Talking About Lead Solder And Toxic Exposure At Work
Added 2022-03-15 02:04:07 +0000 UTCPart four of four, my answering questions from people on Patreon. Enjoy!
Comments
I wonder if my dad had the same bottle of mercury ... brown glass, about 50ml and quite a heft ... maybe 300g-500g or so. I went so far as to experiment with "homemade" mercury-vapor lamps by arcing the mercury with a high-current transformer. Genius! ;) As a PSA, I found a less-toxic solvent called ethyl lactate. As I understand, it decomposes back to ethyl alcohol and lactic acid when exposed to acid, so I use vinegar to neutralize it if need be. It's advertised as an acetone alternative. It's considered "stronger" than acetone but "slower", so it will dissolve more aggressively than acetone, but it takes longer. It also doesn't evaporate very fast ... to put it qualitatively based on my experience, halfway between water and alcohol, so it's easier to use less of it. MG Chemicals is one company that makes it, and I've bought it through DigiKey.
Jason Olshefsky
2022-03-15 17:09:32 +0000 UTCAs a kid I used to bend the tip of the Kester lead solder with my teeth to change the angle for soldering in an awkward angle, didn't know how dangerous that was, but living in Bayonne, NJ going outside in the "fresh air" surrounded by chemical and oil refineries was dangerous enough.
Elliott Mule Deer
2022-03-15 09:54:39 +0000 UTCSince I was a kid, I used a very gentle fan to blow the solder smoke away from me. I wasn't really aware of the hazards of lead smoke, but it annoyed me. Much like my mother's cigarette smoking bothered me. Of course, there could have been lead in her tobacco. The end-result of decades of smoking was multiple cancers that could also come from lead, acetone, Naptha, MEK, etc. Might have just as well smoked those. I believe acetone is a substance that our stomach uses as part of its chemistry set. Not that it excuses it from trans-dermal poisoning. I'm guilty of using all the chemicals you mentioned. Acetone actually eats plastic, if you need to, and removes most paints, fluxes and a ton of other stuff. It stinks but is an extremely potent and effective solvent. I've used pans of Toluene to remove the conformal coating off of military and avionics PCBs in order to remove rare parts. Naptha is a petroleum-based based solvent that stinks like most petrochemical byproducts. Naptha is extremely efficient at loosening and removing adhesive from stickers, finger cheese from knobs, and a lot of other stains without attacking the paint or plastic, like Acetone does. I use Everclear grain alcohol to clean optics, video heads, some plastic panels and a "first try" on panels to see if the least dangerous chemical works. Everclear does not stink and leaves no smears whatsoever. Other alcohols can leave a film, like isopropyl alcohol and stink. I remember playing with mercury and no one telling me about its toxic properties. I remember draining it from some piece of military equipment. It was quite a lot and I'm amazed I didn't get it into my eyes or mouth. Maybe I did and that's why I'm the spaz I am now? While all these chemicals have worked well for me, the most amazing thing is that plain old Formula 409, or Simple Green, are fantastic cleaners of control panels and knobs. I use Formula 409 and an electric toothbrush to get the dirt and "finger cheese" off of plastic control knobs, and panels. It's amazing how it just dissolves so many things harmlessly that it's my first step in cleaning a great many things. There is no need to go straight to the "nuclear option" of Acetone. Although plastic computer cases that used to be cream colored, but turned orange over the years, can be restored with a towel and some acetone. It leaves an annoying pattern in its place, but it's the only thing I know of that can wipe away layers of plastic to get to the base plastic color. Not a safe practice, but worthy of mention. Backlit aircraft panels often have their white lettering turn yellow or brown. Amazingly, a Q-Tip with chlorine bleach has about an 80% success rate of returning yellowed lettering to white. It can whiten lettering in engraved/painted lettering as well. I hope some of this helps justify the destruction of my nervous system.
Matt Wietlispach
2022-03-15 04:16:57 +0000 UTC
