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. ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################ ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################