Off season skills: Learn how to Solder

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Foster

The "lead free" solder bashing is dumb....

Purpose of classes is to TEACH people how to do it right. Right tools, right skills, right training, learning how to do it right.

Mostly sorry that I keep forgetting that CD is a whine fest of people that can't pull together the right skills while most of us go "Ok, that didn't have a happy ending, how do I fix that." Lead free solder is here, deal with it.

I'll point out that immediately after saying that "lead free solder bashing is dumb", you go on to point out several reasons why using lead free solder is more difficult than using leaded solder. I agree with all of your reasons why it is easier to learn soldering using leaded solder. In my experience having a positive first exposure to any skill set will likely lead a student to want to continue exploring and learning in that area, so therefore I would heartily agree with the recommendation to use leaded solder when teaching introductory electronics.

At least that is the purpose of my clasess... teaching electronics... and if I can get students to focus on the electronics and to have a positive experience then maybe they will stick with it and end up finding a job in an ROHS compliant environment where lead-free soldering skills will matter.

Lead free solder is a great way to mitigate envirnomental hazards for large-scale industrial operations. Leaded solder is a great way to introduce people to soldering in small scale educational operations. Comparing the differences between them is a great way to introduce people to some interesting aspects of metallurgy.

But mostly I'd like to point out that if you have come to the conclusion that "CD is a whinefest of people who can't pull together the right skills" then we have obviously been reading different threads. My experience on CD has been one of meeting lots of people keen to learn, and in turn learning from many very skilled people who take the time to post thoughtful, constructive insights.

Jason

P.S. If anyone would like more information on soldering iron tips, and extending their life using both leaded and unleaded solder, I have found the following document to be an excellent reference. http://www.newark.com/pdfs/techartic...ingTipLife.pdf