[sdiy] advice for a beginner

[Seb Francis]

Scott Gravenhorst wrote:
> Yes, I know you can
> cross solder RoHS and non-RoHS, I don't think it's best to do that, but you can.  
>
> My point about RoHS soldering irons used with RoHS solder and RoHS PCBs still stands though.  It
> seemed as if he was about to buy an iron and if the PCB he's soldering is RoHS, (and assuming he
> wants to keep it that way), it's best to purchase and iron and solder of the same technology.

Well I guess it's a matter of personal opinion, but I really wouldn't 
recommend anyone to use lead-free solder unless they needed to be RoHS 
compliant, or they needed to rework something already soldered with 
lead-free.  Leaded solder is simply much nicer/easier to use, regardless 
of whether you are soldering leaded or lead-free PCB/components.  There 
are no reliability issues when using leaded solder with lead-free 
PCB/components (not true the other way round).

As for the soldering iron itself - sure why not go for one that's 
capable of soldering at the higher temperatures required for lead-free, 
and with a bit that is resilient when used with the more aggressive 
fluxes that tend to go along with lead-free solder.  The only downside I 
can think of is that a fixed temperature iron designed to solder 
lead-free probably gets a bit hotter - but this is not necessarily a bad 
thing: personally I have my temperature controlled iron set pretty hot 
all the time which allows nice fast soldering.

Choice of flux .. now that's another question.  I agree with Scott to 
avoid use of highly aggressive fluxes.  Generally there's a choice of 3 
types for normal PCB use: normal rosin flux is ok for most jobs, organic 
flux gives a nice finish but has to be cleaned immediately after 
soldering, no-clean flux doesn't needs cleaning even for critical 
applications but it smells a bit funny and generally doesn't wet quite 
as well as rosin or organic.

Seb