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Cydrome Leader

WangoTango wrote:
In article ,
says...

Aside from silver plated or specialty parts in an old scope, is there any harm done
in using real solder in a RoHS device?

Here's an example.

a resistor mounted through-hole has a bad joint. Normal repair just reheat the joint
and add more solder. No problem.

I've reworked a thousand "RoHS" boards with good 'ol 60/40 and have
never had a failure of one of MY joints, or any problems related to
them. The stupid part of all of this is, just how are you going to know
EXACTLY which lead free solder was used to begin with? There a a lot of
formulations, from good 'ol SAC (Tin, silver, copper) to a bunch of
alloys with all kinds of weird stuff in them. So, if you grab a spool
of SAC and the OEM used a bismuth or zinc alloy, what is going to
happen? I just clean up as much of the original solder as possible with
solder wick and put down 60/40 and forget about it. I might also add,
that we have mixed RoHS and non-RoHS parts for years with no failures
due to the tin/lead solder. In fact UPS has destroyed more boards by
running them over than any other failure mechanism.

Well this sounds like good news. Thanks for pointing out the solder wick.
I don't generally use the stuff, but it's does a good job of removing as
much old solder as possible.