The first is the Warrior amp that I posted on here about, looking for
schematics. None were found, and as expected, the importer ignored my pleas,
so I decided I would spend a half hour on it 'blind'.

It turned out to not be too difficult to get the main PCB out, complete with
heatsinks and back panel. The wiring was long enough to allow the board to
be turned over, without having to disconnect everything. The fault was that
one of the two identical output stages was behaving as a pretty good half
wave rectifier, but only with a load connected. With no load, an applied
sine wave was perfectly symmetrical at the output terminals, and of similar
size to the good channel. With a load connected, the negative excursions
disappeared almost totally. Nothing was burning, and the the output protect
didn't even fire until the wick was turned well up, which led me to believe
that the problem may well be back in the driver stages or earlier. As there
are two identical amps, I figured that I would start with a few comparitive
resistance checks between channels. Quickly, I found that at the base pin of
one of the driver transistors, I had a reading of 3k or so on the good
channel, but open circuit at the same point on the bad channel. I followed
the print back and took another reading and Lo! - 3k ...

So I went back to the transistor leg - open, but at the joint, 3k. I tell
you, I examined that joint with the strongest light and magnifier that I
have, but you could not see a problem with it. However, as soon as it was
resoldered, 3k on the leg as well, and the amp then worked normally. This is
the problem with lead free. You can no longer spot bad joints by eye, and
they don't behave like conventional bad joints any more.

The second one was a Vox combo. This one was reported as "goes off after a
while - tap top to get it back". It actually ran for about 2 hours, during
which time I thrashed the output stage so hard you couldn't touch the
heatsink, and periodically knocked seven bells out of it with the butt end
of a large philips screwdy. At no time did it show any signs of
intermittency. I was actually on the phone to the store that it came to me
from, to check if they knew the owner, and whether he was savvy, or a
numpty, when it went off. Just like that. No provocation. You could then
lightly tap the top of the chassis just about anywhere, and it would come
and go at will. So easy was it to make it do it, you would have thought that
the joint causing it would have been really easily spotted. I twisted and
wiggled everything I could, but nothing made it do it, but still the
lightest tap, and there it went.

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that did no
good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the board. It was a
component that I had previously twisted. This time I pulled it, and one leg
just came right out of the board. The joint looked perfectly normal - for
lead-free that is - but it had not whetted the resistor leg at all. How the
hell could that take two hours to go bad, not be responsive at all before
that time, and then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so
tap sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid ...

Arfa

For technicians in the consumer goods/home entertainment repair industry,
the present situation can be defined as BOHICA.

Manufacturers haven't been soldering consumer goods properly for decades,
and I agree with your summary, that with lead-free, it's going to get much
worse.
I'm sure some are thinking: Opportunity. No, not when the owner can buy a
new one for less than a repair job.

Did anyone own a RCA Thomson(?) TV of the 90s that didn't fail within two
years? The CTC77 type, for a few series with bad tuner shield soldering,
where the shield was used for needed circuit continuity.

Even so, much earlier, many types of electronic gear failures were a result
of soldering faults/failures.

There was a SER post years ago titled something like; why can't
manufacturers solder?

Apparently the company accountants were in charge of the speed control of
the track feed as the boards passed thru the solder wave bath, it seems.
At double speed, they could potentially save tens-of-thousands of dollars in
solder purchasing costs per year.. or something similar.

As any techs with some years of experience have seen countless times, larger
components that can dissipate more heat during the soldering phase of
manufacturing rarely get soldered properly.

Automation in board fabrication was a huge advancement in electronic
manufacturing, but that wasn't satisfactory for the
accountant/profits-driven manufacturing model.

The Chinese have taken nearly every manufacturing process to a whole 'nother
lower level, even before lead-free.
It's disgusting that the American and other countries' consumers keep buying
this shiney new worthless crap, with much of it being put out for trash
pickup within a year.. year after year (and paying to have it hauled away).
Undoubtedly, many career positions available in waste management.

Get used to the likelyhood that any vacant land will become landfill pits..
who knows, maybe even our national parks.
When the groundwater aquafers are nearly totally fuctup, a fleet of space
shuttles can start hauling it away.
Where's the koolaid line form? I wanna be at the front of the line (if I
even last much longer).

All of this low grade crap manufactured today should be imported only with a
Return to Sender Free agreement. Let them dispose of all this worthless
crap.. and I'm fairly sure they would, and sell it again as recycled, but
fresh, new products.

I try to buy older stuff that was manufactured to a slightly higher level of
quality, which may at least be repairable. Anymore, I only repair my own
stuff, or a limited number of items that I want to, for a few close friends.

What's taken place, I think, which I suspect was intentionally forced upon
most of us, is that manufacturers wanted to lower everyone's expectations of
quality.
With that accomplished, all they need to do is make sure there are shelves
full of new crap to replace the old crap with.

How many times has someone been heard saying; I'll never buy that brand
again, next time I'll buy a (different brand)?
Catch 22.. it's nearly all the same, in retail stores, anyway. Before they
know it, they choose another product from the same brand name they started
with.. and round 'n round it goes.

--
Cheers,
WB
..............


"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...
The first is the Warrior amp that I posted on here about, looking for
schematics. None were found, and as expected, the importer ignored my
pleas, so I decided I would spend a half hour on it 'blind'.

It turned out to not be too difficult to get the main PCB out, complete
with heatsinks and back panel. The wiring was long enough to allow the
board to be turned over, without having to disconnect everything. The
fault was that one of the two identical output stages was behaving as a
pretty good half wave rectifier, but only with a load connected. With no
load, an applied sine wave was perfectly symmetrical at the output
terminals, and of similar size to the good channel. With a load connected,
the negative excursions disappeared almost totally. Nothing was burning,
and the the output protect didn't even fire until the wick was turned well
up, which led me to believe that the problem may well be back in the
driver stages or earlier. As there are two identical amps, I figured that
I would start with a few comparitive resistance checks between channels.
Quickly, I found that at the base pin of one of the driver transistors, I
had a reading of 3k or so on the good channel, but open circuit at the
same point on the bad channel. I followed the print back and took another
reading and Lo! - 3k ...

So I went back to the transistor leg - open, but at the joint, 3k. I tell
you, I examined that joint with the strongest light and magnifier that I
have, but you could not see a problem with it. However, as soon as it was
resoldered, 3k on the leg as well, and the amp then worked normally. This
is the problem with lead free. You can no longer spot bad joints by eye,
and they don't behave like conventional bad joints any more.

The second one was a Vox combo. This one was reported as "goes off after a
while - tap top to get it back". It actually ran for about 2 hours, during
which time I thrashed the output stage so hard you couldn't touch the
heatsink, and periodically knocked seven bells out of it with the butt end
of a large philips screwdy. At no time did it show any signs of
intermittency. I was actually on the phone to the store that it came to me
from, to check if they knew the owner, and whether he was savvy, or a
numpty, when it went off. Just like that. No provocation. You could then
lightly tap the top of the chassis just about anywhere, and it would come
and go at will. So easy was it to make it do it, you would have thought
that the joint causing it would have been really easily spotted. I twisted
and wiggled everything I could, but nothing made it do it, but still the
lightest tap, and there it went.

