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.""

Comments

I don't get the connection

[PornMaster]

What does lack of using lead have to do with the tin whiskers problem?

Re:I don't get the connection

[Mr2cents]

Then read the article!

Re:I don't get the connection

[InternationalCow]

I quote from a most informative pdf (get it here):
"A tin whisker is a single crystal of tin that grows spontaneously from a surface a pure tin. They are typically only a few microns (?m) in diameter but can grow to lengths of more than 10 mm (though lengths on the order of 1 mm are far more common) [NIST Website, 2002]. Tin whisker growth is spontaneous, not relying on external influences of current or electrolytic action, more commonly associated with mechanisms like "dendritic" growth, conductive filament formation and electromigration. While early studies believed that tin recrystallization (which occurs at 50 deg C) played some role in whisker formation, recent studies have reported as much, if not greater, propensity for whisker formation at temperatures as low as room temperature [NASA Web Site, 2002].(....)Conventional wisdom attributes tin whiskering to internal stresses in the pure tin layer, with a primary source being the compressive stresses caused by electroplating. However, tin whiskers have also been reported from surfaces where tin has been applied by methods other than electroplating. In the presence of compressive stress, whiskers are extruded over time, as a stress release mechanism. Many factors may contribute to the stress in the plating, including intermetallic formation, thermal expansion mismatches, corrosion of the substrate, and externally applied forces such as bending, lead forming and application of pressure. Defects such as scratches and nicks have been reported to magnify the effects by causing local stress concentrations and possibly providing openings in any protective surface oxide layers. In fact, these external factors may cause whiskering in samples that may otherwise be resistant to the phenomenon. For example, tin whiskers have been observed to form on tin finished surfaces that had been exposed to hot oil dip to fuse the tin (a known mitigating process) [Cunningham and Donahue, 1990]. Adding a trace amount of another element (i.e. Pb or Bi) has been shown to reduce the tendency of plating to grow whiskers."

Re:I don't get the connection

[PornMaster]

Thank you.

It's those idiot greens again

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

This probem is one of the reasons we use lead in solder, it's only reappearing now that the EU is pushing for all new electronics sold to be lead-free. Frankly, I'd like to see everyone keep using lead and just stop selling to europe. That'll teach 'em.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[PornMaster]

How about just teaching kids to avoid licking circuit boards?

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[Space Coyote]

Yeah, they'll have to replace some electronic equipment now and then, perhaps. And all because they don't want to poison themselves with lead. Silly Europeans.

But you go, USA, put lead back in everything, just to be the rugged individualists you are and show the rest of the world.

Hell, do you think Ancient Rome would have taken any crap from anyone else criticizing them for their lead pots? Exactly. USA! USA!

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[Vegeta99]

it's more disposal than consumer protection... tons of lead in a landfill isn't good

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[lachlan76]

Yeah, but, now, there's a hell of a lot of other stuff in the landfills.

Not to mention that you don't want this to be happening on your mission-critical server.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[jmichaelg]

I hired a contractor to remodel my kitchen a few years back. I did some of the easier jobs such as wire the switches and plumb the sink drains. I was putting together a list of parts I'd need for the sink when the contractor told me the following story about a new development on the north side of town.

The plumbing inspection happens before the sheetrock goes up so any plumbing errors are easy to spot and repair. The permit inspector was on the last house where the plumbers were just cleaning up. The inspector spotted a discarded solder can and picked it up. As he handed over the empty to one of the plumbers, the inspector said,
"Boy that solder is really good stuff!"
To which the plumber said, "Yeah, it's a little more expensive but it flows really smoothly."
The inspector replied, "It must be the lead that makes it flow so smoothly. But you know, it's too bad that you're not allowed to use lead solder any more. You're going to have to start over." And with that, the inspector ticketed every house in the subdivision.

I ended up using plastic plumbing.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[amembleton]

Tons more lead free electronics isn't a good thing for a land-fill either. If electronic devices, don't last as long then more will be dumped onto landfills, albeit leadfree.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[trburkholder]

OK, I'll feed the troll.

Lead is a neurotoxin; children exposed to lead are at risk of developmental delays, reduced IQ, learning disabilities, hearing loss, reduced height and hyperactivity. Levels above 10 mcg/dL (about 100 ppb) are considered to be a health risk to children. Adults are at risk of anemia, nervous system dysfunction, kidney problems, hypertension, decreased fertility, and increased level of miscarriages.

