http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ch.engineering

Within a whisker of failure

Removing lead from solder may seem a smart idea environmentally, but the
resulting microscopic growths called tin whiskers could be just as
problematic

* Kurt Jacobsen
* The Guardian,
* Thursday April 3 2008
* Article history

This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday April 03 2008 on p1 of the
Technology news & features section. It was last updated at 00:05 on April 03
2008.
Tin whiskers

On April 17 2005, the Millstone nuclear generating plant in Connecticut shut
down when a circuit board monitoring a steam pressure line short-circuited.
In 2006, a huge batch of Swatch watches, made by the eponymous Swiss
company, were recalled at an estimated cost of $1bn (£500m). In both cases,
"tin whiskers" - microscopic growths of the metal from soldering points on a
circuit board - were blamed for causing the problems.

It's not the first time these mysterious growths have been blamed for
electronics failures. In 1998 the Galaxy IV communications satellite
sputtered out after just five years; engineers diagnosed its failure as due
to "whiskers".

The US military blamed them for malfunctioning F-15 radar systems and
misguided Phoenix and Patriot missiles. In 1986, the US Food and Drug
Administration recalled a number of pacemakers because of these same
whiskers. In fact, they've been known about since the 1940s, and happen with
cadmium and zinc, too: during the second world war, similar whiskers would
short the cadmium tuning capacitors in aircraft radios. A decade later,
tin-based relays in AT&T telephone switching centres were found to cause
shorts.


The solution to "whiskering"? Mix lead into the solder, as was done from the
1950s. Colin Hughes, a physicist who worked on the first British nuclear
bomb, told me that the whiskering problem never came up during his career.

But now the lead is gone, by legal mandate, and whiskers are back - causing
potential problems for us all.

Since 2006, lead has been banned from solder in the European Union under the
2003 Reduction of Hazardous Substance (RoHS) directive, which gave
manufacturers three years to phase out lead.

The logic seemed reasonable. Removing lead from petrol (where it was used to
prevent engine mistiming) brought clear environmental and health benefits,
taking a harmful chemical that can affect intelligence out of the
atmosphere. Removing lead from solder, the 37% lead, 63% tin alloy used to
join metal objects in everything from plumbing to circuit boards, was an
obvious next step to prevent it leaching into ground water from dumped items
in landfills.

Meanwhile, the US and Japan have also been moving to lead-free solders. It's
a huge shift; the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that
80m kilograms of lead solder was used worldwide in 2002. Environmental
groups have applauded the move. "In the US we've been surviving without lead
solder for many years," says Rick Hind, legislative director of Greenpeace's
toxics campaign. "With less exposure to lead we will all benefit by being
smarter and making safer and more durable products." (The US has not made
lead-free solder obligatory, but does offer tax benefits for doing so.)

But without lead to tame it, tin behaves oddly on circuit boards. Left
alone, tin plating, like cadmium and zinc, spontaneously generates
microscopic shreds of metal - about one to five microns in diameter, or less
than one-tenth as wide as a human hair - which push up from the base. If
they grow far enough to touch another current-carrying location, they'll
cause a short that can wreck the equipment while leaving barely any trace.

The cause is becoming clearer. "I believe the mechanism of whisker formation
is now understood: it is due to compressive stress - caused by, say,
diffusion of copper into the tin - being built up in the tin layer which
breaks through the tin oxide barrier layer [to the air]," says Steve Jones
of Circatex, in South Shields. Critics cite reports that solder
substitutes - pure tin, tin-zinc, tin-silver-copper - simply cannot match
the lead mixture for reliability, coverage ("wetting" terminals), and cost
(silver is especially pricey). Therefore, the US military, Nasa and medical
and high-level research equipment are exempt from what authorities view as
untrustworthy commercial components.

"I still use lead-tin solder - it works better," says John Ketterson, a
solid state physicist at Northwestern University in Illinois. He notes the
tradeoffs of "cost, materials, strength of the solder and all that" during
this mandated changeover, and that manufacturers "have to get an experience
base" with new processes.

{ snipped as lengthy }

Tin whiskers: coming to a PC near you?

· They can grow at ambient temperature and humidity, or in vacuum

· They can grow in steady or varying temperatures (though the latter may
encourage growth)

· Whiskers' tips are atom-sharp. They will push through any coating, given
time

· They are a prevalent cause, only now being identified, of many past
equipment failures

· One whisker can carry about 30mA - more than enough to cause havoc in
digital circuits

· Silver-tin-copper ("SAC") solder slows but doesn't stop whisker growth

· SAC solder has more environmental impact than the lead-tin version

· Older 37%-63% lead-tin solder mix merely deforms, reducing stress and
hence minimising whiskering

· Whiskers can grow indefinitely

Source: Howard Johnson, Signal Consulting

--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://home.graffiti.net/diverse:graffiti.net/

The logic seemed reasonable. Removing lead from petrol (where it was used
to
prevent engine mistiming) brought clear environmental and health benefits,
taking a harmful chemical that can affect intelligence out of the
atmosphere. Removing lead from solder, the 37% lead, 63% tin alloy used to
join metal objects in everything from plumbing to circuit boards, was an
obvious next step to prevent it leaching into ground water from dumped
items
in landfills.