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that did no
good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the board. It was
a component that I had previously twisted. This time I pulled it, and one
leg just came right out of the board. The joint looked perfectly normal -
for lead-free that is - but it had not whetted the resistor leg at all.
How the hell could that take two hours to go bad, not be responsive at all
before that time, and then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting,
but be so tap sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather?
I HATE lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid ...

Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote in message
...
The first is the Warrior amp that I posted on here about, looking for
schematics. None were found, and as expected, the importer ignored my
pleas,
so I decided I would spend a half hour on it 'blind'.

It turned out to not be too difficult to get the main PCB out, complete
with
heatsinks and back panel. The wiring was long enough to allow the board to
be turned over, without having to disconnect everything. The fault was
that
one of the two identical output stages was behaving as a pretty good half
wave rectifier, but only with a load connected. With no load, an applied
sine wave was perfectly symmetrical at the output terminals, and of
similar
size to the good channel. With a load connected, the negative excursions
disappeared almost totally. Nothing was burning, and the the output
protect
didn't even fire until the wick was turned well up, which led me to
believe
that the problem may well be back in the driver stages or earlier. As
there
are two identical amps, I figured that I would start with a few
comparitive
resistance checks between channels. Quickly, I found that at the base pin
of
one of the driver transistors, I had a reading of 3k or so on the good
channel, but open circuit at the same point on the bad channel. I followed
the print back and took another reading and Lo! - 3k ...

So I went back to the transistor leg - open, but at the joint, 3k. I tell
you, I examined that joint with the strongest light and magnifier that I
have, but you could not see a problem with it. However, as soon as it was
resoldered, 3k on the leg as well, and the amp then worked normally. This
is
the problem with lead free. You can no longer spot bad joints by eye, and
they don't behave like conventional bad joints any more.

The second one was a Vox combo. This one was reported as "goes off after a
while - tap top to get it back". It actually ran for about 2 hours, during
which time I thrashed the output stage so hard you couldn't touch the
heatsink, and periodically knocked seven bells out of it with the butt end
of a large philips screwdy. At no time did it show any signs of
intermittency. I was actually on the phone to the store that it came to me
from, to check if they knew the owner, and whether he was savvy, or a
numpty, when it went off. Just like that. No provocation. You could then
lightly tap the top of the chassis just about anywhere, and it would come
and go at will. So easy was it to make it do it, you would have thought
that
the joint causing it would have been really easily spotted. I twisted and
wiggled everything I could, but nothing made it do it, but still the
lightest tap, and there it went.

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that did
no
good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the board. It was
a
component that I had previously twisted. This time I pulled it, and one
leg
just came right out of the board. The joint looked perfectly normal - for
lead-free that is - but it had not whetted the resistor leg at all. How
the
hell could that take two hours to go bad, not be responsive at all before
that time, and then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be
so
tap sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid ...

Arfa




I'm thinking of making a tug-test tool for PbF checking. Probably based on
an automatic centre punch tool latch mechanism but somehow inverted in
operation. How many ounces or grams of pullout tension do you think a 1/3 W
resistor lead/wire link/TO92 wire should resist pulling out , leaded solder
that is.


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://diverse.4mg.com/index.htm

"N_Cook" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote in message
...
The first is the Warrior amp that I posted on here about, looking for
schematics. None were found, and as expected, the importer ignored my
pleas,
so I decided I would spend a half hour on it 'blind'.

It turned out to not be too difficult to get the main PCB out, complete
with
heatsinks and back panel. The wiring was long enough to allow the board
to
be turned over, without having to disconnect everything. The fault was
that
one of the two identical output stages was behaving as a pretty good half
wave rectifier, but only with a load connected. With no load, an applied
sine wave was perfectly symmetrical at the output terminals, and of
similar
size to the good channel. With a load connected, the negative excursions
disappeared almost totally. Nothing was burning, and the the output
protect
didn't even fire until the wick was turned well up, which led me to
believe
that the problem may well be back in the driver stages or earlier. As
there
are two identical amps, I figured that I would start with a few
comparitive
resistance checks between channels. Quickly, I found that at the base pin
of
one of the driver transistors, I had a reading of 3k or so on the good
channel, but open circuit at the same point on the bad channel. I
followed
the print back and took another reading and Lo! - 3k ...

So I went back to the transistor leg - open, but at the joint, 3k. I tell
you, I examined that joint with the strongest light and magnifier that I
have, but you could not see a problem with it. However, as soon as it was
resoldered, 3k on the leg as well, and the amp then worked normally. This
is
the problem with lead free. You can no longer spot bad joints by eye, and
they don't behave like conventional bad joints any more.

The second one was a Vox combo. This one was reported as "goes off after
a
while - tap top to get it back". It actually ran for about 2 hours,
during
which time I thrashed the output stage so hard you couldn't touch the
heatsink, and periodically knocked seven bells out of it with the butt
end
of a large philips screwdy. At no time did it show any signs of
intermittency. I was actually on the phone to the store that it came to
me
from, to check if they knew the owner, and whether he was savvy, or a
numpty, when it went off. Just like that. No provocation. You could then
lightly tap the top of the chassis just about anywhere, and it would come
and go at will. So easy was it to make it do it, you would have thought
that
the joint causing it would have been really easily spotted. I twisted and
wiggled everything I could, but nothing made it do it, but still the
lightest tap, and there it went.

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that did
no
good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the board. It was
a
component that I had previously twisted. This time I pulled it, and one
leg
just came right out of the board. The joint looked perfectly normal - for
lead-free that is - but it had not whetted the resistor leg at all. How
the
hell could that take two hours to go bad, not be responsive at all before
that time, and then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be
so
tap sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid ...

Arfa




I'm thinking of making a tug-test tool for PbF checking. Probably based on
an automatic centre punch tool latch mechanism but somehow inverted in
operation. How many ounces or grams of pullout tension do you think a 1/3
W
resistor lead/wire link/TO92 wire should resist pulling out , leaded
solder
that is.


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://diverse.4mg.com/index.htm



I would have thought pretty much to the wire breaking point. How many times
have you hooked a screwdriver or whatever, under a component in order to
unsolder one end, then heated the joint on the other side of the board,
whilst applying pressure to the link / component, only to then have it snap
on you, because you were heating the joint next to the one you were supposed
to be ... :-)

Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote in message
...

"N_Cook" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote in message
...

I would have thought pretty much to the wire breaking point. How many
times
have you hooked a screwdriver or whatever, under a component in order to
unsolder one end, then heated the joint on the other side of the board,
whilst applying pressure to the link / component, only to then have it
snap
on you, because you were heating the joint next to the one you were
supposed
to be ... :-)

Arfa



One problem is ,for likes of TO92 and standardised tug , the use of surgical
artery forceps to grip before pulling, too much grip force and you squash
the lead.
I just tried with a board and counter weights on kitchen scales and I would
say I use about 1Kg of tug with thin nose pliers, pulling perpendicular to
the pcb.

What date was the VOX ? I've previously found 2 ,tug test failing, loose
links due to PbF on a 2005 Vox AC30 , AC30CC2X . Found in passing as
otherwise in for valve and intrusive tremolo initiated rumble


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://diverse.4mg.com/index.htm

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...


I would have thought pretty much to the wire breaking point. How many times
have you hooked a screwdriver or whatever, under a component in order to
unsolder one end, then heated the joint on the other side of the board,
whilst applying pressure to the link / component, only to then have it snap
on you, because you were heating the joint next to the one you were supposed
to be ... :-)

Arfa

______________________

yep, done that!