It used to be that the biggest source of environmental lead was automobile exhaust, followed by lead paint. In the late 1970's 14.9 million children in the US had elevated blood lead levels. This figure declined to about 300,000 in the US CDC's 99-00 survey. Banning lead paint in 1978 and leaded gasoline's phase out starting in 1975 removed the sources of exposure.

In adults, levels above 24 mcg/dL are considered elevated and mostly come from workplace exposures, such as demolition, recycling and manufacturing. The number of adults with elevated blood lead levels has also been declining.

The problem with adult exposure is that without proper industrial hygiene, the lead comes home with them, providing a route of exposure to their children. 2-3% of children with elevated blood lead levels are exposed in this way.

Lead in manufacturing is an expense since exposure has to be managed. But, if you don't control it at the source, then you have to try and manage it in the waste stream which is much more expensive and difficult. Given the population density and the emphasis on recycling in the EU, lead exposure through this route is a decreasingly acceptable risk to the population.

P.S. The EU is the largest economy in the world so you tell your directors that you don't need that market anymore!

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[LWATCDR]

A better solution might be to look for a different less toxic alloying metal than pb. A small amount a Ag maybe a good solution.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[lgw]

Well, yes, that's obvious isn't it? Billions of dollars in research, and no one thought of that?

The problem is: no one understands quite why lead prevents tin whisker formation, so it's hard to find a replacement that you *know* works. Texas Insrtuments has ten years of development on this, and has a solution that "looks good"; evryone else is behind that. Lead alloys have a 50 year track record, however, and the new apporaches just don't have the field data yet.

In order to fix a very small part of the lead problem, any electronics you buy going forward have a non-trivial risk of suddenly failing a few years down the road. Including life-critical equipment.

How many lives saved by eliminating a very small percentage of environmental lead? (Lead in electronics is tightly bound; no evidence that is can get into the water table.) How many lives lost due to sudden system failure? What bothers me is: no one making these laws cares about such analysis.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[way2trivial]

as opposed to all then TONS of alternate materials/consumer goods that will be disposed of because they have tin whiskers?

hmm.. .2 grams of lead in a processor? tossed after 10 years, or the whole computer, tossed every 2 years, because "it just stopped working vern"

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[michaelggreer]

Yeah, those crazy greens won't let them use lead in our pipes anymore. The inspector was right to ticket them, the idiots.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[LWATCDR]

Trust me I tend to agree with you. On of the problems with the world is to many people in power are or where lawyers. They tend to think pass a law and solve a problem. This is a prime example. However just ignoreing lead is also not a solution.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[HermanAB]

Well, geezuz, plumbers must use silver solder. 'Silver is a little more expensive, but it flows really well...'

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[Vinnie_333]

1.The problem is that the lead in the landfill will leach into the soil, effectively posioning the water table. That's a bad thing.

2.Consumer electronics dying in two years because of tin whiskers? Many consumer electronics do have a two year shelf life. At the factory I do product testing for, we discovered tin whiskers on some or our products. It freaked most of us out cause we had never seen it before; the older guys at worked informed us of the history of tin whiskers. We have yet to see any failures due to them. Remember, these "whiskers" are pretty damn thin. I would say they are a low concern when it comes to product life.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[jabuzz]

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.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[harrkev]

Have you ever seen inside a typical chip? The die is bonded to a ceramic carrier, and wires are then bonded to the chip. And those wires are also "pretty damn this." So, thickness is not really an issue here. If a whisker can handle 1mA, that is enough to screw up a signal line.

And for what it's worth, I have a MSEE and design digital electronics for a living.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[RexRhino]

Banning solder with lead is about "protecting" people, but definitly not the way you think.

By forcing anyone who wants to work with electronics to use extremly expensive lead free alternative, that are difficult for hobbiest and non-professionals to use, they make sure that only large corporations and the government are going to be the ones building or modifying electronic equipment.

This makes it a lot harder for people who want to install mod chips to circumvent DRM, for people who want to recieve radio broadcasts on frequencies that the government might choose to ban from consumer recievers... etc, etc.

I guess it is a sinister act of facism if the U.S. bans shining high powered lasers into the cockpits of airplanes. But if Europe tries to stop everyone but the government and big corporations from being able to construct and modify electronic devices, they are just "helping the people".

