Silver Solder

[tek4g63]

It started around the year 2000 and since that time lead has been banned from electronic solder (industrial scale, not for small business/private use).

I do not mean to cause any trouble, you had some great info, but this statement is not entirely true. Like I said above, untill 6 months ago I worked in a very large electronics manufacturing factory. They still use leaded solder. Most products have been changed to use silver solder but the government is not stupid, it would be impossible to just stop and change over to silver solder. Like you stated it comes with unique challenges. I don't know for sure what the time line set fourth was for companies was to get changed over, probably something like 15 or 20 years. With that said, the company I work for is still using lead solder on their top of the line products because it is the tried and true method and they are learning the ups and downs of silver solder on their cheaper products (the ones that they can afford to scrap a few. So please don't assume the scrap you have is cheap just because it is modern and still has leaded solder on it.

 

[Marcel]

It started around the year 2000 and since that time lead has been banned from electronic solder (industrial scale, not for small business/private use).

I do not mean to cause any trouble, you had some great info, but this statement is not entirely true. Like I said above, untill 6 months ago I worked in a very large electronics manufacturing factory. They still use leaded solder.

I can only judge this by the regulations I known in the european countries. Lead has been banned from all products (such as paint f.i)
I saw a horrible story the other day (Medical detectives) where a small child in the US licked on the paint of a window, because lead seems to taste sweet and it died within days.
Your goverment does a lot to support the national economy, sometimes in exchange for health risks for the consumer or loosing the competitive edge. This should not be understoood as a polictical statement, just a difference in the way national goverments set their priorities. In Germany and the rest of the EU, lead is an aboslute No-Go, no matter which product. Violations will be severely punished.
The positive effect is that the local industry has develeped alternative solutions and gained some competitive advantage over some other countries in that field (ERSA,Weller aso.)
You can observe a similiar effect when the prices for energy skyrocked here and the law that has ended gaining power from nuclear energy. Now we have great companies who produce
very innovative alternative products, harvesting energy from wind or else. Or see the car indistry, while US companies where still producing 8 cylinder gas wasting (but nice) cars, we were served the Smart car from Mercedes Benz. This backlog has cost the US carindustry thousands of jobs when their cars were not internationally competitive any more and the big players went banccrupt. Now the whole world wants cars that consume minimal gas and GM etc. have to rethink, redeseign and reinvent themselfs.
So both ways have their pro and cons.
Btw: Lead is still allowed at the shooting range :lol:

 

[goldsilverpro]

Fine silver can be used as hard solder, because it melts at a lower temperature than sterling.

Not true. This was written several months ago on page 1 of this thread but I just caught it. Actually, sterling melts at a temperature lower than pure silver. The melting points are: Pure silver = 961C; Sterling silver (92.5Ag/7.5Cu) = 893C; Coin silver (90Ag/10Cu) = 879C

The Ag/Cu alloy (eutectic) which has the lowest melting point (about 779.6C) is 71.9Ag/28.1Cu.

It is interesting to note that all Ag/Cu binary alloys with less than about 82% copper have melting points lower than pure silver (961C), even though the melting point of pure copper is 1085C.

 

[eeTHr]

Oops---Sorry! I guess I was thinking of something else from my silver jewelry days about 30 years ago.

 

[plumbers]

Like tek said, I think the 60/40 has lead, and the other is 5% silver.

what i used years ago was 95/5 (95% Tin - 5% Antimony) no silver. and normally 50/50 (50% tin 50%lead).

 

[marktrading]

I did a search on Silver solder. That why I ask that dumb question.

Silver solders are not all the same. Those that are considered silver brazing material are damned well worth processing, and can be used to inquart, killing two cats with one stone.

By sharp contrast, silver bearing solders (under 10%) may not be unless you have a huge volume of material and the ability to separate the silver.

I'm sure you'd understand that your question, as it was posed, would be akin to asking how big is a rock?

Harold

I totally agree with you.

 

[Geo]

is it a new feature on the forum that keeps spam links from showing up or is one of our moderators taking the links out?