![](\"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_8017-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a>Lead-Free test of 555 Timer and Resistor(Click for full res…)<\/center><\/p>\n
Today my order of lead-free solder and anti-static bags<\/a> arrived. That meant that was finally able to stick the new ETO tip on my iron, get out the new sponge, and set everything up for trying out lead-free (SAC: 96.5% Tin, 3% Silver, 0.5% Copper) soldering. To get started I acquired a spool of 0.025″ Kester SAC solder with 331 (water soluable) flux<\/a>.<\/p>\n I must say, this is quite different… First off, I had to turn the temperature up to 750\u00b0F. Then, after that, it was rather like soldering with the low-flux no-clean lead solder. The joints don’t wet as much, flux still flows but it doesn’t seem to help as much, and the resulting joints just aren’t shiny. All of this is in line with what I’d read about lead free solder, so that’s at least good.<\/p>\n The flux came off nicely with a toothbrush and hot tap water (my normal process, followed by a rinse in distilled water and drying with an air compressor) so I’m quite happy with that.<\/p>\n After reading this article from Kester<\/a> (PDF<\/a>) I may give an 800\u00b0F tip a try next time, but for now I’m pretty happy with how things were coming out.<\/p>\n A few more photos of test joints, both before and after flux removal, are available here (photo gallery retired)<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lead-Free test of 555 Timer and Resistor(Click for full res…) Today my order of lead-free solder and anti-static bags arrived. That meant that was finally able to stick the new ETO tip on my iron, get out the new sponge, and set everything up for trying out lead-free (SAC: 96.5% Tin, 3% Silver, 0.5% Copper)\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electronics","category-making-things","category-moved-from-livejournal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8866"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24592,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866\/revisions\/24592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![lead-free solder and anti-static bags<\/a> arrived. That meant that was finally able to stick the new ETO tip on my iron, get out the new sponge, and set everything up for trying out lead-free (SAC: 96.5% Tin, 3% Silver, 0.5% Copper) soldering. To get started I acquired a spool of](\"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_8005-1-scaled.jpg\"){kind=link}