60/40 Solder - Is inhaling the fumes bad?

[yathis]

Half the time I blow the smoke away, but it drifts back, I need a mini fan to blow that shit away.

[Coaxialgamer]

Just work in a well ventilated area. 

[yathis]

How bad is it to inhale the fumes?

 

Just now, Coaxialgamer said:

Just work in a well ventilated area. 

 

[Coaxialgamer]

Just now, yathis said:

How bad is it to inhale the fumes?

 

 

What's your solder made of? Does it contain  some sort of flux? 

[EarthboundHero]

You'll be alright. If you're soldering enough for it to matter then invest in a fume extractor. 

[yathis]

MG Chemical sn62/Pb37

[HalGameGuru]

Even lead free solder you don't want to be breathing much of but if it has lead you want to keep that garbage out of your lungs. 

[yathis]

1 minute ago, HalGameGuru said:

Even lead free solder you don't want to be breathing much of but if it has lead you want to keep that garbage out of your lungs. 

Yeah its lead hence Pb37% flux core as well

So a couple mini fans? a sucker and a blower? 

[straight_stewie]

30 minutes ago, yathis said:

How bad is it to inhale the fumes?

Generally, if you have to ask, then yes it is. Open a window and put a box fan near your desk blowing towards it at the very least.

[porina]

You can kinda compare it to smoking. It is bad for you, but the effects accumulate gradually over time. A little now and then isn't likely to do much, but prevention is still the safer option. There are solder fume extractors available that have a fan to suck up the fumes, and has a filter too to absorb it and stop it from spreading. A quick look on Amazon they don't appear too expensive.

[Tiberiusisgame]

There's more math to it than I'm allowing, but generally, while you do heat Lead to the melting point when you solder, you will never reach the evaporation point. The smoke is actually the flux or the rosin core burning off, which cleans the points you're joining so the bond is stronger and the electrical resistance is lower. 

 

Your 60/40 solder is 60% tin and 40% lead. If you don't mind soldering at slightly higher temperatures, go with a lead-free solder, like SAC, which is Tin, Silver and Copper. The risk of the leaded solders is not in the inhaling but in the handling. If you touch the solder, then touch your food or your clothes, that lead accumulates in your bloodstream due to physical contact or ingestion. Handling the electronics soldered with lead solder is also risky. 

 

Breathing in flux isn't good for you, that is generally agreed upon, but there is no risk of heavy metal accumulation due to inhalation, which is the greater risk.

 

Switch solders or wear gloves and practice disciplined clean practices when soldering. 

[mariushm]

All modern solders have flux in them, which is a substance that's relatively neutral when solid and when it gets hot it becomes acidic and does its job, to clean the oxides from the surfaces of metal surfaces you want the solder to chemically react to (there's a chemical reaction between the solder and the metal, the metals create bonds between them).

 

The simplest fluxes are made out of a slightly modified rosin formula, where rosin is what you get out of trees. If it says "Rosin core flux", that's what you have. You should only buy solders with this flux if you're only going to work with very clean / new components, fresh off the packaging, because these fluxes are relatively weak compared to the fluxes below - for example, if you desolder components by adding some solder to the joint, you'd often need additional flux to desolder components because the included flux may not be strong enough to break off the layer of oxides that formed over time over the solder on the circuit board.

 

Slightly stronger fluxes have some additives (halides and other chemicals) which make them a bit stronger and reduce the amount of impurities that remain on the circuit board after use. These fluxes are called Rosin Mildly Activated (RMA) or Rosin Activated (RA)

 

Then you have no-clean fluxes , which can be based on rosin or other formulas, which can have acidity anywhere between the lightest rosin core flux and the rosin activated fluxes. They're called no-clean because even if they leave impurities on the boards, they're not so powerful to continue to corrode the metals on the circuit boards if they're not cleaned, and they're not conductive enough to cause problems for simple circuits.

 

Fluxes which have more than around 3% halides and/or other chemicals besides modified rosin typically have to be cleaned off the circuit boards after use, because otherwise the flux that remains on the board may continue to corrode the copper traces and in time (months maybe) you'll get breaks in the traces.

 

On the more serious end, you have Organic fluxes and water soluble fluxes - these should never be used by regular people at home, because the large majority of them have to be properly cleaned off the circuit boards. While the names sound "green" in reality they're much stronger acids so you absolutely have to wash them off the boards otherwise in a few months they can eat through the copper traces on boards. And.. water soluble is not as simple as just washing them with warm water. You need distilled water warmed up, then another rinse cycle with cold water, maybe even a wash through ultrasonic cleaner.