Colin

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, Arfa Daily wrote:

The first is the Warrior amp that I posted on here about, looking for
schematics. None were found, and as expected, the importer ignored my
pleas, so I decided I would spend a half hour on it 'blind'.

It turned out to not be too difficult to get the main PCB out, complete
with heatsinks and back panel. The wiring was long enough to allow the
board to be turned over, without having to disconnect everything. The
fault was that one of the two identical output stages was behaving as a
pretty good half wave rectifier, but only with a load connected. With no
load, an applied sine wave was perfectly symmetrical at the output
terminals, and of similar size to the good channel. With a load
connected, the negative excursions disappeared almost totally. Nothing
was burning, and the the output protect didn't even fire until the wick
was turned well up, which led me to believe that the problem may well be
back in the driver stages or earlier. As there are two identical amps, I
figured that I would start with a few comparitive resistance checks
between channels. Quickly, I found that at the base pin of one of the
driver transistors, I had a reading of 3k or so on the good channel, but
open circuit at the same point on the bad channel. I followed the print
back and took another reading and Lo! - 3k ...

So I went back to the transistor leg - open, but at the joint, 3k. I
tell you, I examined that joint with the strongest light and magnifier
that I have, but you could not see a problem with it. However, as soon
as it was resoldered, 3k on the leg as well, and the amp then worked
normally. This is the problem with lead free. You can no longer spot bad
joints by eye, and they don't behave like conventional bad joints any
more.

The second one was a Vox combo. This one was reported as "goes off after
a while - tap top to get it back". It actually ran for about 2 hours,
during which time I thrashed the output stage so hard you couldn't touch
the heatsink, and periodically knocked seven bells out of it with the
butt end of a large philips screwdy. At no time did it show any signs of
intermittency. I was actually on the phone to the store that it came to
me from, to check if they knew the owner, and whether he was savvy, or a
numpty, when it went off. Just like that. No provocation. You could then
lightly tap the top of the chassis just about anywhere, and it would
come and go at will. So easy was it to make it do it, you would have
thought that the joint causing it would have been really easily spotted.
I twisted and wiggled everything I could, but nothing made it do it, but
still the lightest tap, and there it went.

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that did
no
good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the board. It
was a component that I had previously twisted. This time I pulled it,
and one leg just came right out of the board. The joint looked perfectly
normal - for lead-free that is - but it had not whetted the resistor leg
at all. How the hell could that take two hours to go bad, not be
responsive at all before that time, and then when it has gone bad, not
respond to twisting, but be so tap sensitive that you could make it come
and go with a feather? I HATE lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid ...

Arfa

On 21/05/2010 13:28, Meat Plow wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, Arfa Daily wrote:


If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid ...

Arfa



Come to think of it, lead free solder and volcanic ash look very similar.

Ron

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid...

Shouldn't be a problem. How often are F-15s dumped in landfills?

Hi!

Shouldn't be a problem. How often are F-15s dumped in landfills?

Well, if lead free solder causes failures, and as a result one
crashes...what's to stop the site from being a landfill?

William

"Arfa Daily" wrote in
:

The first is the Warrior amp that I posted on here about, looking for
schematics. None were found, and as expected, the importer ignored my
pleas, so I decided I would spend a half hour on it 'blind'.

It turned out to not be too difficult to get the main PCB out,
complete with heatsinks and back panel. The wiring was long enough to
allow the board to be turned over, without having to disconnect
everything. The fault was that one of the two identical output stages
was behaving as a pretty good half wave rectifier, but only with a
load connected. With no load, an applied sine wave was perfectly
symmetrical at the output terminals, and of similar size to the good
channel. With a load connected, the negative excursions disappeared
almost totally. Nothing was burning, and the the output protect didn't
even fire until the wick was turned well up, which led me to believe
that the problem may well be back in the driver stages or earlier. As
there are two identical amps, I figured that I would start with a few
comparitive resistance checks between channels. Quickly, I found that
at the base pin of one of the driver transistors, I had a reading of
3k or so on the good channel, but open circuit at the same point on
the bad channel. I followed the print back and took another reading
and Lo! - 3k ...

So I went back to the transistor leg - open, but at the joint, 3k. I
tell you, I examined that joint with the strongest light and magnifier
that I have, but you could not see a problem with it. However, as soon
as it was resoldered, 3k on the leg as well, and the amp then worked
normally. This is the problem with lead free. You can no longer spot
bad joints by eye, and they don't behave like conventional bad joints
any more.

The second one was a Vox combo. This one was reported as "goes off
after a while - tap top to get it back". It actually ran for about 2
hours, during which time I thrashed the output stage so hard you
couldn't touch the heatsink, and periodically knocked seven bells out
of it with the butt end of a large philips screwdy. At no time did it
show any signs of intermittency. I was actually on the phone to the
store that it came to me from, to check if they knew the owner, and
whether he was savvy, or a numpty, when it went off. Just like that.
No provocation. You could then lightly tap the top of the chassis just
about anywhere, and it would come and go at will. So easy was it to
make it do it, you would have thought that the joint causing it would
have been really easily spotted. I twisted and wiggled everything I
could, but nothing made it do it, but still the lightest tap, and
there it went.

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no
good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the board. It
was a component that I had previously twisted. This time I pulled it,
and one leg just came right out of the board. The joint looked
perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had not whetted the
resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take two hours to go bad,
not be responsive at all before that time, and then when it has gone
bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap sensitive that you could
make it come and go with a feather? I HATE lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid ...

Arfa




most of the time,when you have an intermittent,if you tap it,you end up
working the joint to a better connection and you don't see the
intermittent.
you have to leave it alone and wait patiently for the IM to show up,then
lightly tap around to find the area most sensitive.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in
:

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid...

Shouldn't be a problem. How often are F-15s dumped in landfills?




there's a guy who bought a scrapped,"demilled" T-38,with a cracked
airframe,he owned a aircraft maintenance shop and was able to restore it to
flight condition,and he has the only civilian,flyable T-38 jet.
It's the trainer version of the F-5 fighter,the "Mig 28" in Top Gun.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

Wild_Bill wrote:
What's taken place, I think, which I suspect was intentionally
forced upon most of us, is that manufacturers wanted to lower
everyone's expectations of quality.

I've been watching this "trend" since the '70s.

My opinion is that we as consumers have brought this on
ourselves with the attitude of: "I don't care if it's
crap, I want it now, I want it cheap and I'll be bored
with it within a year anyway."

Although this isn't entirely new. You could be cheap or
shoddy merchandise for as long as they've been bartering
from stuff. It's just that the ability to mass produce
garbage has exceeded our wildest expectations.

Jeff


--
“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
Frank Leahy, Head coach, Notre Dame 1941-1954

http://www.stay-connect.com

What's taken place, I think, which I suspect was intentionally
forced upon most of us, is that manufacturers wanted to lower
everyone's expectations of quality.

I've been watching this "trend" since the '70s.

My opinion is that we as consumers have brought this on
ourselves with the attitude of: "I don't care if it's
crap, I want it now, I want it cheap and I'll be bored
with it within a year anyway."

