attn! please make sure you have propper ventilation!

[yodude]

Andrew / The Tone God was kind enough to put together this diy solder fume extractor article:

http://www.thetonegod.com/tech/extract/extract.html

Thanks Andrew!

[doug deeper]

i have been repairing a lot of old microphone recently too, and old solder always smells way worse, you can almost smell the toxins.
i wonder if that made a difference?
im feeling much better now! thanks for all the kind words everyone, just remember, being sick is a huge pain.
i dont even have a fan going in my work room, that will be the first order of business!

[DerHoggz]

Yeah, ripped some parts off of an old (80s-ish) board, and the solder smelled so awful

[PRR]

Old solder smells the same (hardly at all).

What you get (I'm thinking 1940s, not 1980s) is less-refined rosin, slowly aging to more acrid chemicials, plus decades of dust. Yuck.

Get a fan. Any fan is better than none. If you know how to hack PC parts, a good PC fan a foot away from the working spot will move most of the fumes away from you. That's all that many factory workers got, although nicely packaged and finger-guarded.

Huge airflow can be a problem. When my city power utility got hit by a backhoe and only 108V was getting through, _and_ they finally fixed the ventilation in my building, I was almost unable to melt solder between the cool iron and the strong breeze. I had to move my workspace.

[Jarno]

Interesting timing.

Yesterday I had a date with a contractor. He didn't show up. 2 hours later a woman called and said he was in the hospital, would re-schedule.

!!!

He did come over the next day and we got the story. He was in the garage, welding. He started to feel sick. He went in the house, came back, was VERY sick. Dizzy. Pain. Passing out.  Could barely dial 9-1-1. The medics came, he was blue. Put him in the ambulance, he started puking.

There may be another factor, but the big thing was Carbon Monoxide poisoning. It was a gas welder but you usually adjust these near-neutral. And he has welded before. There is a furnace in the garage, he will get it tested.

The upshot was 7 hours under Oxygen treatment to flush the CO from his blood and body. The alternative would be passed-out until the brain dies from lack of oxygen (CO binds all the O-receptors in your blood, but CO is useless to brain and body).

You won't get CO from electric soldering. But good to remember that heat increases many dangers.

Rosin flux (and its raw forms, pine-tar and turpentine) was widely used long before anybody wrote safety sheets. The general assumption is that it is irritating but not dangerous for "most" workers (even those who get far more exposure than hobbyists). It is well known that some people develop allergic reaction, sometimes quite severe.

Welding zinc plated materials is also an excellent way to end up in hospital, especially metals which are thermal zinc plated (thick layer of zinc).