Airborne_Again wrote:
Can you still get leaded solder?
RS has pages and pages of the stuff. I generally use lead-free though, I’ve been hand soldering with lead free for years now without any issues. The good lead free stuff is expensive, but a 250g reel lasts years unless you’re doing several boards a day.
I did try to buy some 60/40 solder paste from Farnell a year or two ago and they cancelled my order (“trade accounts only” – which I could set up given we have a VAT registered company but I just don’t buy that much stuff from Farnell to be worth the hassle of setting up, and so just bought the same stuff off an ebay store instead!)
Just now I had a tub of flux arrive from RS, the MSDS that came with it I think weighs more than the tub of flux!
They are pulling your leg – standard thing to blame regs 
Probably it is a matter of what is B2B… hard to define.
That’s unfair! How can that be? All the shops cite an EU regulation as the reason.
I see now that one of the major electronics distributors in Sweden (ELFA Distrilec) also sells 60/40, apparently without any restrictions. Guess I’ll buy some.
But the German version of the same web shop indeed doesn’t allow private individuals to buy it – only companies.
@Clipperstorch wrote:
it has become a real pain to obtain the good old 60/40 as a private individual
It seems to be a specifically German thing. Here in Czechia, classical 60/40 or 63/37 solder is sold freely. For example, this e-shop sells to Czechia, Slovakia, Germany, Austria and France, and the version for Germany is different from the rest.
Yes; trade suppliers sell it freely.
While Peter is right, it has become a real pain to obtain the good old 60/40 as a private individual, in the EU at least. Since it now must only be sold to customers who have been trained in the handling of harmful substances (probably a 25 page web based training about washing ones hands and not eating in between touching the stuff) all the shops will sell it only B2B.
Yes of course, and no ban at all. Only finished products which claim ROHS compliance (other than by exemption) need to use unleaded.
In practice anything marketed needs to be ROHS, except military (which demands >2% leaded for reliability) and (I believe until recently) medical. Not sure what happened to the various exemptions like Control and Monitoring; these were extremely useful 
Peter wrote:
We do all prototype work (hand soldered and reflow SMT) using 60/40 leaded solder
Can you still get leaded solder? I thought it was banned many years ago. (All the solder I’ve got for many years is without lead.)
Firstly you need to use leaded solder for hand soldering. At work we tested at least 10 brands of unleaded (mostly SAC305 variants) and only one was really good: Almit from Japan. Super pricey at around £70 for 500g reel. The flux in most solders is just no good. We do all prototype work (hand soldered and reflow SMT) using 60/40 leaded solder. Especially good for SMT using a simple chinese IR oven because it melts at a lower temp.
SMT in production works well enough with SAC305 these days… with reflow ovens costing tens of k.
Secondly avionics wire degrades over the years and eventually becomes really hard to solder – here. I have Raychem wire here which is nowhere near 25 years old and is already hard to solder. Another reason for crimping: you can use up old wire
Best wire for hand building high quality gear is PTFE insulated and the wire is normally silver plated. Very expensive…