Meanwhile, the US and Japan have also been moving to lead-free solders.
It's
a huge shift; the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that
80m kilograms of lead solder was used worldwide in 2002.


Isn't it funny how figures can be 'distorted' to make facts suit the
context. By saying "80m kilos", the EPA make it sound like a HUGE amount,
but put that into a more 'recognisable' form, and it becomes 80 thousand
tonnes, which is not nearly so contentious. Then further, take that only 37%
of that was actually lead, and you are down to 29.6 thousand tonnes. Now
compare that to the world's lead-acid battery usage, where recycling of the
end-of-life product to recover the lead, has been sucessfully in place for
years. At 30th tonnes, the potential environmental impact of the lead in
solder, even if you *did* dump it all in the ground, is minuscule.

As I've said before, I'm glad that the avionics industry refuse to use the
stuff. The day they do is the day I stop flying ...

Arfa

N_Cook wrote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ch.engineering

Within a whisker of failure

About time too.

Never mind the reduced reliability (see the ERA study) caused by lead-free
solder when equipment is exposed to vibration.

Graham

"Eeyore" wrote in message ...


N_Cook wrote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ch.engineering

Within a whisker of failure

About time too.

Never mind the reduced reliability (see the ERA study) caused by lead-free
solder when equipment is exposed to vibration.

Graham

Its good for the way economy works nowadays. Buy, buy, buy the crap
that dies or obsoletes every 2-3 years.

Mark

Eeyore wrote in message
...


N_Cook wrote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ch.engineering

Within a whisker of failure

About time too.

Never mind the reduced reliability (see the ERA study) caused by lead-free
solder when equipment is exposed to vibration.

Graham


Before I waste time downloading an irrelevant pdf

would this be what you be referring to :

Review of Directive 2002/95/EC (RoHS) Categories 8 and 9 - Final

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/wast...nal_report.pdf

Results of vibration testing lead-free solder from different researchers ...


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://home.graffiti.net/diverse:graffiti.net/

On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:10:10 GMT, Arfa Daily wrote:

At 30th tonnes, the potential environmental impact of the lead in
solder, even if you *did* dump it all in the ground, is minuscule.

And, where do these pin-heads think the lead came from, in the first place?

Jonesy

N_Cook wrote:

Eeyore wrote
N_Cook wrote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ch.engineering

Within a whisker of failure

About time too.

Never mind the reduced reliability (see the ERA study) caused by lead-free
solder when equipment is exposed to vibration.


Before I waste time downloading an irrelevant pdf

would this be what you be referring to :

Review of Directive 2002/95/EC (RoHS) Categories 8 and 9 - Final

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/wast...nal_report.pdf

Results of vibration testing lead-free solder from different researchers ...

Not sure if that's the one I had to be honest but looks interesting.

Graham

Allodoxaphobia wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

At 30th tonnes, the potential environmental impact of the lead in
solder, even if you *did* dump it all in the ground, is minuscule.

And, where do these pin-heads think the lead came from, in the first
place?

It came from deep within the ground, in the form of lead ore,
which I think is much less of a health hazard than metallic lead
decomposing in a landfill and seeping into the water supply.

In Europe, there are places where the Romans smelted lead 2000
years ago, and 8" or so below the topsoil, the dirt is still so
toxic that health officials (in Britain at least) don't allow
people to dig there, even wearing protective gear.

BTW, I'm not a pinhead, just someone who cares about my health,
that of others and a quality environment for us to all live in.

I tried lead-free solder, and gave up on it, at least for prototyping.
I was feeling a little bad about returning to traditional solder,
until the OP posted the article. Thanks - I feel vindicated. I hope
that someday there is a better alternative to lead-based solder,
but evidently it hasn't happened yet.

Jay Ts
--
To contact me, use this web page:
http://www.jayts.com/contact.php

As I've said before... It isn't a matter of whether electronic equipment has
lead in it, but what happens to that equipment when it's disposed of. It's
the latter that should be considered.

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
. ..
As I've said before... It isn't a matter of whether electronic equipment
has
lead in it, but what happens to that equipment when it's disposed of. It's
the latter that should be considered.




And lead isn't the only toxic substance used in electronic equipment and the
process used to manufacture it.

Is a lead-free item that fails and ends up in the landfill after 2 years
better than a lead-containing device that lasts a decade?

Jay Ts wrote:


In Europe, there are places where the Romans smelted lead 2000
years ago, and 8" or so below the topsoil, the dirt is still so
toxic that health officials (in Britain at least) don't allow
people to dig there, even wearing protective gear.

Welcome to California.


I tried lead-free solder, and gave up on it, at least for prototyping.
I was feeling a little bad about returning to traditional solder,
until the OP posted the article. Thanks - I feel vindicated. I hope
that someday there is a better alternative to lead-based solder,
but evidently it hasn't happened yet.

I've used 'alternative' solder. I could live with it if need be. It
handles differently but geez, I think the fumes would kill me faster
than eating a pound of lead solder everyday at tea. I've never heard
the proponents addressing the wicked fumes of the 'better' solder.

-Bill (63/37)

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Apr 3, 6:00*pm, exray wrote:
Jay Ts wrote:
snip
I've used 'alternative' solder. *I could live with it if need be.
*It
handles differently but geez, I think the fumes would kill me
faster
than eating a pound of lead solder everyday at tea. *I've never
heard
the proponents addressing the wicked fumes of the 'better' solder.