Although this isn't entirely new. You could be cheap or
shoddy merchandise for as long as they've been bartering
from stuff. It's just that the ability to mass produce
garbage has exceeded our wildest expectations.

I think that's only half the truth. I was born in 1947, and the rate of
technological change is at least five to ten times what it was 50 years ago.
ICs and SMTs, inserted by robots, make possible the "cheap" electronics that
can be easily discarded to make room for the next quarter's spasm of
improvements.

"N_Cook" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote in message
...

"N_Cook" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote in message
...

I would have thought pretty much to the wire breaking point. How many
times
have you hooked a screwdriver or whatever, under a component in order to
unsolder one end, then heated the joint on the other side of the board,
whilst applying pressure to the link / component, only to then have it
snap
on you, because you were heating the joint next to the one you were
supposed
to be ... :-)

Arfa



One problem is ,for likes of TO92 and standardised tug , the use of
surgical
artery forceps to grip before pulling, too much grip force and you squash
the lead.
I just tried with a board and counter weights on kitchen scales and I
would
say I use about 1Kg of tug with thin nose pliers, pulling perpendicular to
the pcb.

What date was the VOX ? I've previously found 2 ,tug test failing, loose
links due to PbF on a 2005 Vox AC30 , AC30CC2X . Found in passing as
otherwise in for valve and intrusive tremolo initiated rumble


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://diverse.4mg.com/index.htm




It was a Vox Valvetronix combo - one of those things with the built in
digital amp simulator that purports to make it sound like an AC30, or an
AC15, or a Tweed or a 70's Brit amp or an 80's Brit amp, or a dustbin full
of marbles or whatever. I didn't take much notice of what year, but the
board was marked with a PbF symbol. It last crossed my bench two years ago
almost to the day, when the owner had me fit a buffered variable level line
out to the back panel, so at least 2008 and probably a bit before that.

Arfa

"Ron" wrote in message
...
On 21/05/2010 13:28, Meat Plow wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, Arfa Daily wrote:


If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid ...

Arfa



Come to think of it, lead free solder and volcanic ash look very similar.

Ron

Cracker, Ron ! LOL !! :-)))

Arfa

In article ,
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

I don't doubt your experiences, and of course this isn't your first rant
about lead-free. I think the early lead-free formulas were inherently
bad, but I think some of the new ones are pretty damn good. I don't mind
working with them at all, and find the "solderability" to be on a par
with lead.

I still use a lot of lead, but some of my customers (who sell to Europe)
specify lead-free. We use Sn96.5Ag3Cu0.5 and have been well-satisfied
with it. I tend to agree with Wild Bill, that manufacturing has been
turned over to the bean-counters, and that the quality issues you're
seeing with consumer products may be due more to ****ty practices than
to the abandonment of lead.

"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
4...
"Arfa Daily" wrote in
:

The first is the Warrior amp that I posted on here about, looking for
schematics. None were found, and as expected, the importer ignored my
pleas, so I decided I would spend a half hour on it 'blind'.

It turned out to not be too difficult to get the main PCB out,
complete with heatsinks and back panel. The wiring was long enough to
allow the board to be turned over, without having to disconnect
everything. The fault was that one of the two identical output stages
was behaving as a pretty good half wave rectifier, but only with a
load connected. With no load, an applied sine wave was perfectly
symmetrical at the output terminals, and of similar size to the good
channel. With a load connected, the negative excursions disappeared
almost totally. Nothing was burning, and the the output protect didn't
even fire until the wick was turned well up, which led me to believe
that the problem may well be back in the driver stages or earlier. As
there are two identical amps, I figured that I would start with a few
comparitive resistance checks between channels. Quickly, I found that
at the base pin of one of the driver transistors, I had a reading of
3k or so on the good channel, but open circuit at the same point on
the bad channel. I followed the print back and took another reading
and Lo! - 3k ...

So I went back to the transistor leg - open, but at the joint, 3k. I
tell you, I examined that joint with the strongest light and magnifier
that I have, but you could not see a problem with it. However, as soon
as it was resoldered, 3k on the leg as well, and the amp then worked
normally. This is the problem with lead free. You can no longer spot
bad joints by eye, and they don't behave like conventional bad joints
any more.

The second one was a Vox combo. This one was reported as "goes off
after a while - tap top to get it back". It actually ran for about 2
hours, during which time I thrashed the output stage so hard you
couldn't touch the heatsink, and periodically knocked seven bells out
of it with the butt end of a large philips screwdy. At no time did it
show any signs of intermittency. I was actually on the phone to the
store that it came to me from, to check if they knew the owner, and
whether he was savvy, or a numpty, when it went off. Just like that.
No provocation. You could then lightly tap the top of the chassis just
about anywhere, and it would come and go at will. So easy was it to
make it do it, you would have thought that the joint causing it would
have been really easily spotted. I twisted and wiggled everything I
could, but nothing made it do it, but still the lightest tap, and
there it went.

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no
good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the board. It
was a component that I had previously twisted. This time I pulled it,
and one leg just came right out of the board. The joint looked
perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had not whetted the
resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take two hours to go bad,
not be responsive at all before that time, and then when it has gone
bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap sensitive that you could
make it come and go with a feather? I HATE lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid ...

Arfa




most of the time,when you have an intermittent,if you tap it,you end up
working the joint to a better connection and you don't see the
intermittent.
you have to leave it alone and wait patiently for the IM to show up,then
lightly tap around to find the area most sensitive.

--
Jim Yanik

Traditionally Jim, I would agree with you for bad joints on leaded solder.
They are predictable, well behaved in terms of tap sensitivity and
sensitivity to heat and cold and board flexing, but above all, for the most
part, readily visible. Lead-free bad joints seem to exhibit no such
tendencies. Their auto-failure and self-recovery often seem to bear no fixed
relationship to temperature, time or the way in which they are disturbed.
The Vox was a good example of that.

It might be argued that the changing of the mature leaded soldering
technology, that was pretty much taped down in terms of 'goodness' of joints
and reliability, for the lead-free technolgy which has taken us back 40
years to the early days of PCB production in terms of reliability, has been
good for the trade because of it bringing more work through the door.
Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case. Whereas I would expect to be able
to find and correct a bad joint on a leaded solder board in a maximum of 15
minutes from putting the item on the bench, with a lead-free bad joint, I
might finish up spending an hour or more on frustrating blanket reworks of
whole areas of joints, using half a reel more of the hateful stuff, because
conventional ways of finding the bad joints no longer work.

If I then tried to charge a proper living wage hourly rate for the job, the
owners would never come back to pick the item up, instead spending their
hard-earned on the latest bigger / better / shinier / cheaper offering from
China ...

Lead-free solder is making items fail much more than they need to, and
rendering repair uneconomic, leading to more equipment scrapping and, with
the best recycling will in the world, more items going to landfill. I wonder
if all the narrow minded inward thinking ecobollox merchants had this in
mind when they came up with their wonderful idea of mandating the use of
lead-free solder as part of their 'save the planet' religion ?

Arfa

On Fri, 21 May 2010 10:51:48 -0500, Jeffrey D Angus
wrote:

Wild_Bill wrote:
What's taken place, I think, which I suspect was intentionally
forced upon most of us, is that manufacturers wanted to lower
everyone's expectations of quality.

I've been watching this "trend" since the '70s.

