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The Tin-Whisker Menace
An anonymous reader writes "Fortune has an article about how the recent environmental push to completely eliminate lead from electronic components and wiring may eventually lead to the next Y2K problem of slowly-growing tin whiskers short-circuiting equipment.""
What does lack of using lead have to do with the tin whiskers problem?
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how hard would it be to put -everything- on chip?
I mean, yeah, stuff remains modular. One module, one chip. A motherboard consisting of a central "motherboard chip" (containing both bridges, IDE circuitry, bus drivers, all the "integrated hardware" etc), plus slots for all the rest of the hardware, single-chip graphics card, single-chip RAM dice, etc. Just reduce the role of PCB to a board where slots are being located and connected to the central chip, no more batteries of capacitors, network of resistors, hundreds of small chips... Just load everything into one (even big) IC, add some radiator/cooler, and get rid of space and soldering problems.
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Where is the problem in making a final layer of paint finish on the tin circuitry?
Lead on the cirquit boards is a huge sleeping environmental problem and those who are tempted to shout 'tree higger' now might want to inform themselves on the potential lead hazards first.
-silence
Dyslectics of the world, untie!
Oh yeah, it was on Slashdot.
The issue with tin whiskers is that they are so small and invasive. Next to this problem however nanotechnology will make it look trivial.
The small particles being produced with nanotechnology concepts will enable it to invade and affect the body in ways that connot possibly be handeled by todays technology or our immune systems.
I'm all for technology but we need some protections before a company starts spewing these waste/production nanoparticles off into the enviroment in order to save in producing costs for that lastest flat screen tv using carbon nanotubes.
When I worked in the E-Warfare division of (deleted) we ran into this issue whenever we used brass prototype packages to house circuits. The cause of the whisker growth (in brass) was the repeated temperature cycling (TC) of the package. Apparently in the presence of the TC, the tin in the brass preferentially crystalized out of the brass in whisker form and pushed out of the sides. Kinda neat, actually, except for the occasional power supply short. We found that a solid nickel-plate or copper-plate fixed the problem nicely.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
It seems to me that the whole lead issue is addressed very erratically. The solder in a circuit board is a huge problem, but anybody can go down to Wal-Mart and buy a tin of airgun pellets containing about a 1/4 pound of pure lead and spray it all over their back yard. Lead encased in computer monitor glass is a huge crisis, but nobody talks much about 36-inch TV tubes, and if you shop for wine glasses some of them brag about the the fact that they contain 24% lead.
It seems to me that all the focus goes on new types of products, while many old products that use lead are ignored.
I think you're missing the point when it comes to the lead issue. I'm sure plenty of greens are trying to get lead batteries banned or replaced, it just hasn't happened yet. Maybe electronics companies need better lobbiests. Either way, while I understand your frustration, your post does give a good example of something just as aggrivating to the greens: the idea that it is pointless to protect ourselves from small things when there are big, more dangerous things. The small things are still bad! And do you really think no one is trying to protect us from the bigger things? It can't all change overnight. Other people in this thread bring up other lead-laden products, but the point is that they probably all should be either changed, or have a good way to be recycled.
As a side note, I was under the impression that part of the reason for this lead ban in solder was due to the fact that recycling or removal of the lead to keep it out of landfills was nigh impossible, unlike other lead products where the lead is easier to seperate.
My best friend owns one of the top plumbing outfits around here. He routinely does the more difficult jobs in Pebble Beach and Big Sur. He also does the bread and butter work in the less expensive areas where cost is the paramount consideration. Years ago, he won a bid on an apartment complex in Marina, a town next to the old Fort Ord land.
To save costs he picked up some plastic pipe from an outfit he had never dealt with but was offering him a really good price on the pipe. Long story short, the pipes started failing about 6 months after the apartments had been occupied - they were all splitting wherever the stress was greatest. The pipe company went tits up as the problem was popping up all around the country. My friend was adequately insured so he didn't lose money replacing the bum pipes but it did cost him as he couldn't take any new work during the time his men were tearing out old pipes. This happened about 12-14 years ago just about the time plastic plumbing was beginning to come on strong.
My friend's experience with the bum pipes circulated and set plastic plumbing back a few years around here. The development didn't want the grief the apartment house owner in Marina had had and so the developer specified metal pipe instead. It is ironic that their schedule got bit by the lead solder but then it's not the first time that a solution to one problem raised another.
Second? The Euro zone is perhaps the second largest economy, but the EU is bigger than the Euro zone. For example it does not include the U.K. which is the third/forth largest economy period (it about the same size as Germany and the two jocky for position). It is my understanding that the total E.U. economy is now larger than the U.S.A.
Cast iron is better for hot water applications. Ask any HVAC guy or pipefitter. And if you have a pump in the system, don't even think about PVC. A single deadheading will shatter the pipes, and there's a risk of shattering the pipes every time you start or stop the pump, due to the inertia of the water circulating in the system.
There are far more dangerous materials in common usage out there, but treated with proper respect they can be used. Bismuth is significantly more toxic than lead, as is cadmium,
I cringe everytime I think of how many Ni-Cd rechargeable batteries get thrown into landfills all over the place, including arid environments where life depends upon the availability of quality groundwater.
I dunno if this is the case everywhere, but my local public waste handling facility has an amnesty day, where you can bring in all those crusty old cans of solvents, paints, pesticides, household cleaners for free. This helps to mitigate the problem of people tossing dangerous chemicals into household trash and not get the proper treatment such chemicals deserve. Or the auxiliary problem of illegal dumping because "taking that stuff to the dump is expensive, dammit!"
"Provided by the management for your protection."