I welcome the moves by Elecraft to make their kits lead-free and ROHS
compliant. The legislation probably already means they are legal in
their old versions as it only applies to equipment 'placed on the
market' after the law came into effect this July.
There seems to be a lot of confusion on the issue of where and where
you cannot use leaded solder. There was an excellent article in the
July/August 'Technology @ Home' magazine
(
http://www.technology-at-home.co.uk/) which attempted to clarify the
situation.
The legislation currently applies to Europe only, but will probably
be worldwide sometime.
Basically items manufactured/marketted before July 2006 can continue
to be assembled/repaired with leaded solder. In fact because of the
uncertainty of mixing solders and components this is the recommended
approach.
Items sold/marketted later must have been made to use lead free
solder and components, and lead free solder MUST be used unless there
are exemptions. I am not sure whether kits and home construction is
exempt, that seems to be a grey area.
Whether constructors this side of the pond should use lead free to
assemble their new K2s is uncertain. There are indeed strong reasons
to carry on using leaded because of the difficulty in rework. As
pointed out by Wayne, lead free solder has a huge price differential,
it costs 3-4 times the price of normal solder, and that in itself is
a big enough incentive not to use it unless you really have to!
As it happens I am currently assembling K2 #4848 for a local amateur.
This of course was kitted over a year ago so I am using normal
solder. I may be posting regarding this when I get a bit further down
the assembly line...
73 Dave G3YMC
http://www.davesergeant.com_______________________________________________
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