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Re: ROHS Solder

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2011 10:17 am
by Narwhal-Industries
All the guitar amp manufactures the I do service for had a big spike in warranty claims when they went RoHs. But as they got their machines dialed in for the new solder, the failure rates of their products returned to normal. Same thing happened when JJ Electronic went RoHs, I threw out so many brand new EL34s that year. The tubes that they're making now are fine.

I don't use RoHs solder because of the higher melting point. When working on something that is older or just not made very well, extra heat is just unwelcome.

The only problems I've really had is lead free and lead solder not mixing very well. Which is just more of an annoyance. The extra step of removing the RoHs solder really doesn't add any time to a repair.

As for gold plated jacks and silver wire just don't get me started on that one.

Re: ROHS Solder

Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2011 4:17 pm
by moose23
Gold plating has it's use as it stops copper corroding, any other claims are bullshit pure and simple. I like silver in solder as it looks shiny whereas the Rohs stuff is generally quite dull. Being in the EU we've very little choice but to use Rohs solder so leaded isn't really an option any more.