-Bill (63/37)


You mean the fumes from the flux. You don't believe you're breathing
solder vapors, do you? In the 40+ years I've been using solder, I
doubt I've used 5 lbs and I do quite a bit of soldering.

GG

William Sommerwerck wrote:

As I've said before... It isn't a matter of whether electronic equipment has
lead in it, but what happens to that equipment when it's disposed of. It's
the latter that should be considered.

AIUI, lead in metallic form is pretty stable and doesn't 'leach' into
groundwater the way some would have us believe.

Graham

wrote:


You mean the fumes from the flux. You don't believe you're breathing
solder vapors, do you? In the 40+ years I've been using solder, I
doubt I've used 5 lbs and I do quite a bit of soldering.

GG

I've never turned on my shop spectrometer to determine if it was the
flux or solder. I just know that the new stuff doesn't smell as
friendly to my human nose.


40+ years, 5 pounds, yadda,yadda...how much 'new' solder have you used?
I suspect you're just trying to pick a fight. I'm not playing. See ya.

-ex

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

William Sommerwerck wrote:
As I've said before... It isn't a matter of whether electronic equipment
has lead in it, but what happens to that equipment when it's disposed
of. It's the latter that should be considered.

There's the other end of the process too: mining, smelting,
and the rest of the manufacturing process that might be producing
pollution. All that is outside my realm of knowledge. Maybe they
do it in an "environmentally-friendly" manner these days? I really
have no idea.

I think ideally, we'd find something better to use, but although
it's gotten a lot of bad press, there are much worse things than
lead. Such as other heavy metals, notably cadmium and mercury.

Another source of lead is CRTs, many of which are still in use.
They contain about 5 pounds of lead each for radiation protection,
quite a bit more than is contained in the solder in the PC boards.

And the replacements, flat screen monitors, have mercury in
the fluorescent backlights.

I've had trouble with mercury poisoning in the past, but even
though I'd been exposed to a lot of lead as a child, I've never
discerned any problem from it. (It's tricky though, low- to
moderate-level heavy metal poisoning can easily go unnoticed,
while causing significant health problems.)

This does not mean that solder-containing lead is "good",
just that it's appropriate to keep things in perspective.

Jay Ts
--
To contact me, use this web page:
http://www.jayts.com/contact.php

"Jay *******"

Another source of lead is CRTs, many of which are still in use.
They contain about 5 pounds of lead each for radiation protection,
quite a bit more than is contained in the solder in the PC boards.



** Silly comparison.

Glass does not break down in the environment.

So how would any of that lead get out ??



....... Phil

Eeyore wrote in message
...


N_Cook wrote:

Eeyore wrote
N_Cook wrote:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ch.engineering

Within a whisker of failure

About time too.

Never mind the reduced reliability (see the ERA study) caused by
lead-free
solder when equipment is exposed to vibration.


Before I waste time downloading an irrelevant pdf

would this be what you be referring to :

Review of Directive 2002/95/EC (RoHS) Categories 8 and 9 - Final

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/wast...nal_report.pdf

Results of vibration testing lead-free solder from different researchers
....

Not sure if that's the one I had to be honest but looks interesting.

Graham


One small bit from that study

"Solder joint failure due to vibration becomes more significant as the
frequency of vibration approaches the resonant frequency of the component or
structure.
Studies by Chuang et al 29 and
Song et al 30 have sought to identify microstructural features that
influence the performance of conventional Sn-Pb solders and candidate
replacement lead-fre solders. The typical microstructure of conventional
Sn-Pb solders containing coarse pro-eutectic grains reduces the ability of
these materials to absorb energy during crack formation and hence reduces
the vibration resistance of joints made using these solders. "

I thoutht distributed irregularities in structures, suppressed crack
propogation.
Would seem NOT to be borne out for the case for premature failures of solder
joints for unsupported dropper resistors in mucic combos - ie amplifiers
contained within the same case as large speaker/s.
Failure in 2 or 3 years of routine use wheras more like 20 years for failure
in similar but older PbSn manufacture.


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://home.graffiti.net/diverse:graffiti.net/

"Jay Ts" wrote in message
g.com...
Allodoxaphobia wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

At 30th tonnes, the potential environmental impact of the lead in
solder, even if you *did* dump it all in the ground, is minuscule.

And, where do these pin-heads think the lead came from, in the first
place?

It came from deep within the ground, in the form of lead ore,
which I think is much less of a health hazard than metallic lead
decomposing in a landfill and seeping into the water supply.

In Europe, there are places where the Romans smelted lead 2000
years ago, and 8" or so below the topsoil, the dirt is still so
toxic that health officials (in Britain at least) don't allow
people to dig there, even wearing protective gear.

BTW, I'm not a pinhead, just someone who cares about my health,
that of others and a quality environment for us to all live in.

I tried lead-free solder, and gave up on it, at least for prototyping.
I was feeling a little bad about returning to traditional solder,
until the OP posted the article. Thanks - I feel vindicated. I hope
that someday there is a better alternative to lead-based solder,
but evidently it hasn't happened yet.

