Can soldering an arduino pin cause damage to your eye sight?

Hi there!
I´m very new with the arduino, and I would like to know if soldering components could cause damage to eye sight. I know that soldering in general will damage the eyes without a propperly safety environment, but I don´t know if its the same with the arduino.
Thanks!

Soldering is soldering. If you get the smoke from soldering in your eye, it is bad for you, regardless of what you are soldering.

Otherwise, keep the soldering iron out of your eyes. ;')

What do you think is a proper safety environment for soldering?

Thanks for your reply!
Maybe goggles, good light and a ventilated place?

My question was about the "light" that you see when people do some big soldering, and you have to use protective goggles. Is that the case with the arduino?

Light? I think you are thinking of welding. If you ever weld an Arduino pin, in addition to your eyesight it will also destroy the Arduino.

Not being sarcastic: Do you understand what soldering is? And how it is different from welding? Have you ever soldered any electronics before?

There is no "light" when soldering, I also think you are thinking of welding. Feel free to weld an Arduino and post a photo of the results here for a laugh :slight_smile:


Rob

English isn´t my first language. In spanish soldering is soldar. And you use the same word in both cases. I have no idea that there was another word for that. Thanks for your replies and your clarification.
Even if I can manage to get myself understood in english, it´s very difficult for me to make myself clear when talking about technical things.

I´ve asked about this "soldering" issue because I knew that with the Arduino you have to solder some parts some times, and I´ve read about safety issues when soldering because "it can damage your eyes".

So, yeah, sometimes it´s kinda funny to be lost in translation :grin:, but I would like to know , should I assume that there´s no issues when soldering, related to the eyesight? (except to get contact with the fume).
As I´ve never solder anything, I was afraid of damaging my eyes in any way...

Thanks again!

The only real danger is from hot solder splashing around. If you are not waving your iron around so solder flies off, you should be safe.

Thanks!!! :slight_smile:

I must wear glasses, so I always have safety lenses on. For a short time, I wore contacts, and I wore safety glasses while soldering.

I like to keep a fan blowing across my workspace to help keep the solder smoke out of my face. Somehow, it still seems to find me.

As for those fans that are supposed to pull the solder smoke away, I find them completely useless.

There should be very little smoke produced, unless you've applied great lumps of resin flux, which has to be burnt off to permit the solder to "see" the copper.

The problem with the current safety culture is that people become risk-avers and end up staying in bed just in case the roof falls in.

Get out and have fun. Living is a risky business !!

One more note. If you are using an Arduino in the normal hobbyist way, you will use it with a breadboard and jumpers and probably avoid soldering entirely. When you get more advanced and place ATMega328(P) chips on stripboards or other solder boards then you will be soldering. But almost every book I have seen concerning Arduino and most web pages go out of the way to make all the projects breadboard friendly. Do the breadboard stuff first before you start finalizing projects by soldering them together.

I solder without safety glasses (but I do wear ordinary glasses). Or a fan. And I don't see any lights.

I'm still alive ... just. :slight_smile:

I think I flicked solder into my eye when I was 12 or so. That was painful. But I don't flick the soldering iron around these days.

Wikipedia uses "Soldadura blanda" for electrical soldering with a solder iron.

I like the Danish word "Lodning", the "Lod" is the lead, as it was used in solder.

Use lead free solder. I prefer the Tin,Copper,Silver blend. Use good ventilation (open a door or use a fan), some resin are not harmful, but some need ventilation.

I solder with +3.00 reading glasses on. But then I am working with 0603 (and smaller) SMD, 0.4mm pitch TQFP, DFN and QFN chips, etc. It helps to be able to see what you are doing...