What happened before the 70's? It's not like designed obsolescence is
anything new. Auto manufacturers were doing that since WWII where you
were expected to buy a new car every two years.

My opinion is that we as consumers have brought this on
ourselves with the attitude of: "I don't care if it's
crap, I want it now, I want it cheap and I'll be bored
with it within a year anyway."

Yep. Blame the victims.

It's really a self fulfilling mechanism. Today's consumers simply
assume that everything they buy is junk and will blow up immediately
after the warranty expires. Why bother paying for quality when
literally everything falls apart or blows up overnight? The only
thing the vendors can compete on is price, resulting in very small
differences in price that can kill or make a product. That also
results in cutting every corner possible, including shoddy soldering,
bitter edge component selection, and designed to fail component
selection.

What seems to be happening is the demise of hand soldering. In the
distant past, it was somewhat traditional to solder mask the large
physical parts, which acted as a heat sink, during wave soldering, and
hand solder them in "touch-up". Component manufacturers have made
heroic attempts to design components that can be properly wave
soldered, but they tend to be expensive. So, to cut costs,
manufacturers seem to be running everything through wave soldering or
vapor reflow soldering machines, including parts that are really are
too massive. Touch-up is eliminated as is burn-in and QA. If it
blows up, by the time the customer returns it, the next generation of
products will be available. That actually worked with tin-lead
solder, but is failing with RoHS solder. The problem seems to be
(i.e. my opinion) that tin-silver solder has a narrower range of
working temperatures than tin-lead. The large physical components
that were previously soldered by hand, simply suck away too much heat
when soldered, resulting in a cold solder joint.

Although this isn't entirely new. You could be cheap or
shoddy merchandise for as long as they've been bartering
from stuff. It's just that the ability to mass produce
garbage has exceeded our wildest expectations.

Yeah, but you probably couldn't afford it if everything were quality
merchandise.

Anyway, cease complaining. Your test equipment collection is about
the same age as mine and belongs in a museum. It is possible to build
reliable and long life electronics. Just don't expect that from
consumer electronics.



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann wrote in message
...
On Fri, 21 May 2010 10:51:48 -0500, Jeffrey D Angus
wrote:

Wild_Bill wrote:
What's taken place, I think, which I suspect was intentionally
forced upon most of us, is that manufacturers wanted to lower
everyone's expectations of quality.

I've been watching this "trend" since the '70s.

What happened before the 70's? It's not like designed obsolescence is
anything new. Auto manufacturers were doing that since WWII where you
were expected to buy a new car every two years.

My opinion is that we as consumers have brought this on
ourselves with the attitude of: "I don't care if it's
crap, I want it now, I want it cheap and I'll be bored
with it within a year anyway."

Yep. Blame the victims.

It's really a self fulfilling mechanism. Today's consumers simply
assume that everything they buy is junk and will blow up immediately
after the warranty expires. Why bother paying for quality when
literally everything falls apart or blows up overnight? The only
thing the vendors can compete on is price, resulting in very small
differences in price that can kill or make a product. That also
results in cutting every corner possible, including shoddy soldering,
bitter edge component selection, and designed to fail component
selection.

What seems to be happening is the demise of hand soldering. In the
distant past, it was somewhat traditional to solder mask the large
physical parts, which acted as a heat sink, during wave soldering, and
hand solder them in "touch-up". Component manufacturers have made
heroic attempts to design components that can be properly wave
soldered, but they tend to be expensive. So, to cut costs,
manufacturers seem to be running everything through wave soldering or
vapor reflow soldering machines, including parts that are really are
too massive. Touch-up is eliminated as is burn-in and QA. If it
blows up, by the time the customer returns it, the next generation of
products will be available. That actually worked with tin-lead
solder, but is failing with RoHS solder. The problem seems to be
(i.e. my opinion) that tin-silver solder has a narrower range of
working temperatures than tin-lead. The large physical components
that were previously soldered by hand, simply suck away too much heat
when soldered, resulting in a cold solder joint.

Although this isn't entirely new. You could be cheap or
shoddy merchandise for as long as they've been bartering
from stuff. It's just that the ability to mass produce
garbage has exceeded our wildest expectations.

Yeah, but you probably couldn't afford it if everything were quality
merchandise.

Anyway, cease complaining. Your test equipment collection is about
the same age as mine and belongs in a museum. It is possible to build
reliable and long life electronics. Just don't expect that from
consumer electronics.



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

My suspicion it is more to do with tinpest rather than lead free solder. A
layer of 100 percent tin tinning of all leads. Often on removing failed
joints , by pulling, not desoldering, you can see the dusty grey surface of
presumably tinpest .
Then volume change (27 percent ?) to the tinpest allotrope of tin and its
insulation rather than conduction causes the electrical break. Mismatch
thermal expansion coefficients don't seem t be problematic

http://www.boulder.nist.gov/div853/l...1.html#%201.12.
etc on
http://www.boulder.nist.gov/div853/l...e/props01.html

Anyone know if vibration can induce metallic tin to convert to tin pest
without having to cross the 13 degree C threshold. Or perhaps accelerate its
conversion if temp does at some point drop below 13 deg C.

"Smitty Two" wrote in message
news
In article ,
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

I don't doubt your experiences, and of course this isn't your first rant
about lead-free. I think the early lead-free formulas were inherently
bad, but I think some of the new ones are pretty damn good. I don't mind
working with them at all, and find the "solderability" to be on a par
with lead.

I still use a lot of lead, but some of my customers (who sell to Europe)
specify lead-free. We use Sn96.5Ag3Cu0.5 and have been well-satisfied
with it. I tend to agree with Wild Bill, that manufacturing has been
turned over to the bean-counters, and that the quality issues you're
seeing with consumer products may be due more to ****ty practices than
to the abandonment of lead.

But actually Smitty, it amounts to the same thing, doesn't it ? The cost of
consumer electronic equipment is so low, as has been dictated by the market,
that some ****ty practices have to prevail to meet those price points. The
thing is that with leaded solder, those ****ty practices that were
solder-related, could be got away with. With lead-free, they can't, so we
are now seeing equipment which manages to conform to the price constraints,
but can't make it any more, in the reliability stakes.

As to the current formulations being better than earlier ones, I'm not sure
that there is actually any difference. Mixes with additional metals to try
to improve the 'workability' of the stuff have been there right from the
start. It's just that they were too expensive to be practical. I guess for
manufacturing quantities, this is no longer the case, and this has
undoubtedly led to an improvement in joint integrity. For sure, lead-free
joints now at least look a bit better than they did, but I am still seeing
many more bad joints on in-warranty, or just out of warranty items, than I
ever did when leaded solder prevailed.

No matter how it's dressed up, the stuff just isn't as good for the job *all
round* as leaded solder was. It has replaced a mature and reliable
technology that had evolved into a process as near perfect as it could be,
with one that at best is a 'next best thing' compromise, and to what benefit
? None that actually stands up to scrutiny in the real world. It was a
politically green agenda fuelled by the hysterical rubbish that gets spouted
about both the real and imagined dangers of lead in the environment, that
lead to the situation that we now have.

