Welcome to the wonderful world of lead and its associated health risks.
Luckily, in our line of work it is not as bad as those cases you have read
about in the news and automobile battery issues.
I have studied this issue in the past, and have used the following
guidelines. I have always discussed the lead dangers with operators,
especially women. I tell them that lead, in large enough quantities, has
been proven to cause birth defects in children, and caused problems with
young children (ever hear the stories about the kids eating the lead based
paint?) In our operations, lead exposure is minimal. We have run tests,
used the sniffers supplied by the insurance company, etc. The worst
exposed is the wave solder operator, and at my present facility, we have
determined that lead exposure is so small that they do not even need a
blood test. (In the past, companies working with lead would have those
employees have blood tests on a regular basis to check for lead
poisioning.)
1. Lead is not absorbed through the skin. Lead mainly enters the body
through ingestion, i.e. it is on your hands and it gets on your food. I
have required that operators wear gloves when working with solder paste, or
cleaning in the screen printer. Operators who handle the bar solder or
work with wire solder are told that they should wash their hands before
eating, smoking, etc.
2. Fumes from soldering. The fumes will contain numerous things, mainly
flux residue. There is minimal lead content to the fumes, the lead is too
heavy. But the fumes, if inhaled fequently, may result in "occupational
asthma". The flux particles coat the throat, etc. It is best to supply
fume extractors at all stations where solder irons are used. If this is
not possible, then a fan to blow the fumes away should be used. Anything
so that the operator does not inhale the fumes.
3. Wait until one of the operators becomes pregnent!. Depending on the
doctor, they may tell them they cannot perform soldering operations. In
my opinion, follow the doctors advice!
4. Lead free soldering, I and the rest of the world are all looking at
this, and its reliability. Keep watching the articles. However, if you
are touching up solder joints that were made with SN 62, don't use a lead
free solder wire. Don't mix metalurgies!!!! You run the risk of
degrading the solderjoint longterm.
Good luck. Personally, if it was me, I would not switch.
[log in to unmask] on 07/23/98 08:13:00 PM
Please respond to [log in to unmask]; Please respond to [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
cc: (bcc: Ed Holton/Hella North America Inc.)
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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