Older components have leads plated with lead (Pb), or soldered with lead solder. Not a good idea to be sucking on jewelry made out of non-ROHS electronic components.

Originally Posted by schuey

... non-ROHS electronic components

Google it.

Pure paranoia. At least coming from the perspective of a former plater. Would you believe that the ROHS standards require that each 'homogenous' portion of a component be ROHS compliant? This mean that while the TOTAL chromium content for a part has to be bellow a certain threshold that even a coating (such as zinc with a dichromate passivization) also has to be bellow that threshold even though the dichromate layer is only 1/100,000th of an inch of the surface of the entire mass of the part.

The chromium limits in bottled drinking water are higher when looking at the total mass of the samples. This kind of things is causing billions of dollars in harm to the industrial sector, and albeit only very slightly encouraging environmental consciousness.

Lead itself is NOT a hazard, it is only a hazard when it becomes ionic (IE disolved in a liquid) and ingested. As a bulk metal it's a bad thing because mild acids will dissolve it over time and introduce it into the ground water supply. As a necklace, you'd be safe wearing a pendant made out of solid lead if you so chose.

Hayato, leaded solder poses almost no health risks to users of it under normal conditions. Typical leaded solders are 60/40, tin/lead so even getting to the lead in the first place is difficult, any minor oxide layer is going to provide at beast trace amounts of lead, you'd have to grind it up and eat it to really have a harmful effect. I'd be more worried about breathing the rosin vapors than the lead content of typical solder.

Your cobler refrence isn't really applicable, because if it's actually plated you're talking almost absolutely pure lead, and they had it in their mouths for extended periods of time. I don't think tin dissolves as well as lead does in mild acids so what would happen is you would end up depleting the lead from the surface and end up with a solid tin layer that would no longer disolve. Not sure exactly about the solubility of tin in mild acids though. And that's only if you were deliberately moutihng on the stuff. Common soldering methods don't even require the physical touchign of the solder, it either comes off a spool, out of a spiral in a wound tube or similar.

I guess the trouble about RoHS conformal electronic parts and related stuff is nothing but politically made hysteria.

Not too long ago water pipes in houses were made of pure lead. As far as I know nobody died of them.

Making PCBs I don't even bother wearing protective gloves (no good grip) using irontricloride or natriumpersulfate.

I do use silk gloves when mounting a transparency for exposure though not to leave unwanted "traces" on the film.

When my hands get an unusal colour (blueish-green) I use natriumhydroxide (normally used for photopositive developer) to wash my hands.

Politicians tend to make new laws regardless if they are useful or not. The main purpose seems to me to show and prove that they are doing something.

Boncuk

In general I think the elimination of lead is a good thing for the environment in general. But for a hobbyist, it makes no difference. Even all of us added up together don't even make dent in the number a small mass producer outputs.

Originally Posted by Sceadwian

In general I think the elimination of lead is a good thing for the environment in general. But for a hobbyist, it makes no difference. Even all of us added up together don't even make dent in the number a small mass producer outputs.

I'm still waiting for the first RoHS conformal lead-acid-battery.

I have questioned much of the proposed limits of toxicity and other such measurements for far longer than I can remember.

If you search around there is always a naturally occurring source of something that will be far above what limits some politician or over zealous health agency proposes to be safe.

How many city and public water systems still use lead based piping that was installed decades ago yet does nothing about it let alone ever tells its own citizens about it in the first place?
And how many public water systems still have high levels of other heavy metals or potentially harmful yet naturally occurring chemicals in them that make it though the systems primary filtration and into the homes anyway?

Too many for the governing bodies to ever willingly admit too!

So how do you propose to eliminate a substance from the environment when it is in fact a naturally occurring part of the environment itself?

We have all got someone like that in our lives!

I have a friend who grows all organic garden produce because he doesn't like the chemicals typical farming uses. Yet he takes a heaping Dixie cup of pills every day for his health related issues!

So how many non natural chemicals are in about 20 different medicines anyway?