Arfa

In article ,
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

But actually Smitty, it amounts to the same thing, doesn't it ? The cost of
consumer electronic equipment is so low, as has been dictated by the market,
that some ****ty practices have to prevail to meet those price points. The
thing is that with leaded solder, those ****ty practices that were
solder-related, could be got away with. With lead-free, they can't, so we
are now seeing equipment which manages to conform to the price constraints,
but can't make it any more, in the reliability stakes.

I'm not in a position to disagree with you on that score. Safety and
reliability are founded on the principle of "more than one fault" being
needed to create failure, and you may well be right that lead was more
forgiving of shoddy manufacturing processes.

Fortunately, with the exception of some high-end audio, my company
doesn't make any consumer products. Our industrial customers expect
quality first, timely delivery second, and price third. They may squeak
about cost from time to time, but it's never a driving force.

Considering the price of many consumer electronic gadgets, I find it
astonishing that manufacturers can afford to put it in a box and ship it
from China, let alone manufacture it.

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

The first is the Warrior amp that I posted on here about, looking for
schematics. None were found, and as expected, the importer ignored my pleas,
so I decided I would spend a half hour on it 'blind'.

It turned out to not be too difficult to get the main PCB out, complete with
heatsinks and back panel. The wiring was long enough to allow the board to
be turned over, without having to disconnect everything. The fault was that
one of the two identical output stages was behaving as a pretty good half
wave rectifier, but only with a load connected. With no load, an applied
sine wave was perfectly symmetrical at the output terminals, and of similar
size to the good channel. With a load connected, the negative excursions
disappeared almost totally. Nothing was burning, and the the output protect
didn't even fire until the wick was turned well up, which led me to believe
that the problem may well be back in the driver stages or earlier. As there
are two identical amps, I figured that I would start with a few comparitive
resistance checks between channels. Quickly, I found that at the base pin of
one of the driver transistors, I had a reading of 3k or so on the good
channel, but open circuit at the same point on the bad channel. I followed
the print back and took another reading and Lo! - 3k ...

So I went back to the transistor leg - open, but at the joint, 3k. I tell
you, I examined that joint with the strongest light and magnifier that I
have, but you could not see a problem with it. However, as soon as it was
resoldered, 3k on the leg as well, and the amp then worked normally. This is
the problem with lead free. You can no longer spot bad joints by eye, and
they don't behave like conventional bad joints any more.

The second one was a Vox combo. This one was reported as "goes off after a
while - tap top to get it back". It actually ran for about 2 hours, during
which time I thrashed the output stage so hard you couldn't touch the
heatsink, and periodically knocked seven bells out of it with the butt end
of a large philips screwdy. At no time did it show any signs of
intermittency. I was actually on the phone to the store that it came to me
from, to check if they knew the owner, and whether he was savvy, or a
numpty, when it went off. Just like that. No provocation. You could then
lightly tap the top of the chassis just about anywhere, and it would come
and go at will. So easy was it to make it do it, you would have thought that
the joint causing it would have been really easily spotted. I twisted and
wiggled everything I could, but nothing made it do it, but still the
lightest tap, and there it went.

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that did no
good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the board. It was a
component that I had previously twisted. This time I pulled it, and one leg
just came right out of the board. The joint looked perfectly normal - for
lead-free that is - but it had not whetted the resistor leg at all. How the
hell could that take two hours to go bad, not be responsive at all before
that time, and then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so
tap sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid ...

Arfa

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

PlainBill

On 5/22/2010 12:23 PM spake thus:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

[...]

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the
board. It was a component that I had previously twisted. This time
I pulled it, and one leg just came right out of the board. The
joint looked perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had
not whetted the resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take
two hours to go bad, not be responsive at all before that time, and
then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap
sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid
...

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

Is it really? Think about it: where does the majority of all that crap
end up?

Hint: it sure as hell ain't in approved, safely managed reclamation or
recycling facilities. You know what I'm talking about. So it's the same
with lead-containing consumer electronics as it is with those other
things you mentioned (well, not the same as gasoline, but everything
else there eventually ends up in landfills, waterways, etc.).


--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)

In article ,
David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 5/22/2010 12:23 PM spake thus:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

[...]

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the
board. It was a component that I had previously twisted. This time
I pulled it, and one leg just came right out of the board. The
joint looked perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had
not whetted the resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take
two hours to go bad, not be responsive at all before that time, and
then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap
sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid
...

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

Is it really? Think about it: where does the majority of all that crap
end up?

Hint: it sure as hell ain't in approved, safely managed reclamation or
recycling facilities. You know what I'm talking about. So it's the same
with lead-containing consumer electronics as it is with those other
things you mentioned (well, not the same as gasoline, but everything
else there eventually ends up in landfills, waterways, etc.).

AIUI, 99.9% of the lead in consumer electronics was in CRTs. Isn't there
something like a couple of pounds of the stuff in there? Now that we've
switched to LCDs, that problem has gone away. The amount of lead in a
circuit board is practically negligible.

Smitty Two wrote in newsrestwhich-
:

In article ,
David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 5/22/2010 12:23 PM spake thus:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

[...]

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the
board. It was a component that I had previously twisted. This time
I pulled it, and one leg just came right out of the board. The
joint looked perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had
not whetted the resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take
two hours to go bad, not be responsive at all before that time, and
then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap
sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid
...

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

Is it really? Think about it: where does the majority of all that crap
end up?

Hint: it sure as hell ain't in approved, safely managed reclamation or
recycling facilities. You know what I'm talking about. So it's the same
with lead-containing consumer electronics as it is with those other
things you mentioned (well, not the same as gasoline, but everything
else there eventually ends up in landfills, waterways, etc.).

AIUI, 99.9% of the lead in consumer electronics was in CRTs. Isn't there
something like a couple of pounds of the stuff in there? Now that we've
switched to LCDs, that problem has gone away. The amount of lead in a
circuit board is practically negligible.


Yes,and how much actually leaches out from PCBs?
I suspect lead tire-balance weights contribute far more lead to the
environment.(they -have- switched to no-lead alloys)
I find them all the time when I'm out on my bicycle.
I pick them up and melt them into ingots.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

On 5/22/2010 4:22 PM Jim Yanik spake thus:

Smitty Two wrote in newsrestwhich-
:

In article ,
David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 5/22/2010 12:23 PM spake thus:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

[...]

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the
board. It was a component that I had previously twisted. This time
I pulled it, and one leg just came right out of the board. The
joint looked perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had
not whetted the resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take
two hours to go bad, not be responsive at all before that time, and
then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap
sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid
...

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

Is it really? Think about it: where does the majority of all that crap
end up?

Hint: it sure as hell ain't in approved, safely managed reclamation or
recycling facilities. You know what I'm talking about. So it's the same
with lead-containing consumer electronics as it is with those other
things you mentioned (well, not the same as gasoline, but everything
else there eventually ends up in landfills, waterways, etc.).

AIUI, 99.9% of the lead in consumer electronics was in CRTs. Isn't there
something like a couple of pounds of the stuff in there? Now that we've
switched to LCDs, that problem has gone away. The amount of lead in a
circuit board is practically negligible.

Yes,and how much actually leaches out from PCBs?

Lots. Enough to do real damage. Hence the regulations.

I suspect lead tire-balance weights contribute far more lead to the
environment.(they -have- switched to no-lead alloys)
I find them all the time when I'm out on my bicycle.
I pick them up and melt them into ingots.

