In SX Microcontrollers, SX/B Compiler and SX-Key Tool, dkemppai wrote:

[quote="Guenther Daubach"]
Here comes the amazing part:

According to the current European regulations, lead-free soldering is NOT allowed in medical appliances, and some other possibly life-threatening environments. Why? Because so far, it is not proven that led-free solder joints do have the same lifetime as leaded ones. 

Now that most European board assembly companies have adapted their machinery to handle lead-free soldering, it is hard to find manufacturers here that still can do leaded soldering - Arrrrghhhhh !!!

Besides this, lead-free soldering is not that bad at all but it is much more critical to use the right soldering temperature, and to maintain this temperature within a small window, even when larger solder joints draw away heat energy. I have bought a new soldering station (Ersa i-CON) with a very fast re-heating solder tip. With this soldering station, and some experimenting, I have found the right temperature setting for the lead-free solder I'm currently using but I'm pretty sure that I'll need to find another optimum temperature setting as soon as I switch to another brand of solder with a different composition.

[/quote][2]
Don't forget military organizations are exempt from ROHS also. Also space agencies are exempt... 

That part that gets me, is that all of the ROHS parts are going away in the US. There's no demand for them, so distributors are starting to drop them. At Digikey, many of the devices I used are replaced by ROHS parts, at usually a 25% to 50% increase in cost.

The only good utectic blend of non leaded solder is expensive, because it contains silver. (about 4 times per roll). It also has a has a 221C melting point as opposed to the 183C melting point of utectic tin lead. On top of that it's tensile strength is higher. 

So, in my little corner of the US, EU lawmakers are making my products more expensive, and harder to make! 

-Dan

 
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