Jay Ts


Basically, there isn't a lead-free alternative that works the same, or even
close, but you're missing the point(s). Firstly, there isn't *quite* such a
huge amount or disposal problem as they would have you believe. Second, the
lead in solder is pretty firmly 'locked into' the alloy, such that it
doesn't readily come out of the solder into water. Yes, I know that acid
rain can have some effect on that equation, but that's nothing like as bad
as it once was. Finally, all electronic equipment in Europe at least, is now
subject to the WEEE directive, which dictates the way it is treated at end
of life, covering recycling and disposal of the remains that can't be
recycled. There is no reason at all that leaded solder could not be
recovered and recycled, in the same way as lead free solder. 80% of the
world's metallic lead production goes to automotive battery manufacture.
Lead recovery and reuse from that product at end of life, has been mandated
and successfully carried out, for years.

I think that this is the reason that most people who have to use lead-free,
get so wound up about it. As far as I am concerned, the legislation that
mandates its use, is ill-considered, not thought through, unnnecessary in
the light of the legitimate WEEE directive, and effectively replaces a
mature and reliable technology, with one that has the potential to be
directly dangerous to human life, if it ever finds its way into avionics,
medical, and military applications, which so far, have managed to secure
exemptions.

Like any sensible person, I don't want to deliberately pollute the planet
for those who come after me, but in recent years, many badly informed
decicisions on this sort of thing, have been made by departments 'jumping on
the banwagon' to justify their own existence. The whole thing isn't helped
by celebrities and ex famous politicians serving their own public eye needs
through 'green' issues. It has actually reached the point where I am now
sick to death of hearing the words "green" and "eco" and "carbon footprint"
and "geenhouse gas" and "cimate change" and "global warming" every single
time I turn on the radio or TV. So here's a new word.

Eco********. Covers what a lot of this bull actually is ...

Arfa

"exray" wrote in message
.. .
wrote:


You mean the fumes from the flux. You don't believe you're breathing
solder vapors, do you? In the 40+ years I've been using solder, I
doubt I've used 5 lbs and I do quite a bit of soldering.

GG

I've never turned on my shop spectrometer to determine if it was the flux
or solder. I just know that the new stuff doesn't smell as friendly to my
human nose.


40+ years, 5 pounds, yadda,yadda...how much 'new' solder have you used? I
suspect you're just trying to pick a fight. I'm not playing. See ya.

-ex


I don't think that he's trying to pick a fight at all ... Depending on
whether or not he's talking 'professional' use, that might be a bit of an
underestimate, but not huge. I hand solder just about every day of my
working life. I use predominantly 0.7mm solder wire, which I buy in 500g
reels. I reckon that each reel lasts me probably 3 years, so in 35 years of
professional use, I have used perhaps 6kg or 13 pounds.

The reason that lead-free solder does not smell as nice, is that it is no
longer a basic natural rosin flux that is contained within the solder.
Because of the new stuff's vastly inferior wetting qualities with most
metals used in electronics, it has to contain a far more aggressive flux to
stand any chance of forming a metallic bond. That aggressive-ness is
achieved by making the flux slightly acidic, so the fumes, if you are
breathing them, are actually gently rotting the linings of your nose and
lungs. There was always a declared H & S issue about industrial asthma with
rosin flux fumes in quantity, but I suspect that this stuff is potentially a
far greater health hazard than rosin fumes ever were. So, if you're having
to use a lot of lead-free in your day to day work, I would suggest that now
is the time to install some fume management, even if it is just an old
computer fan blowing the smoke across to someone else ... :-)

Arfa

"James Sweet" wrote in message
news:HOfJj.5873$yd2.3213@trndny04...


"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
. ..
As I've said before... It isn't a matter of whether electronic equipment
has
lead in it, but what happens to that equipment when it's disposed of.
It's
the latter that should be considered.




And lead isn't the only toxic substance used in electronic equipment and
the process used to manufacture it.

Is a lead-free item that fails and ends up in the landfill after 2 years
better than a lead-containing device that lasts a decade?

And is then properly recycled ?

Arfa

"Phil Allison" wrote in message
...

"Jay *******"

Another source of lead is CRTs, many of which are still in use.
They contain about 5 pounds of lead each for radiation protection,
quite a bit more than is contained in the solder in the PC boards.



** Silly comparison.

Glass does not break down in the environment.

So how would any of that lead get out ??



...... Phil


Apparently, in America, they crushed the glass to powder or some such to try
to prove this. I'm sure that someone from that side of the pond, knows the
details. The lead which is contained in the faceplate glass to minimise x
radiation to acceptable levels, is actually not metallic lead, but lead
oxide, and is very firmly locked into the molecular structure of the glass,
so wouldn't readily leach anyway. 5 pounds of lead is probably a bit on the
enthusiastic side on average. 'Big' tubes may contain this amount, or even a
little more, but average sized ones, and computer monitors, would probably
be around half or a little more, than that figure. LCD displays, of course,
do not require this radiation protection.

Arfa

TheM wrote:
"Eeyore" wrote in message ...


N_Cook wrote:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ch.engineering

Within a whisker of failure

About time too.

Never mind the reduced reliability (see the ERA study) caused by lead-free
solder when equipment is exposed to vibration.

