[hackerspaces] Soldering and safety?

[William Macfarlane]

The danger of inhaling solder smoke is just the danger of inhaling smoke --
particles are bad for your lungs, but not catastrophically so.  Try to
avoid inhaling the fumes.  Ventilation is best.  Fume extractors are second
best.

And, yeah, of course, wash your hands.

And remember that growing bodies are generally more fragile than grown ones.


On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 6:43 PM, Derek Hubbard <dh405okc at gmail.com> wrote:

> If the point is to get the smoke away from you, a small desk fan does the
> trick quite well. That, or do what I've always done and just whistle while
> you solder.
>
> -Derek Hubbard.
>
> On May 15, 2013, at 3:29 PM, Felicitus <felicitus at felicitus.org> wrote:
>
> > On 05/15/2013 05:14 PM, David Brightbill wrote:
> >> I'm a safety-third kind of guy in my personal life but as a board member
> >> of a space, I worry about liability etc.  Recently, during a soldering
> >> class, the topic of soldering fume extractors came up.  What's the take
> >> on these?  Should we buy or make some, or is this overkill for the
> >> application?
> >
> > tl;dr:
> > Attach signs which say: "Wash your hands after soldering" prior to
> > buying fume extractors.
> >
> > Long Version:
> >
> > Most of the fume you'll encounter while soldering is due to vaporizing
> > the flux, not the solder itself (lead vaporizes at about 1700°C, there's
> > no way you could ever vaporize solder with your regular soldering iron).
> > So your agenda is:
> >
> > 1) Instruct people to wash their hands
> >
> > People at our hackerspace rarely do it, including myself. I try to do
> > it, but it's easy to forget. And I forgot to put up such a sign so many
> > times (added to my calendar now ;)).
> >
> > But even if you don't wash your hands, it's very unlikely that you
> > absorb an amount of lead that will cause health issues. I have no
> > numbers and no research done on this; so if in doubt, do your own
> research.
> >
> > 2) Invest into fume extractors
> >
> > That's something you could do, but often isn't done, simply because it
> > isn't super-effective unless you buy some of those heavy-duty fume
> > extractors which sits right above the place you're about to solder
> > (typically 5-10cm, and typically it's in the way) [1].
> >
> > Those smaller ones which sit about 20-30cm away [2] still reduce fume
> > "pollution", however, they aren't as effective as the heavy ones.
> >
> > Neither of those will stop fume. It will be there. But fume isn't as
> > dangerous as the public believes, and efficiency of those fume
> > extractors is much less than you'd expect.
> >
> > Suggestion: Buy one, and leave it up to your members to use it.
> >
> > All of the above is based on my personal knowledge and experiences, so
> > don't solder me down on this. I hope that helps!
> >
> > Felicitus
> >
> >
> > [1]
> >
> http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00oCFtkHYgEsqy/Welding-Fume-Extractor.jpg
> > [2] http://www.elexp.com/solder/456DLX.jpg
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
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-- 
-Will
www.partsandcrafts.org
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