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Posted By Alec Wood
Hi All
Once agin I turn in hope to you guys for assistance and the odd funny anecdote.
Once upon a time, long long ago, I was a tech repairing electronic devices at component level and hence soldering a lot. Fume extraction was provided by a department containing no-one who could, let alone did, solder, so you can imagine how effective it was.
As I became a safety rep, I supported moves to eliminate colophony (rosin or pine tree sap) based solder fluxes from our workplace as a risk reduction exercise. It was easy because all our top guys had some electronics experience and they all knew rosin fumes were unpleasant.
Time's moved on and I am now elsewhere. Still in the deeply unfashionable world of manufacturing though, and facing the same issues with soldering as I did when I was a tech, except for the fact that it is no longer my lungs at risk. Manager's are much less knowledgable here though, so I could do with some assistance quantifying the benefits of paying the 50% premium on rosin free solder wire.
I have the usual stuff of risk assessments, data sheets etc, but any extra rounds you chaps (and chapesses of course) can add to my arsenal would be very much appreciated.
Kind regards to you all
Alec Wood
Viewtek Display Services Ltd
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Posted By Paul Leadbetter
Alec
Have you considered the additional costs of using rosin-cored solders in your calculations? The cost of installing, maintaining and thoroughly examining and testing suitable LEV could easily outweigh the apparent saving of using the cheaper materials.
Paul
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Posted By Jonathan Breeze
Nice one Paul (I wasn't thinking along those lines).
Along the same lines there is the cost of your annual Occupational Health monitoring (lung function tests and whatnot).
Get rid of the cause of asthma & you don't need to provide these.
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Posted By Robert S Woods
Has the cost of increased employers liability insurance premiums due to a large payout for occupational asthma and dermatitis caused by rosin been added into the equation?
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Posted By Kate Graham
We've just had the insurers around and they asked us to move to colophony-free. Hooray for insurers!
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Posted By Alec Wood
Yes, I have considered the savings in LEV costs.
I consider that the one guy doing production soldering, continuous all day soldering, should retain LEV of the tip extraction type. The service techs can move to fume displacement since their soldering is much more occasional, probably no more than thirty minutes total per day. However, I have not yet shown my hand on this since I would actaully be happier if LEV was maintained at all stations. I lack the volume of data necessary to give me confidence that the reduction in risk is sufficient to abandon LEV. Does anyone have any data.
Insurers at my previous employer, Samsung, did indicate that had we not done so they would have requested we eliminated colophony.
Abandonment of LEV will be a powerful argument for me because we are about to quadruple the number of repair techs here. If I could abandon LEV then the cost saving is likely to be upwards of thirty grand plus another two grand or so per year.
By the way, anone who is studying soldering LEV. Experience as a tech leads me to prefer tip extraction. Hoods etc are all too much affected by environmental factors to be as effective as the look in the brochure, and obstruct the workspace to the point that they become a pain and are thuis shoved out the way and made even less effective.
Alec Wood
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Posted By andy dorr
I trialled colophony free solder wire here but its introduction was vetoed by our QA department as they believed the flux residue was hygroscopic and could potentially cause shorting (power supply manufacture). Has anyone experienced anything similar and if so ,how did you get around it??
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Posted By Chris Pope
Alec
You should talk to Purex, they make soldering LEV.
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Posted By Alec Wood
Andy
At Samsung I trialled loads of the first rosin free solders to be available in the UK market. I can discuss your QA departments concerns with you, but it is not really appropriate for this list, so if you wish to then email me directly.
Alec Wood
Viewtek Display Services Ltd
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Posted By Martin Cope
Alec,
Have you head about the WEEE Directive. Ensure new products are designed so that they can either be reused or recycled and that they are marked with the correct labelling (waste electrical and electronic equipment).
RoHS Directive 2002/95/EC:
Six hazardous substances restricted by the RoSH Directive are lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium and the flame retardants PBB and PBDE.
Directives: 76/769/EEC and 91/338/EEC
By making changes now under the requirements of the RoSH Directive should assist your case in changing both the type of solder and flux whilst complying with Statute.
Regards
Martin
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