Some years ago in another life and another country, we recognised the
hazard to health of operators breathing in flux fumes from hand soldering
as well as from wave or convection reflow machines. We already had in place
a substantial fume extraction plant that removes polllutants before
discharging exhaust air to the outside world. A little later, each assembly
operator bench was equiped with fume extraction as well that went through
the same process.

The fluxes in question were water soluble types from Alpha.

I have seen smaller, hand-sized, portable fume extraction gadgets with an
axial fan that suck air and fumes through a charcoal filter, similar in
principle to domestic cooker hoods. I am less certain of these as they draw
a current of cool air across the workpiece with the danger (unproven) of
cooling solder joints too fast.

Pete Duncan




                    Lon Weffers
                    <weffers@MATA        To:     [log in to unmask]
                    S.NL>                cc:     (bcc: DUNCAN Peter/Asst Prin Engr/ST Aero/ST Group)
                    Sent by:             Subject:     [TN] clean air
                    TechNet
                    <[log in to unmask]
                    ORG>


                    06/15/01
                    06:35 PM
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                    Lon Weffers






Dear technetters,

Recently we have some problems with our breething air inside the building.
Some of us think its due to the outgassing of the just soldered pcb's,
others think it is the flux.
Main problem occurs in front of the soldering machines and the reflow oven.
There is now a discussion going on about the safeness of fluxes and
soldering (pastes).
My question is if someone had the same problems and what did they do to
reduce these problems?

Lon Weffers
Matas Electronics bv

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