Graham


Its good for the way economy works nowadays. Buy, buy, buy the crap
that dies or obsoletes every 2-3 years.

Mark


Absolutely; we are in the replace crap with crap "economy".

Is a lead-free item that fails and ends up in the landfill
after 2 years better than a lead-containing device that
lasts a decade?

And is then properly recycled?

Recycling is the issue. The only current economical way to do it is to ship
the equipment to third-world countries where poverty-stricken can dismantle
it.

Like any sensible person, I don't want to deliberately pollute
the planet for those who come after me, but in recent years,
many badly informed decicisions on this sort of thing, have
been made by departments "jumping on the banwagon" to
justify their own existence.

Instead of banning polluting substances, we should be regulating the
pollution they create.

In other words, it doesn't matter how much of a harmful substance you use in
manufacturing a product, but how much of it gets into the environment. It's
the latter we should be worried about, not the former.

Phil Allison wrote:
Jay Ts wrote:

Another source of lead is CRTs, many of which are still in use. They
contain about 5 pounds of lead each for radiation protection, quite a
bit more than is contained in the solder in the PC boards.

** Silly comparison.

Glass does not break down in the environment.

So how would any of that lead get out ??

...... Phil

My apologies, it seems I had been misinformed on that
and trusted someone who thought he understood the
situation, but didn't.

Jay Ts
--
To contact me, use this web page:
http://www.jayts.com/contact.php

William Sommerwerck wrote:
Is a lead-free item that fails and ends up in the landfill after 2
years better than a lead-containing device that lasts a decade?

And is then properly recycled?

Recycling is the issue. The only current economical way to do it is to
ship the equipment to third-world countries where poverty-stricken can
dismantle it.

I've read "news" stories on that, that said that in some (many?)
cases, they just take the money and dump the equipment in
their own landfills, so the materials are never recycled.

I don't know how true that is (if at all) but it brings up
the issue of verifying that recycling is actually done, and
done _properly_. Things that are simple in theory can get
really complicated in actual practice, so it's hard to say
whether we're better off (not just right now, but long term)
dealing with the recycling issue or just doing away with
lead and being left with the tin whiskers.

Again, I hope in the future there will be solutions that
aren't actually just compromises.

Jay Ts
--
To contact me, use this web page:
http://www.jayts.com/contact.php

William Sommerwerck wrote in message
...
Is a lead-free item that fails and ends up in the landfill
after 2 years better than a lead-containing device that
lasts a decade?

And is then properly recycled?

Recycling is the issue. The only current economical way to do it is to
ship
the equipment to third-world countries where poverty-stricken can
dismantle
it.



"recycling" as pictured here

http://www.sophiegerrard.com/
and from a now corrupted file
http://www.plusnone.com/wp-content/u...hrisjordan.jpg


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://home.graffiti.net/diverse:graffiti.net/

In article m,
says...
Allodoxaphobia wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

At 30th tonnes, the potential environmental impact of the lead in
solder, even if you *did* dump it all in the ground, is minuscule.

And, where do these pin-heads think the lead came from, in the first
place?

It came from deep within the ground, in the form of lead ore,
which I think is much less of a health hazard than metallic lead
decomposing in a landfill and seeping into the water supply.
Mettalic lead has been shown to have very little impact on the
environment. Especially after it has built up an oxide layer.


In Europe, there are places where the Romans smelted lead 2000
years ago, and 8" or so below the topsoil, the dirt is still so
toxic that health officials (in Britain at least) don't allow
people to dig there, even wearing protective gear.
Ah, but we aren't talking about running a smelting operation, are we?


BTW, I'm not a pinhead, just someone who cares about my health,
that of others and a quality environment for us to all live in.
I don't know.
Comparing burying metallic lead VS a smelting operation, that borders on
pinheadiness.


I tried lead-free solder, and gave up on it, at least for prototyping.
I was feeling a little bad about returning to traditional solder,
until the OP posted the article. Thanks - I feel vindicated. I hope
that someday there is a better alternative to lead-based solder,
but evidently it hasn't happened yet.

Jay Ts


Until they come up with better alternatives, I'll stick with good old
lead/tin. When I left my last job, I had a full physical including a
lead test, and even though I had been "exposed" to lead solder almost
daily for 13 years, my blood lead levels were almost not measurable and
that puts me below the national average for people that don't work with
solder at all. Why would that be if lead/tin solder were so dangerous?

Jim

In article ,
says...
Like any sensible person, I don't want to deliberately pollute
the planet for those who come after me, but in recent years,
many badly informed decicisions on this sort of thing, have
been made by departments "jumping on the banwagon" to
justify their own existence.

Instead of banning polluting substances, we should be regulating the
pollution they create.

In other words, it doesn't matter how much of a harmful substance you use in
manufacturing a product, but how much of it gets into the environment. It's
the latter we should be worried about, not the former.



I think you have hit on something here.

Arfa Daily wrote:

snip

It has actually reached the point where I am now
sick to death of hearing the words "green" and "eco" and "carbon footprint"
and "geenhouse gas" and "cimate change" and "global warming" every single
time I turn on the radio or TV. So here's a new word.

Eco********. Covers what a lot of this bull actually is ...

Sentiment seconded.

