What is RoHS Solder?

What is RoHS? RoHS stands for reduction of hazards substances and in case of soldering, that mainly means lead. Lead is a poisonous heavy metal which is toxic to humans, mostly due to ingestion. If you eat a lot of lead, you may get lead poisoning, and this is common in young children. 

Also, there has been a political push to make sure that less lead is getting into the environment and in order to do so, this RoHS program has been implemented all over Europe so that most the electronics sold there no longer contain lead. And so, it is necessary to use an alternative formulation, such as lead-free solder.

A lead-free solder comes in different formulations and here EPCB introduces one of the most common formulations, which is mostly tin. This is a 99% tin solder that has a melting point that is slightly higher than tin-lead solder, so it is a little bit more difficult to work with, but it can be used with standard soldering equipment.

You may find that it is easier to learn with the lead solder. However, if you have concerns about health; if you have young children in your household; you may simply want to move to the lead-free solder and learn how to work with that particular material. The melting point’s a little bit higher, so you may need to work with hotter soldering iron, you may need to increase the heating times, but for the most part you should get the same results as you would with leaded solder.