draft explanatory document for that made it clear that it was focused on items that babies could mouth.
But the Swiss chemical trade association's press release says that the EU lead consortium's guidance on Annex XVII compliance expressly listed lead solder as a product whose reclassification (as a listed material) requires it to be restricted from consumer sale.
--- End quote ---
My guess is that any idea surrounding banning the sale of solder was primarily focused on banning the sale of leaded plumbing solder. Leaded solder for electronics being sold to consumers was probably never even really properly considered by the crafters of such legislation.
james_s:
--- Quote from: drussell on February 17, 2021, 01:23:26 pm ---My guess is that any idea surrounding banning the sale of solder was primarily focused on banning the sale of leaded plumbing solder. Leaded solder for electronics being sold to consumers was probably never even really properly considered by the crafters of such legislation.
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You might be right, although I think it's been years since I've seen leaded plumbing solder in stores. I wonder how much of the lead actually makes it into the water, I'm guessing it must be not much. My house is all copper plumbing with leaded solder.
drussell:
--- Quote from: james_s on February 17, 2021, 08:38:09 pm ---I wonder how much of the lead actually makes it into the water, I'm guessing it must be not much. My house is all copper plumbing with leaded solder.
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Very, very little, at least under normal chemical conditions, especially when you're just talking about joints.
Places like Flint still have actual PIPES made of lead that are somewhat surprisingly even historically normally reasonably safe because of the passivization layer that builds up on the inside... No significant amount of lead typically actually leaches into the water from these systems under "normal" circumstances. The issue in Flint was the disaster of introducing completely different-than-historic, insufficiently treated, chemically reactive water into what is essentially such a carefully balanced system.
Not that I'm saying it's good to ever intentionally put lead in direct contact with your water supply given the science which we now know and new joints will leach some small amount of lead into the water before it becomes mostly inert, but on just a joint that should be very minimal overall exposure. Lead pipes themselves does seem like a bit of a bad idea in hindsight even though they were once cheap and flexy, easy to install I suppose?
drussell:
Oh yeah, I forgot to add...
--- Quote from: james_s on February 17, 2021, 08:38:09 pm ---My house is all copper plumbing with leaded solder.
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"Mine too..."
penfold:
--- Quote from: james_s on February 17, 2021, 08:38:09 pm ---
--- Quote from: drussell on February 17, 2021, 01:23:26 pm ---My guess is that any idea surrounding banning the sale of solder was primarily focused on banning the sale of leaded plumbing solder. Leaded solder for electronics being sold to consumers was probably never even really properly considered by the crafters of such legislation.
--- End quote ---
You might be right, although I think it's been years since I've seen leaded plumbing solder in stores. I wonder how much of the lead actually makes it into the water, I'm guessing it must be not much. My house is all copper plumbing with leaded solder.
--- End quote ---
I think you're on to something there. As drussell stated that a properly made lead joint won't leach anything significant into the water, however I've heard there are combinations of fluxes that don't readily wash out during purge and cause significant corosion over time, presumably resulting in compounds that enter the bloodstream... I just can't find any references to which fluxes they may be
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