Hey, I do that too! It's almost a reflex with me. Someday someone's
gonna see me stuffing a big ol' wheel weight into my pocket and go
"WTF?????".

I've actually taken a lot of lead out of the environment this way.
Pounds and pounds of it.


--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)

On 5/22/2010 3:42 PM Smitty Two spake thus:

In article ,
David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 5/22/2010 12:23 PM spake thus:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

[...]

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the
board. It was a component that I had previously twisted. This time
I pulled it, and one leg just came right out of the board. The
joint looked perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had
not whetted the resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take
two hours to go bad, not be responsive at all before that time, and
then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap
sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid
...

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

Is it really? Think about it: where does the majority of all that crap
end up?

Hint: it sure as hell ain't in approved, safely managed reclamation or
recycling facilities. You know what I'm talking about. So it's the same
with lead-containing consumer electronics as it is with those other
things you mentioned (well, not the same as gasoline, but everything
else there eventually ends up in landfills, waterways, etc.).

AIUI, 99.9% of the lead in consumer electronics was in CRTs. Isn't there
something like a couple of pounds of the stuff in there? Now that we've
switched to LCDs, that problem has gone away. The amount of lead in a
circuit board is practically negligible.

You could have said the same thing about leaded gasoline way back when.
The amount of lead in a tankful of tetraethyl lead gasoline is
practically negligible. But you know what? it all adds up. That's why it
was banned.


--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)

snip

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

PlainBill

Yes, I would absolutely agree with those sentiments.

Arfa

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
.com...
On 5/22/2010 12:23 PM spake thus:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

[...]

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the
board. It was a component that I had previously twisted. This time
I pulled it, and one leg just came right out of the board. The joint
looked perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had not whetted
the resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take two hours to go
bad, not be responsive at all before that time, and
then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap
sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid
...

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

Is it really? Think about it: where does the majority of all that crap end
up?

Hint: it sure as hell ain't in approved, safely managed reclamation or
recycling facilities. You know what I'm talking about. So it's the same
with lead-containing consumer electronics as it is with those other things
you mentioned (well, not the same as gasoline, but everything else there
eventually ends up in landfills, waterways, etc.).



Even if it does end up in landfill, how does the lead get back out of the
components and solder, into the environment. Hint, it doesn't ...

Arfa

On 5/22/2010 5:42 PM Arfa Daily spake thus:

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
.com...
On 5/22/2010 12:23 PM spake thus:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

[...]

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the
board. It was a component that I had previously twisted. This time
I pulled it, and one leg just came right out of the board. The joint
looked perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had not whetted
the resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take two hours to go
bad, not be responsive at all before that time, and
then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap
sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid
...

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

Is it really? Think about it: where does the majority of all that crap end
up?

Hint: it sure as hell ain't in approved, safely managed reclamation or
recycling facilities. You know what I'm talking about. So it's the same
with lead-containing consumer electronics as it is with those other things
you mentioned (well, not the same as gasoline, but everything else there
eventually ends up in landfills, waterways, etc.).

Even if it does end up in landfill, how does the lead get back out of the
components and solder, into the environment. Hint, it doesn't ...

How the hell can you say that with such cocksure certainty?

Look; we *know* that all kinds of things can leach out of landfills.
There's all kinds of **** in there besides PC boards, enough compounds
to make a chemical brew capable of leaching lead (and other metals) into
the surrounding area.

Yeah, su "they"--you know, the little elves that watch over us
all--say they make sure to seal the landfill, cap it with impervious
material, keep anything from leaching out. Do you believe them? I sure
don't.

I think this is just an irresponsible attitude on your part and on
others here. I *totally* agree with your other complaints about
lead-free solder: it's clearly a pain in the ass. But to listen to you
and others here go on about it, you'd think these rules were simply
capricious actions of some pinheaded Eurocrats who don't know what the
hell they're talking about. I think you're wrong about that.

And I don't want to live in an environment full of lead, thank you very
much.


--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)

On May 22, 8:05*pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 5/22/2010 5:42 PM Arfa Daily spake thus:





"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...
On 5/22/2010 12:23 PM spake thus:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

[...]

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the
board. It was a component that I had previously twisted. This time
I pulled it, and one leg just came right out of the board. The joint
looked perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had not whetted
the resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take two hours to go
bad, not be responsive at all before that time, and
then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap
sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid
...

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. *On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

Is it really? Think about it: where does the majority of all that crap end
up?

Hint: it sure as hell ain't in approved, safely managed reclamation or
recycling facilities. You know what I'm talking about. So it's the same
with lead-containing consumer electronics as it is with those other things
you mentioned (well, not the same as gasoline, but everything else there
eventually ends up in landfills, waterways, etc.).

Even if it does end up in landfill, how does the lead get back out of the
components and solder, into the environment. Hint, it doesn't ...

How the hell can you say that with such cocksure certainty?

Look; we *know* that all kinds of things can leach out of landfills.
There's all kinds of **** in there besides PC boards, enough compounds
to make a chemical brew capable of leaching lead (and other metals) into
the surrounding area.

Yeah, su "they"--you know, the little elves that watch over us
all--say they make sure to seal the landfill, cap it with impervious
material, keep anything from leaching out. Do you believe them? I sure
don't.

I think this is just an irresponsible attitude on your part and on
others here. I *totally* agree with your other complaints about
lead-free solder: it's clearly a pain in the ass. But to listen to you
and others here go on about it, you'd think these rules were simply
capricious actions of some pinheaded Eurocrats who don't know what the
hell they're talking about. I think you're wrong about that.

And I don't want to live in an environment full of lead, thank you very
much.

--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

But does the lead in the glass of crt's leach out, I don't think so.

Ecoholics.

The feeling of power must feel great.

What's taking place today would likely not have needed to happen if anyone
had been willing to invest in proper technologies for recycling.

During times of prosperity (or non-crisis), the majority of humans ignore
that their wasteful habits will have consequences.

Would cost effective reclamation of metals from circuit boards been so
difficult or costly to just ignore it?
Yep, it costs too much today to do anything about it.

I'm sure there were many earlier believers in recycling before the 1960s,
but it was easier to ignore the value of recycling. Even now the half-assed
measures to collect and recycle are very inefficient.

Was legislation needed to get folks to separate cans from household waste?
Some places have penalties/fines for finding recycleable materials in a
household's trash cans.. yep, trashcan cops, probably with a good salary and
benefits.
Maybe it's time that commercial and industrial dumpsters were
inspected/monitored.

Waste has been a major issue for a very long time, but no one has wanted to
invest in technologies to efficiently recycle reuseable materials.
Eeeewww, it's garbage.

So it seems that were faced with polluting the small amounts of clean water
left on the planet. But water can be treated.. astronauts drink their own
urine, after all.
But then, they're not eating nicad batteries or other deadly chemicals.

We've all seen what takes place for control over oil, just wait and see the
huge ****storm when the control of clean water becomes a major issue (it's
already started).

Landfill liners are secure, the water is clean, and a few other claims that
are up the top of the list since one was taken off; there's no link between
tobacco and cancer.

--
Cheers,
WB
..............


"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
.com...

Look; we *know* that all kinds of things can leach out of landfills.
There's all kinds of **** in there besides PC boards, enough compounds to
make a chemical brew capable of leaching lead (and other metals) into the
surrounding area.