Message sorted headers by date from my nntp provider:

Lead free solder - exposed in a UK national newspaper Arfa Daily
Lead Generation Computer Systems liukaiyuan
....

I expected to see an advert for cpus soldered with 63/36 or 60/40

Michael

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
...
Is a lead-free item that fails and ends up in the landfill
after 2 years better than a lead-containing device that
lasts a decade?

And is then properly recycled?

Recycling is the issue. The only current economical way to do it is to
ship
the equipment to third-world countries where poverty-stricken can
dismantle
it.



In days gone by, prisoners in the UK sewed mailbags. It seems to me that
there is a vast untapped pool of labour there now, languishing at my
expense, in the jails. So why not set up electronic recycling plants in the
prisons? That way, you get the job done in a properly supervised manner, and
the cost of labour is not an issue. Ever. Bish bash bosh, the jobs a good
'un, as they say ...

Just as a matter of interest, I saw a documentary on TV a while back, where
a UK company is recycling computer hardware for the gold that's used to
plate connectors and so on. In order to get at the gold loaded components,
it is necessary for them to dismantle and effectively recycle virtually the
whole machine. Even given the fact that they have to do this, which is a
useful side effect of the process, and the fact that they then have to put
the stuff through assorted chemical processes to recover the pure gold, they
are still recovering enough to be covering their costs plus making a very
large profit on the whole operation.

So if a few politicians pulled their fingers out of their arses, and started
thinking outside the box on how to manage the pollution as William suggests,
instead of trying to stop it with inane directives such as RoHS, we wouldn't
need to have so much eco******** thrust at us.

Arfa

"James Beck" wrote in message
th.net...
In article m,
says...
Allodoxaphobia wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

At 30th tonnes, the potential environmental impact of the lead in
solder, even if you *did* dump it all in the ground, is minuscule.

And, where do these pin-heads think the lead came from, in the first
place?

It came from deep within the ground, in the form of lead ore,
which I think is much less of a health hazard than metallic lead
decomposing in a landfill and seeping into the water supply.
Mettalic lead has been shown to have very little impact on the
environment. Especially after it has built up an oxide layer.


In Europe, there are places where the Romans smelted lead 2000
years ago, and 8" or so below the topsoil, the dirt is still so
toxic that health officials (in Britain at least) don't allow
people to dig there, even wearing protective gear.
Ah, but we aren't talking about running a smelting operation, are we?


BTW, I'm not a pinhead, just someone who cares about my health,
that of others and a quality environment for us to all live in.
I don't know.
Comparing burying metallic lead VS a smelting operation, that borders on
pinheadiness.


I tried lead-free solder, and gave up on it, at least for prototyping.
I was feeling a little bad about returning to traditional solder,
until the OP posted the article. Thanks - I feel vindicated. I hope
that someday there is a better alternative to lead-based solder,
but evidently it hasn't happened yet.

Jay Ts


Until they come up with better alternatives, I'll stick with good old
lead/tin. When I left my last job, I had a full physical including a
lead test, and even though I had been "exposed" to lead solder almost
daily for 13 years, my blood lead levels were almost not measurable and
that puts me below the national average for people that don't work with
solder at all. Why would that be if lead/tin solder were so dangerous?

Jim

Unfortunately, if you are professionally involved in the repair of
electronic equipment in Europe, continuing to use leaded solder, unless the
equipment was placed on the market prior to June 2006 or is manufactured in
leaded solder now due to an exemption, is no longer a legal option. I am
required under threat of law, to use only solder and components, which
preserve the RoHS approval of the equipment in question. I don't suppose
realistically, that any 'solder police' are going to come knocking on my
door to enforce this, but with some of the jobsworths that there are in
local government departments now, it's just not worth the risk of a whopping
fine and even the potential for prison, for disobeying the directive.

Arfa

In article ,
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

Unfortunately, if you are professionally involved in the repair of
electronic equipment in Europe, continuing to use leaded solder, unless the
equipment was placed on the market prior to June 2006 or is manufactured in
leaded solder now due to an exemption, is no longer a legal option. I am
required under threat of law, to use only solder and components, which
preserve the RoHS approval of the equipment in question. I don't suppose
realistically, that any 'solder police' are going to come knocking on my
door to enforce this, but with some of the jobsworths that there are in
local government departments now, it's just not worth the risk of a whopping
fine and even the potential for prison, for disobeying the directive.

Arfa

Y'know, normally I'm not of a political bent, but this one just screams
for it...

Didn't you fools in Europe learn *ANYTHING* from the examples of the
USA, USSR, and similar "one government over all" schemes? Take a hint:
Big Central Government equals Big Central Screwing to all persons
unfortunate enough to be subject to its whims.

sigh

Look, mommy! See how much better life is under the nuturing wing of the
EU?

(So says an American victim...)

--
Don Bruder - - If your "From:" address isn't on my whitelist,
or the subject of the message doesn't contain the exact text "PopperAndShadow"
somewhere, any message sent to this address will go in the garbage without my
ever knowing it arrived. Sorry... http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd for more info

James Beck wrote:
In article m,
says...
Allodoxaphobia wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

At 30th tonnes, the potential environmental impact of the lead in
solder, even if you *did* dump it all in the ground, is minuscule.

And, where do these pin-heads think the lead came from, in the first
place?

