How to cope with the above problems?
• Do not try to increase the temperature of the soldering tip to accommodate for higher melting point, because this will cause more damage to components and PCB. Also, higher temperature will only make soldering of Lead-free solder even more difficult because more oxidation will form causing even worse wetting. Keep using the same temperature as normal with tin/lead solder. Instead, choose the largest soldering tip possible for the joint, and use a high power soldering iron. This way, the larger tip (with larger volume mass) has better heat retention and the fast thermal recovery of the tip will help smooth out the Lead-free soldering process.
