Dealing with lead-free solder

[Tom Maneiro]

Long story short: I've bought a cheap USB gamepad - a Genius MaxFire G-12U, which has a couple of those oh-so-lovely analog sticks. However, i was horribly, horribly unlucky with my purchase: the left stick (the one which is actually used in 99.99% of the games) came defective - the X axis doesn't reset itself back to 0 if you release the stick - instead it goes slowly, like being a bit loose (or you can push the stick and it will quickly reset to 0, but that's very, VERY annoying). The right stick is sane, but i don't require it on any of my games And unfortunately, in my country, for this class of gadgets, the warranty is automatically void as soon as you leave the store

So, here is my plan: desolder and swap both sticks. Here is a quick peek inside the pad:


However, there is a litte issue: this pad uses LEAD-FREE SOLDER. Having zero experience dealing with RoHS shit, here are my doubts:

- My soldering iron is a cheap 25W thing. I've read that lead-free solder alloys have a higher melting point, so would i need a more powerful soldering iron?
- It's safe to mix lead-free and non-lead-free solder in the same appliance? Will it create reliability problems? My current solder is a conventional 60/40 0.8mm wire.

Yes, i always could buy a new gamepad (and demand in-store testing), but i'm not exactly swimming in money right now... and it would be kinda pointless to have a extra spare defective pad

[Deleted]

I don't think there will be an issue mixing the types of solder. The problem you might run into is that if you can't melt the lead free enough to mix with the non-lead, you might not get a solid connection.

If you have a wired xbox 360 controller, you can use that in Windows There's probably linux drivers for it as well. Just a suggestion

[Tom Maneiro]

Well, my next pad will be either a wired X360 pad, or a Wiimote. Both have excellent support under Linux

But for now, this sucker will have to do the job... (also, the X360 pad is quite expensive here, even more than a Wiimote+Nunchuck+recharge station combo!). As for the solder, i've read a bit about lead-free solder alloys: there is one that doesn't even allow mixing with non-Pb-free solder!

Screw yourself, State of California and your "everything can cause cancer in the State of California" motto

[oompa loompa]

Lead is known to cause cancer , we have the data to prove it. If I were you, I would just leave the pad alone, or find another solution. Depends on how hard it is to desolder, or whether or not you'll break it more than you can fix it .

Can you try to do a calibration on the joypad? Some drivers include a calibration for the analog sticks

Mixing lead free and leaded solder is no issue. If I were you, I would suck up all the lead free solder from whatever you're soldering, and replace it with the leaded

[Tom Maneiro]

Jun 9, 2011 14:14:22 GMT -5 oompa loompa said:

Lead is known to cause cancer , we have the data to prove it. If I were you, I would just leave the pad alone, or find another solution. Depends on how hard it is to desolder, or whether or not you'll break it more than you can fix it .

Can you try to do a calibration on the joypad? Some drivers include a calibration for the analog sticks

Mixing lead free and leaded solder is no issue. If I were you, I would suck up all the lead free solder from whatever you're soldering, and replace it with the leaded

1) Our local tap water is far more carcinogenic than lame lead solder

2) The pad features something called "auto-calibration". Guess what? IT's USELESS, because the left stick has that defective X axis. If i move it in the Y axis, it goes back to center without issues, and if i push the stick, it also centers back to zero. So either it's a defective potentiometer, or some mechanical factory fault in the stick assembly (which could be an easy fix, but requires desoldering anyway).

[jlf65]

Lead is only a problem if either directly ingested (like paint chips from that old leaded paint), or if you use acidic solutions on leaded dishes/utensils. That's where the idea that tomatoes were poisonous came from - tomato juice is slightly acidic, and when served on leaded plates caused the ingestion of lead in harmful quantities. It wasn't the tomatoes causing the deaths, it was the lead.

[Tiido]

I always mix in leaded solder to ease desoldering process. it will still take time but you will eventually succeed. But if I have powerful enough iron to use I will not bother. 40W iron is pretty good for lead free solder, but not so good with small electronics....