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[hey!]

Actually, if didn't landfill electronics at all, but sent them back to the factory to be made into new electronics, we'd be able to use lead.

That's what recyclying is -- reusing the same molecules over and over again.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[b-baggins]

Because we all know that the lead never existed at all until man created it from nothing, put it in electronics, then dumped it in a landfill.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[innerweb]

Not sure if that is really good sarcasm or blunt ignorance (so hard to tell sometimes)

Molten lava has existed longer than man has, and it only does harm when brought into the environment people are in. Lead is similar, it does great harm when introduced into our bodies, but normally, it is sequestered away by nature. Lead is a potent toxin and has no known minimum safe exposure level.

It does not take an idiot green to see a real issue with a highly toxic metal being released into our water supplies that would not normally find its way into them. It does take a short sighted person to not see the harm it has cause and will cause if it is not dealt with.

A good link that summarizes pretty well is here.

InnerWeb

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[wkitchen]

Not to mention all the process chemicals and energy used in producing, packaging, and distributing those devices in the first place. I can't help thinking that at least in the short term, switching to lead free electronics may do more environmental harm than good.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[jseale]

No kidding! A talk show host on WHAS Radio in Louisville, KY http://www.whas.com/ devoted a whole half-hour to talking about "e-trash" - two days in a row.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[Technician]

I ended up using plastic plumbing.

Until they make hot water tank dip tubes last forever, then I'm not considering plastic for any hot water use. I'm on my 3rd dip tube. Plastic is not up to par for hot water. I know they have a hot water type PVC, but if it doesn't work in a water heater, then I don't expetct it to be robust in the walls over the long term.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[phel666]

And here I was thinking the grandparent was being sarcastic.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[b-baggins]

but normally, it is sequestered away by nature.

Which is good, whereas man sequestering lead away under tons of earth and rock is bad.

Lead is a potent toxin and has no known minimum safe exposure level.

Which is why the entire human race has died from exposure to lead fumes in leaded gasoline. Stupid humans. What planet were you from again Xarvox?

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[Vegeta99]

We don't bury it under tons of earth and rock. Ever seen a landfill? Maybe a few feet of topsoil. Not only that, but I'm guessing pure lead in solder is a bit more toxic than whatever form it is found in nature (I wouldn't know, I'm not a metallurgist or geologist, I'm a janitor.).

Lead is an EXTREMELY potent toxin. My dog had anemia, and, as a result, started eating at the paint (the vet said it was because it's an instinct, blood doesn't have enough red blood cells, need more iron for red blood cells or so body thinks, goes for any source possible, lead is a metal, so is iron, lead is in paint). We stopped him pretty quick, but he had already given himself lead poisoning from the small amount of paint he ate. Lead also stays in the body. You get a little now, a little later, and eventually, it's a lot. Not only that, but lead in a landfill usually ends up in the water.

Lead's bad. So is Cadmium and a whole slew of other heavy metals and heavy metal compounds. They're not deadly as in touch it and you die, they're deadly 30 years down the line, and that's what makes it so bad. And I'm no greenie, either. Both of my trucks have engines with greater than 300cid, are carbureted, and have no EGR and no catalytic converters.

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[innerweb]

Which is good, whereas man sequestering lead away under tons of earth and rock is bad.

They leak. Period. Too much history on that one already, and they do contaminate the local water supplies with their leaks. That is why the rules are so strict for new landfills. But even then, the new ones are having problems keeping their no-leak promises as well. Hmm.. Not really sequestered.

Which is why the entire human race has died from exposure to lead fumes in leaded gasoline. Stupid humans. What planet were you from again Xarvox?

Childish retorts aside, toxins do not have to be fatal to be extremely potent, damaging and dangerous. Being hit by a car at 50 mph is not always fatal either, but has serious results as well. As far as fatalities from lead poisoning, those would be more likely listed under violent crime. Lead poisoning in children causes them to grow up in a significant number of cases to be violent criminals. This has to do with the problems induced by lead poisoning in the brain via its prevention/retarding of emotional and intellectual growth. The societal implications are a much higher incarceration rate, a lower employment rate and more strain on social institutions to help those who have medical issues.

It really comes down to biochemistry. Lead causes serious problems even in very small doses. Lead builds up over time and is hard for the body to remove. There are plenty of examples of lead poisoning and the effects it has on people. For more references, you might try reading them, hereand here or here.

