Original poster: Terry Fritz <vardin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> It is sort of "really freaking spooky!!!!!........."I was at King Supers, that giant food retailer, today. Maw had a cold, so I went too to help push the cart around... The intercom's normal "buy this and that" bantering... But then something really "grabbed" me... The nice lady on the store's mic was talking of Christmas wreaths and such... And then,!!!... how they had "lead free" solder to help make wreaths and Christmas stuff with!!!!!!!!
I first, thought I had finally gone totally insane (hope hope!!), way too much early morning Tesla list stuff... Maybe that back pain med... (I blew out T4 in my back a week ago) But that was just 200mg of Advil... Unlike the "Rush med", not a hallucinogenic... I have a leaking O-ring on the fuel injected FORD 5.0L... Maybe them gas fumes... But no, it was true, They really were talking about "lead free solder wire" over the intercom at the grocery store today..... The King Super's intercom was trying to get me to buy lead free solder, while I had a roll of just purchased LF solder in my shirt pocket from Radio Shack!!!...
It really was some canned "read them this message thing", and her voice tone gave away that "she" did not have the slightest clue about why this "lead free" thing was so important over in the gifts and crafts department... I never made it over to check it out... I think "lead free" hit the crafts things market a year or two sooner... One of those read this vendor's line" things...
But it now appears you can't even go get "grocery shopping" without hearing about "lead free" ;-)))
It was pretty freaky(!!!!!!!!) since I had been posting about lead free so much that morning!!!!
I wondered if I could somehow get her to mention that lead free solder was good for "Tesla coils" too... (That "Mike Hunt" idea thing... >:o)))) But maw was yelling at me about the %*%&%& cart not going fast enough and all......
Mark, the issue is what was CD using for the cap's end connection material for your coil.... I think they call it "sloopage"??? If it was lead free back then too, then you win!!!!!!!!
I am happy this lead free thing is "behind" our hobby now %:-))))))))
Cheer's
Terry
At 10:02 PM 12/16/2005, you wrote:
I got some Radio Shack 64-025 and gave it a try. It is not bad at all! It is higher temp, non-eutectic, little more brittle, has a higher wetting angle, and does not flow quite as well. But those are fairly minor things only someone odd would notice right off. It is perfectly usable for most stuff!! One would have to watch out for the higher temp on sensitive parts but other than that no muchdifference! I guess I won't have to by a lifetime supply of Kester 44 RA ;-))The silver might have a problem with surface mount caps and things like that which are really sensitive to migration and them little wiskers, but for most hobbyist stuff it is not a big deal. Hopefully this, or better stuff, will appear in reasonable 1 pound spool sizes soon since RS is sort of expensive ;-))I didn't solder much for the longest time before using that RS stuff. I had read numerous complaints about how difficult silver, lead-free solder is to use, but experienced none of the headaches myself. I guess it isn't just me, then! Perhaps I'm not so odd afterall? :o) Oh wait... :bIt also seems to make a much stronger and more rigid joint than any lead solder I've used. But I'm not certain if that's necessarily an advantage or not. I wonder if RS has some 1 pound spools somewhere if called? Certainly they have a supplier for their 1/2 oz blister packs that would likely have larger spools available?So it looks like Tesla coiling will be able to survive the Lead Free thing :-))) I suppose the race is on to make the first "lead free"Tesla coil :o)) I guess we should now add the following abbreviations :O)))))I vividly remember reading early 2000 to use lead-free, preferably silver-bearing, solder for all power connections in a TC (basically the MMC), but I don't recall if that was on this list or on someone's website. Therefore, my first TC in spring 2000 was constructed entirely using lead-free plumber's solder (plus plumber's flux - that was messy and un-fun). I built The Geek Group's MMCs in Jan, 2001 using this RS solder. My current, nearly finished TC is completely soldered using the RS solder. I don't think I got the leadfree caps, though, so I can't claim to be the first for a totally lead-free TC.Best regards! Mark Broker