Yeah, su "they"--you know, the little elves that watch over us all--say
they make sure to seal the landfill, cap it with impervious material, keep
anything from leaching out. Do you believe them? I sure don't.

I think this is just an irresponsible attitude on your part and on others
here. I *totally* agree with your other complaints about lead-free solder:
it's clearly a pain in the ass. But to listen to you and others here go on
about it, you'd think these rules were simply capricious actions of some
pinheaded Eurocrats who don't know what the hell they're talking about. I
think you're wrong about that.

And I don't want to live in an environment full of lead, thank you very
much.


--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)

On 5/22/2010 7:44 PM hr(bob) spake thus:

On May 22, 8:05 pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:

Yeah, su "they"--you know, the little elves that watch over us
all--say they make sure to seal the landfill, cap it with impervious
material, keep anything from leaching out. Do you believe them? I sure
don't.

I think this is just an irresponsible attitude on your part and on
others here. I *totally* agree with your other complaints about
lead-free solder: it's clearly a pain in the ass. But to listen to you
and others here go on about it, you'd think these rules were simply
capricious actions of some pinheaded Eurocrats who don't know what the
hell they're talking about. I think you're wrong about that.

And I don't want to live in an environment full of lead, thank you very
much.

But does the lead in the glass of crt's leach out, I don't think so.

In my 'hood, most of the TVs and monitors that get put out on the street
end up broken. CRT smashed to pieces. The city eventually comes along
and picks them up and takes them to the dump. It's a lot easier for lead
to leach out of broken pieces of glass.


--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)

"hr(bob) " wrote:

On May 22, 8:05 pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 5/22/2010 5:42 PM Arfa Daily spake thus:





"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...
On 5/22/2010 12:23 PM spake thus:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:20:17 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

[...]

Eventually, after a frustrating session of blanket resoldering that
did no good at all, I came to a power resistor standing up off the
board. It was a component that I had previously twisted. This time
I pulled it, and one leg just came right out of the board. The joint
looked perfectly normal - for lead-free that is - but it had not whetted
the resistor leg at all. How the hell could that take two hours to go
bad, not be responsive at all before that time, and
then when it has gone bad, not respond to twisting, but be so tap
sensitive that you could make it come and go with a feather? I HATE
lead-free with a passion.

If it ever finds its way into avionics, be afraid, be VERY afraid
...

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind up being
consumed by humans or animals.. It's use in gasoline, paint, dyes,
ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible. On the
other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is asinine.

Is it really? Think about it: where does the majority of all that crap end
up?

Hint: it sure as hell ain't in approved, safely managed reclamation or
recycling facilities. You know what I'm talking about. So it's the same
with lead-containing consumer electronics as it is with those other things
you mentioned (well, not the same as gasoline, but everything else there
eventually ends up in landfills, waterways, etc.).

Even if it does end up in landfill, how does the lead get back out of the
components and solder, into the environment. Hint, it doesn't ...

How the hell can you say that with such cocksure certainty?

Look; we *know* that all kinds of things can leach out of landfills.
There's all kinds of **** in there besides PC boards, enough compounds
to make a chemical brew capable of leaching lead (and other metals) into
the surrounding area.

Yeah, su "they"--you know, the little elves that watch over us
all--say they make sure to seal the landfill, cap it with impervious
material, keep anything from leaching out. Do you believe them? I sure
don't.

I think this is just an irresponsible attitude on your part and on
others here. I *totally* agree with your other complaints about
lead-free solder: it's clearly a pain in the ass. But to listen to you
and others here go on about it, you'd think these rules were simply
capricious actions of some pinheaded Eurocrats who don't know what the
hell they're talking about. I think you're wrong about that.

And I don't want to live in an environment full of lead, thank you very
much.

--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

But does the lead in the glass of crt's leach out, I don't think so.


The EPA had to grind them to a fine dust, then use a strong acid to
remove some lead. Then they claimed that CRTs had 27 pounds of lead.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 5/22/2010 5:42 PM Arfa Daily spake thus:


[...]

Even if it does end up in landfill, how does the lead get back out of the
components and solder, into the environment. Hint, it doesn't ...

How the hell can you say that with such cocksure certainty?

Look; we *know* that all kinds of things can leach out of landfills.
There's all kinds of **** in there besides PC boards, enough compounds
to make a chemical brew capable of leaching lead (and other metals) into
the surrounding area.

As far as I am aware, there was no proof offered that lead had been
leaching out of electronic solder in land-fill when the politicians came
to legislate on banning lead from solder. In the U.K. there were no
scientists or engineers on the committee that took that decision; and
the "self-evident fact" that lead was causing a problem was accepted
without question. I have yet to hear of any meaningful research which
backs up that decision.

There is little doubt, from the evidence coming in from all across the
electronics industry, that lead-free solder is decreasing the
reliability of equipment and increasing the cost of manufacture and the
amount of waste (containing other, more soluble, toxic materials) going
into landfill. The overall environmental effect of the anti-lead
legislation is the opposite of what we are trying to achieve.

Banning automated assembly of consumer electronics would be a much more
environmentally-friendly move as it would reduce production, increase
the price and ecourage consumers to hang on to their existing kit. It
might also encourage the manufacturers to make things in a way which
could be repaired. Anyone want to campaign for that?


There is plenty of "cocksure certainty" on both sides of the argument.
That wouldn't matter if it was just an argument, but unfounded prejudice
should not be allowed to dictate legislation.



--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

There is no doubt lead should not be used where it can wind
up being consumed by humans or animals. It's use in gasoline,
paint, dyes, ceramic glazes, cast toys, trinkets, etc is indefensible.
On the other hand, banning it's use in ICs, and circuit boards is
asinine.

The anti-lead argument is that too much electronic equipment is dumped in
landfills, where acidic rainwater slowly dissolves the lead and it winds up
in the water supply. This is plausible, but I've yet to see any proof.

My argument has long been that the only dangerous substances are those that
actually get into the environment.

AIUI, 99.9% of the lead in consumer electronics was in CRTs.
Isn't there something like a couple of pounds of the stuff in
there? Now that we've switched to LCDs, that problem has gone
away. The amount of lead in a circuit board is practically negligible.

Not when you have tens of thousands of circuit boards rotting in a landfill.

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
.com...
On 5/22/2010 7:44 PM hr(bob) spake thus:

On May 22, 8:05 pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:

Yeah, su "they"--you know, the little elves that watch over us
all--say they make sure to seal the landfill, cap it with impervious
material, keep anything from leaching out. Do you believe them? I sure
don't.

I think this is just an irresponsible attitude on your part and on
others here. I *totally* agree with your other complaints about
lead-free solder: it's clearly a pain in the ass. But to listen to you
and others here go on about it, you'd think these rules were simply
capricious actions of some pinheaded Eurocrats who don't know what the
hell they're talking about. I think you're wrong about that.

And I don't want to live in an environment full of lead, thank you very
much.

But does the lead in the glass of crt's leach out, I don't think so.

In my 'hood, most of the TVs and monitors that get put out on the street
end up broken. CRT smashed to pieces. The city eventually comes along and
picks them up and takes them to the dump. It's a lot easier for lead to
leach out of broken pieces of glass.



No, actually it isn't. You are a victim of the hysterical nonsense that is
put about by the anti-lead-in-everything brigade ...

Arfa