It came from deep within the ground, in the form of lead ore, which I
think is much less of a health hazard than metallic lead decomposing in
a landfill and seeping into the water supply.
Mettalic lead has been shown to have very little impact on the
environment. Especially after it has built up an oxide layer.

In Europe, there are places where the Romans smelted lead 2000 years
ago, and 8" or so below the topsoil, the dirt is still so toxic that
health officials (in Britain at least) don't allow people to dig there,
even wearing protective gear.
Ah, but we aren't talking about running a smelting operation, are we?

Not if you can get all your lead from recycled materials,
and won't have to dig up any more ore and process it.

Otherwise, we have to look at the entire process.
That's just good engineering.

BTW, I'm not a pinhead, just someone who cares about my health, that of
others and a quality environment for us to all live in.
I don't know.
Comparing burying metallic lead VS a smelting operation, that borders on
pinheadiness.

Maybe we go on different definitions. To me, "pinhead" refers
more to people who have very pointed, narrow ways of thinking,
and foolishly fail to choose wisely in regards to the big picture.

When I left my last job, I had a full physical including a
lead test, and even though I had been "exposed" to lead solder almost
daily for 13 years, my blood lead levels were almost not measurable and
that puts me below the national average for people that don't work with
solder at all. Why would that be if lead/tin solder were so dangerous?

Easy one! Blood tests often fail to show up heavy metal toxicity.
You shouldn't expect them to, because the problem with heavy
metals is that they build up in body tissues, not the blood.
That's exactly the problem! They hang around in the body,
building up in and causing problems with vital organs (e.g.,
liver, colon, brain, bones) and *don't* easily dissolve out
in the blood and get flushed out.

The blood test may be good for cases of extreme (acute)
toxicity. I suppose that's why the doctors have them.
They like to get credit for saving lives. But there
is also chronic low- to moderate-level heavy metal
poisoning. It is bad too.

Don't expect an allopathic doctor to help you discern
heavy metal toxicity. They are too busy putting them *in*
your body while avoiding lawsuits to be of much assistance.

If you want a good test for heavy metals, you need to use other
methods. The one I'm most aware of is using a small sample
of hair. Removing bits of liver, bone or brain aren't really
practical, so this is the only method I know that's practical
and that naturopathic practitioners seem to prefer.

I've actually never heard of anyone having that test done
and finding out they had an issue with lead. Usually, its
cadmium or mercury. In my area, arsenic and copper are a
problem. That is a result from a local copper mine that was
very active about 100 years ago. The processing of the ore
put a lot of arsenic and copper in the environment, and it's
been leaching into the local water supply. This is in the
middle of a huge national forest, where you'd think the
water would be not as bad. Maybe that has something to
do with my concern for the effects of mining and processing.

The people who ran the mine probably had no idea at all
this would ever happen. Instead of being more concerned,
they just shrugged it off and did what made them the quickest
money. I think a more careful and conservative approach is
prudent. Sometimes, "better safe than sorry" applies.

Jay Ts
--
To contact me, use this web page:
http://www.jayts.com/contact.php

In article ,
says...

"James Beck" wrote in message
th.net...
In article m,
says...
Allodoxaphobia wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

At 30th tonnes, the potential environmental impact of the lead in
solder, even if you *did* dump it all in the ground, is minuscule.

And, where do these pin-heads think the lead came from, in the first
place?

It came from deep within the ground, in the form of lead ore,
which I think is much less of a health hazard than metallic lead
decomposing in a landfill and seeping into the water supply.
Mettalic lead has been shown to have very little impact on the
environment. Especially after it has built up an oxide layer.


In Europe, there are places where the Romans smelted lead 2000
years ago, and 8" or so below the topsoil, the dirt is still so
toxic that health officials (in Britain at least) don't allow
people to dig there, even wearing protective gear.
Ah, but we aren't talking about running a smelting operation, are we?


BTW, I'm not a pinhead, just someone who cares about my health,
that of others and a quality environment for us to all live in.
I don't know.
Comparing burying metallic lead VS a smelting operation, that borders on
pinheadiness.


I tried lead-free solder, and gave up on it, at least for prototyping.
I was feeling a little bad about returning to traditional solder,
until the OP posted the article. Thanks - I feel vindicated. I hope
that someday there is a better alternative to lead-based solder,
but evidently it hasn't happened yet.

Jay Ts


Until they come up with better alternatives, I'll stick with good old
lead/tin. When I left my last job, I had a full physical including a
lead test, and even though I had been "exposed" to lead solder almost
daily for 13 years, my blood lead levels were almost not measurable and
that puts me below the national average for people that don't work with
solder at all. Why would that be if lead/tin solder were so dangerous?

Jim

Unfortunately, if you are professionally involved in the repair of
electronic equipment in Europe, continuing to use leaded solder, unless the
equipment was placed on the market prior to June 2006 or is manufactured in
leaded solder now due to an exemption, is no longer a legal option. I am
required under threat of law, to use only solder and components, which
preserve the RoHS approval of the equipment in question. I don't suppose
realistically, that any 'solder police' are going to come knocking on my
door to enforce this, but with some of the jobsworths that there are in
local government departments now, it's just not worth the risk of a whopping
fine and even the potential for prison, for disobeying the directive.

