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Most electronics are able to use lead and other toxic substances at levels that are safe to use because people don't normally touch the insides. A lot of Raspberry Pi components have no case, may be used by children as well as adults, and are often used while having fun, touching the pieces, then taking a snack....

What's been done to ensure that there's no exposure to lead in the solder or other toxins? Is the final PCB is soldered without lead? What about the individual components that go on it?

goldilocks
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SRobertJames
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1 Answers1

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Common sense would be that children who are too young to understand or be responsible for the issues involved with handling a bare board should be closely supervised (or just plain told they are too young).

The major risk here is not harm to the child, but damage to the board. As per other comments, use of lead solder was banned in the EU in 2006:1

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/a/6837

And there there should be no general risk of toxicity from touching, but some of the components are bound to be bad for you if you ate them, so if the child is prone to doing something like that, then perhaps it is not age appropriate.

there is the potential for static shocks to damage components even when the board is unplugged (actually, especially then, since it is not grounded). I'm sure there are full grown adults who have ruined a board this way.

  1. Although you should be aware lead solder is still in common use by hobbists, so this may not apply to every related doo-hickey available to you.
goldilocks
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