OT: Soldering

All I will says is that the number of dry joints in new consumer stuff here has got to _ridiculous_ levels. I find I have to resolder most things before they will work. Even simple things like LED torches and the like. And a friend of mine specifically looks for hard drives that have been soldered with leaded solder because of reliability problems with unleaded ones. Now, I am not saying that you _can't_ make a reliable connection with unleaded solder (althought the exemptions for medical and military stuff might seem to indicate that!), only that cheap stuff seems a lot less reliable than it was. The good news is that AFAIK if you're doing it for yourself, or if you're repairing something made before the deadline (and thus assembled with leaded solder) there's nothing to stop you using leaded solder now. So classic computer repairs can still be done with proper solder. In whcih case there's nothing to stop you using leaded solder. -tony