Homebrew PCBs

On 19/07/2014 02:25, Brad Thompson brad.thompson@... 
[Homebrew_PCBs] wrote:
> Hello--
>
> At a recycling center where I volunteered, a manufacturer dropped off
> several gaylords full of electronic scrap,
Several gaylords? Sounds like a different way to do it :-)

I've been using unleaded solder for a while now, after the initial 
problems (basically due to having a cheap crappy soldering iron, and 
bits that would dissolve, and probably the earlier unleaded solder alloy 
just wasn't the same as it is now) I've been soldering with the stuff 
for years now. I no longer have problems with crumbling soldering iron 
bits, I can get it to flow nicely, and I've assembled hundreds of boards 
with the stuff with the same soldering iron bit and it seems to be 
working now just as well as the old lead solder.

The only problem I have with unleaded soldering is unleaded solder 
paste. I used to reflow all my SMD stuff with a hot air gun but this 
just doesn't seem to work right now (certainly temperature related) so I 
just hand solder SMD stuff now (and now I've had to do it for a while, 
I'm getting much better results by hand soldering SMD than I used to get 
with leaded solder paste and reflow)