3) Personal Protective Equipment To prevent burns from splashes of hot solder, long sleeve shirts or lab coats and pants that are made of natural fibers (cotton) and closed -toe shoes should be worn. Safety glasses or goggles should be used when soldering and clipping wires.

Soldering with lead (or other metals used in soldering) can produce dust and fumes that are hazardous. In addition, using flux containing rosin produces solder fumes that, if inhaled, can result in occupational asthma or worsen existing asthmatic conditions; as well as cause eye and upper respiratory tract irritation.

Soldering Safety

• Never touch the element of the soldering iron…. 400°C!
• Hold wires to be heated with tweezers or clamps.
• Keep the cleaning sponge wet during use.
• Always return the soldering iron to its stand when not in use. Never put it down on the workbench.
• Turn unit off and unplug when not in use.

Wear safety glasses or goggles no matter what kind of soldering you do: a spatter of 370F molten metal or 300 F boiling flux in the eye will ruin your day, week, etc. Use a fume extractor or noxious organic fume mask to keep the vaporized flux out of your lungs.

You must have outside ventilation whenever fumes are being produced, whether solder fumes, solvent fumes, paint fumes, or anything like that. I think you should look into an extractor fan and ducting, perhaps a bathroom extractor or kitchen extractor leading to the outside.

Soldermask is a protective layer of liquid photo image able lacquer applied on the top and bottom side of a Printed Circuit Board. The function of the Soldermask is to protect the copper, apart from the solder pads, from: oxidation. creating shorts during. soldering (bridges)

Take a deep breath then slowly blow away the fumes while soldering. Or you can a fan to do the same job. If smell is an issue then you will have to look at more expensive solutions or you can grab a carbon filter and a computer fan and cobble it together and attach it to a power supply of some sort.

As you probably know, the major hazardous material in soldering that is ozone, carbon oxide and nitrogen oxide (mainly including nitrogen dioxide), which directly has an effect on our skin, eyes, respiratory tract, lung and other organs. However, it won’t cause cancer with the helpful of soldering smoke purifier .

Solder fumes are composed of metal vapors from the solder and gas from the evaporated solder flux (Ref. 2). Soldering melts metal alloys with low melting points to create a bond releasing metal vapors into the air.

Exposure to solder fumes from resin or colophony-based solder flux can lead to a multitude of health hazards: Occupational asthma – one of the many risks caused by flux gases; coughing, shortness of breath, wheezing and chest pain are among the symptoms of asthma.

The lead exposure during occasional electronics soldering with leaded alloy is so minimal compared to any of the above lead sources, that it can be completely ignored. Soldering is perfectly safe, especially if care is taken to avoid breathing in the fumes and to wash hands after the operation.

Do not turn on your soldering station until you are ready to use it. Turn off your solder station when you leave to take a break, eat a meal, and when you quit for the day. It only takes about 20-30 seconds to several minutes (depending on the model/brand) to get up to temperature when you first turn it on.

A desoldering pump, colloquially known as a solder sucker, is a manually-operated device which is used to remove solder from a printed circuit board. There are two types: the plunger style and bulb style. (An electrically-operated pump for this purpose would usually be called a vacuum pump.)

A classic reason solder won’t stick to something is because you’re not getting it hot enough. Touch some solder on it, and it should melt almost instantly. Put a nice little blob of solder on the tip of the iron. Press the blob of solder into the metal to be soldered.

The best flux alternative is petroleum jelly because it is cheap, effective, most people have it on hand, and it can double as a cleaner. Other good alternatives are lemon juice, homemade pine tar flux, and homemade rosin flux.

Muriatic acid is the commercial grade of hydrochloric acid used in soldering. It is used for making zinc chloride for a flux on galvanised steel and for cleaning off dirty parts of the metal before they are soldered. In the sheet metal shop, muriatic acid is usually called “raw spirits”.

The main purpose of the flux is to prepare the metal surfaces for soldering by cleaning and removing any oxides and impurities. The flux also protects the metal surfaces from re-oxidation during soldering and helps the soldering process by altering the surface tension of the molten solder.

The answer is yes. Using petroleum jelly as a soldering flux is an effective soldering flux alternative.

The so called water soluble fluxes are divided into two categories, organic and inorganic based on composition. Organic fluxes are more active than RA rosin, and inorganic are the most active of all.

Flux is a chemical purifying agent, flowing agent or cleaning agent. Some examples of flux include: Ammonium chloride. Zinc chloride. Hydrochloric acid.

– Basic flux is the substance added to molten metals to bond with acidic impurities that can be readily removed. – For example, limestone is used to remove silica impurities from the ore.

Types of Flux

• Magnetic Flux. It means the number magnetic field lines passing through a closed surface.
• Electric Flux. It means the number of electric field lines passing through a closed surface.
• Luminous Flux.
• Radiant Flux or Energy Flux.
• Heat Flux.
• Mass Flux.
• Momentum Flux.
• Acoustic Flux.