Arfa

I understand.
I'm sure we will have something similar here soon too, and I will be
forced to comply. Resistance is futile.

In article m,
says...
James Beck wrote:
In article m,
says...
Allodoxaphobia wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

At 30th tonnes, the potential environmental impact of the lead in
solder, even if you *did* dump it all in the ground, is minuscule.

And, where do these pin-heads think the lead came from, in the first
place?

It came from deep within the ground, in the form of lead ore, which I
think is much less of a health hazard than metallic lead decomposing in
a landfill and seeping into the water supply.
Mettalic lead has been shown to have very little impact on the
environment. Especially after it has built up an oxide layer.

In Europe, there are places where the Romans smelted lead 2000 years
ago, and 8" or so below the topsoil, the dirt is still so toxic that
health officials (in Britain at least) don't allow people to dig there,
even wearing protective gear.
Ah, but we aren't talking about running a smelting operation, are we?

Not if you can get all your lead from recycled materials,
and won't have to dig up any more ore and process it.
That is true, but you are still comparing apples to accordions here.
You brought up problems with a smelting operation that took place 2K
years ago as if it were applicable to the problem at hand. Yes, we know
that lead is "bad" and recycling is "good".

Otherwise, we have to look at the entire process.
That's just good engineering.

BTW, I'm not a pinhead, just someone who cares about my health, that of
others and a quality environment for us to all live in.
I don't know.
Comparing burying metallic lead VS a smelting operation, that borders on
pinheadiness.

Maybe we go on different definitions. To me, "pinhead" refers
more to people who have very pointed, narrow ways of thinking,
and foolishly fail to choose wisely in regards to the big picture.

When I left my last job, I had a full physical including a
lead test, and even though I had been "exposed" to lead solder almost
daily for 13 years, my blood lead levels were almost not measurable and
that puts me below the national average for people that don't work with
solder at all. Why would that be if lead/tin solder were so dangerous?

Easy one! Blood tests often fail to show up heavy metal toxicity.
You shouldn't expect them to, because the problem with heavy
metals is that they build up in body tissues, not the blood.
That's exactly the problem! They hang around in the body,
building up in and causing problems with vital organs (e.g.,
liver, colon, brain, bones) and *don't* easily dissolve out
in the blood and get flushed out.
How does that lead GET to the tissues of a human?
It has to get into the blood supply first.
A blood test is the best indicator of recent exposure and considering I
worked around lead solder 5 to 6 days a week, more when I worked on
hobby projects, the results would help determine if further tests on
tissue would be indicated.

Jim

Jay Ts wrote:

It came from deep within the ground, in the form of lead ore,
which I think is much less of a health hazard than metallic lead
decomposing in a landfill and seeping into the water supply.

In Europe, there are places where the Romans smelted lead 2000
years ago, and 8" or so below the topsoil, the dirt is still so
toxic that health officials (in Britain at least) don't allow
people to dig there, even wearing protective gear.


The slag they skimmed of wile refining the lead is what is toxic, not
the lead. Those compounds already existed. They were just mixed up in
the ore.


--
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Add this line to your news proxy nfilter.dat file
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Arfa Daily wrote:

"exray" wrote in message
.. .

I've never turned on my shop spectrometer to determine if it was the flux
or solder. I just know that the new stuff doesn't smell as friendly to my
human nose.

40+ years, 5 pounds, yadda,yadda...how much 'new' solder have you used? I
suspect you're just trying to pick a fight. I'm not playing. See ya.

I don't think that he's trying to pick a fight at all ... Depending on
whether or not he's talking 'professional' use, that might be a bit of an
underestimate, but not huge. I hand solder just about every day of my
working life. I use predominantly 0.7mm solder wire, which I buy in 500g
reels. I reckon that each reel lasts me probably 3 years, so in 35 years of
professional use, I have used perhaps 6kg or 13 pounds.


Don't bother trying to educate 'Exray'. He knows everything about
everything and listens to no one. Hundreds of companies run annual
tests for lead in the blood, and rarely ever turn up anything. Those
that do are usually traced to other sources. Some employees at
Microdyne soldered every day, all day for over 20 years and still came
up clean every year. No one there had ever failed the lead tests.


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Jay Ts wrote:

Allodoxaphobia wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

At 30th tonnes, the potential environmental impact of the lead in
solder, even if you *did* dump it all in the ground, is minuscule.

And, where do these pin-heads think the lead came from, in the first
place?

It came from deep within the ground, in the form of lead ore,
which I think is much less of a health hazard than metallic lead
decomposing in a landfill and seeping into the water supply.

Lead is an element, it is composed of lead and can't decompose. It is so
soluble that water pipes and roofs are made out of it......
--

wrote:
You mean the fumes from the flux. You don't believe you're breathing
solder vapors, do you? In the 40+ years I've been using solder, I
doubt I've used 5 lbs and I do quite a bit of soldering.

Ditto. I have half a pound right here that I bought at a hamfest in the
eighties. Used it to put together a Wersi Delta years back, used it for
other kits and copious repairs. Even waste a ridiculous amount tinning
my soldering tips (the current one is from the seventies and helped with
the Delta).

--
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080331/D8VOMVT02.html
Chelsea Clinton Criticizes Bush in N.C.

Talk about "dog bites man"...