Hello Jeff,
I'll just comment on the human aspects of exposure to lead and not
address the issue of lead-free reliability (that's another discussion
altogether and will get reliability engineers really going).  In the past
I have had multiple operators rigged with "sniffers" or air monitoring
devices (supplied by the safety office).  These operators wore the
sniffers throughout their shift over the course of one work week.  The
operators ranged from rework/repair to assemblers (located next to the
wave soldering machine).  All registered amounts of lead were well below
the acceptable limits established by OSHA etc.  Outside of eating the
solder, lead ingestion from soldering fumes normally causes iritation to
the eyes and noses of a few operators and not near death experiences.  I
do suggest fume extraction for hand soldering and good ventilation
systems for all soldering machines (wave, reflow, etc.) for let's face
it, one of the most critical resources is our operators.  Enough said.

Steve Sauer
Senior Manufacturing Engineer
Xetron Corporation
513-881-3368
[log in to unmask]

Steve Sauer

 ----------
From:  Landes, Jeff[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:  Thursday, July 23, 1998 8:13 PM
To:  [log in to unmask]
Subject:  [TN] lead free solder

Hi all,

One of our engineers suggested that we throw away all of our spools of
tin/lead solder (citing health concerns) creating a lead free office.
  He
suggested we use "kester saf-alloy" for hand soldering.

I'd like to throw out some questions:

What is the current line on  human safety using tin/lead solder (hand
soldering, no wave solder here)?

Does lead easily absorb into the skin?

Does some become airborne with flux fumes?

What general reliability or process concerns does the industry have about
using lead free solders?



Your  info is appreciated.

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