 

Solders with lead  ( 60/40 , 63/37 . 62/36/2 etc) are easier to solder and require smaller temperatures to solder (180-183c) so they typically use rosin or light no-clean fluxes and a smaller percentage of flux (as little as 1% and up to 2.2-3%)

 

Tin based solders (97%+ tin , and the rest some silver or copper usually) because they melt at 217c or more, may require a bigger percentage of flux  and a stronger type of flux like strong no-clean or RA (2-3% flux , because the hotter tip temperature would burn some flux because it gets a chance to do its work on the oxides)

 

So while you're more "environmental friendly" by not dumping lead in the trash when you throw away your electronics, you potentially damage your health more when soldering because the fluxes in non-lead solders are much stronger and in bigger quantities.

 

The stronger the fluxes, the worse they are for you lungs.

 

Rosin core fluxes and RMA fluxes typically don't produce enough smoke to affect you by any significant amount, even if you solder for years you will most likely never have any problems. I'd say just having a window open while you solder will generally be enough.

 

RA fluxes or solders that have more than a bit of additives like let's say more than 0.2-0.5% halides usually smell worse and you should be a bit more careful about breathing in the smokes... but for the huge majority of people, it would take years of soldering daily for your lungs to be affected by the flux smoke.  A simple 92mm - 120mm fan moving some air over the desk surface would be optional - wouldn't hurt but it's not needed.

 

Some RA and a lot of no-clean solders have quite a bit of additives and make quite a bit of smoke that you can often feel it in your mouth if you breathe the smoke in. It can sting a bit the back of your throat a bit and in general it's not a good idea to take it in, but if you solder only for a few minutes a day every few days or so like a hobbyist, it would take years to accumulate enough in your lungs to have problems.  Still, it would be a good idea to have a 92mm-140 mm fan move air over the surface of the desk you work on and have the window open, or to open the window for a few minutes after you finish soldering.

I have a no-clean flux based solder from Multicore and it doesn't produce enough smoke for me to feel it affecting me. But I also have a bottle of no-clean flux based on activated rosin and I sometimes add a drop or two of liquid flux on the areas I need to solder, and when that burns up, I can definitely feel it in my throat if I breathe it in. Yet, I rarely use a fan because I don't solder enough to make it worth the hassle, I just have the window open in my room

 

Organic and water soluble fluxes being so strong, you definitely need some ventilation on your desk - i would actually encourage anyone to use fans with activated charcoal filters (hepa/ whatever) on their desk to suck the smoke and push it through the filter to catch the flux particles out of the air instead of just moving the air around. But actually, just DON'T use such fluxes - no reason to use them unless you have really rusted, oxidized components but even then you could just give those components an acetone wash or use an abrasive brush on them before soldering them with weaker fluxes.

 

As for lead and lead based solders.  The temperatures required to solder are not high enough to make the solder turn into vapor or particles that would be in the smoke - there's no chance of breathing it it.

The particles are also big enough that it's impossible to be absorbed through the skin, even if you handle the solder with your hands without gloves, you won't get solder in your body this way. Unless you have cuts on your hands so that solder particles would get in your blood stream, it's enough to wash your hands with soap after soldering, or to basically just use some cheap gloves.

And you only have to wash because inadvertently you may scratch your nose or rub your eyes or lick your fingers or something and then some lead particles may get inside you...

BUT even then, the amount of lead that would actual transfer to your hands and even the less amount of that actually getting in your body is so ridiculously small that you don't really have to bother about lead in your solders.

You do more damage to your health with the smokes of stronger fluxes used in non-lead based solders than whatever the lead particles going into your body would ever do you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[W-L]

On 5/9/2017 at 2:25 AM, yathis said:

How bad is it to inhale the fumes?

 

 

You'll get a headache after a while if you do it for a long time, as said most of it will be flux burning off which isn't something you want to be inhaling. 

[Hackentosher]

On 5/8/2017 at 11:24 PM, Coaxialgamer said:

Just work in a well ventilated area. 

Lol you're forgetting how Flux smoke has this magic ability to go right into your face no matter how you're working with it. Unless you have a fume extractor, of course. 

[Millay]

Easiest solution for hobby use is a computer fan to dissipate the fumes quickly, instructables has a few solutions using old PC PSUs. I work with lead solder as most of the electronics i work on were made using that, and I hate the modern solder. I just make sure i'm in a ventilated room, and don't directly breath the fumes as they visibly rise.

[yathis]

Actually now they want to get away from using lead solder, hence the new standard for commercial products anywho