Need an iron and solder recommendations for some thru hole synth kits. Leaded or lead free for a noob?

  • plinky [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    21 days ago

    pinecil and leaded is slightly easier/less brittle if there is stress, but you can self-own without good ventilation (not that lead is easy to evaporate, but just shit lying around, so wash your hands before and after. ventilation is still needed due to flux, but it’s roughly cigarette smoke harm). tht is kinda easy to solder and doesn’t have stress, so i would get lead free, but take care about ventilation

    if you are attaching something like free copper wires to pcb, i would go leaded and deal with it. just take care about cleaning up each time and not having food anywhere near soldering place

    • comrade_pibb [comrade/them]@hexbear.netOP
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      21 days ago

      I kind of get the impression that for someone in a garage doing a handful of boards a year, the benefits of lead solder outweigh the personal risk/environmental impact, but it’s hard to get any real information online

      • plinky [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        21 days ago

        easily yeah, lead free is not that bad, but it has higher temperature to deal with and being worse for wetting. personal risk is being a dum-dum about washing hands or getting food stuff involved on the same table, environmental is also like don’t throw it in a trash, and especially when you get better, you won’t have a lot of wasted solder

        if you are doing it in a garage, gentle fan to remove flux fumes from your breathing area is fine, just take breaks to vent it out

          • plinky [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            21 days ago

            but it’s industrial scale where they are clearly bad, like giant basins of melted solder or ball placement thingies, and then in the trash where lead leaches out into environment, lead doesn’t evaporate that easy. in placing stuff on boards it’s probably equal, for copper wires, maybe i just suck but i have to try a lot to get it attached with lead free solder, it cools too quickly (i’m also doing on needs basis every 6 months or so, not a professional or anything)