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 _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