InnerWeb

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[cowtamer]

When was the last time you threw out an electronic device because it short circuited? I have personally thrown a lot more out of obsolescence (My AppleII comes to mind...I would have kept it if I had the space...)

Re:It's those idiot greens again

[Vegeta99]

That's not the issue. The lead-free electronics are the ones getting the tin whiskers, not the ones with SnPb solder and components containing lead. Solder isn't a very hazardous compound, but do you really want it in your drinking water? Remove the lead, and it's pretty tame (copper, antimony, silver, and tin).

I wonder...

[SharpFang]

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.

Re:I wonder...

[PornMaster]

And they'd still solder the socket onto the board...

Re:I wonder...

[notany]

This is whre progress is going. For example Prof. David Patterson (inventor of RAID and first MISC instruction set computers) has been trying to do this many years. See IRAM

There is some practical problems.

1. Low yield. Failure rate grows with bigger chips. Makes them more expensive.
2. Harder to make. Different prosesses for making memory and logic (this has been done already of course).
3. Heat problem. It's easier to cool separaate chunks of prosessor, graphics processor and memory.
4. Upgrading. New usb spec, make new mask. Upgrade graphics prosessor, make new mask. New mask for every memory configuration. Uh.

We may get close eventually. Practicality may dictate that we end up with 1-3 chips per home PC. Maybe optical connections between.

My time estimate for this to happen is 10-30 years from now.

Re:I wonder...

[DrSkwid]

PCI express brings the promise of more modularization with, hopefully, optical interconnects.

Parallel busses mean lots of wires all the same length to negate timing differences, a serial bus will eliminate this. No doubt it will introduce other engineering constraints. Environmentally hazardous printed circuit board manufacturing for PC production could well be significantly reduced.

All being well it will become the grand unified bus !

Re:I wonder...

[SharpFang]

Whiskers are a problem with really tiny chips. If you get enough free board space you can make the pins relatively big and far apart.

Re:I wonder...

[miskatonic alumnus]

You are going to have a hard time squeezing things like transformers, induction coils, and power supply capacitors onto a chip.

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are power supplys on silicon now...
Little switch mode chips that drop 240vac to 5vdc with about 800ma.
They don't even get that hot. I don't know how clean they are.

Re:I wonder...

[bbrack]

SOC work has already reached this point for many electronics devices - cell phones are about the highest level things that I can think of that can currently be built from a single IC This is also being seen in the processor market, especially on the server side, where chips can be significantly more expensive, with things like memory controllers, network controllers, etc being put on-die on a lot of next generation processors The main problem is that combining all these parts into a single chip raises the cost out of the range that the typical consumer would consider. Since every new process node provides an ~50% reduction in die size, and assuming defect densities are fairly constant, it is conceivable that prices would be low enough to make it to the mainstream market sometime late in the 45nm or early in the 35nm generation (~3-5 years)

Re:I wonder...

[servognome]

Whiskers are a problem with really tiny chips. If you get enough free board space you can make the pins relatively big and far apart.
It's not the pins that are the problem for high denisity interconnect components, the silicon chip gets attached to a ceramic/plastic substrate using solder. There are hundreds to thousands of solder connections only a couple hundred microns apart.
Other package types such as TSOP and surface mount capacitors have connections on the order of 1mm or less, so they can be shorted by whiskers. These components typically take up most of the real estate on the motherboard. Shrinking these onto silicon becomes prohibitively expensive. Replacing a couple dozen resitors and capacitors costing 0.1cents each with a piece of silicon just wouldn't be cost effective.

Re:I wonder...

[jepaton]

It would be next to impossible, inflexible and expensive. Why not just take existing hardware and use a potting compound?

Many of those capacitors are there to reduce switching noise and provide stable power.

E.g. (stable power). The capacitor bank around the CPU is required because of the inductance of the PSU wires. Inductors oppose changes in current, so when the CPU suddenly requires more current it will get it from the capacitors.

Those capacitors have been getting LARGER over time, because the step changes in current required by a processor have been increasing.

Mind you, you could eliminate the problem by constantly drawing your maximum current (and wattage) - and wasting the excess as heat.

It would be impossible to fit those capacitors on silicon, they are just too large. You can place TINY value capacitors on silicon, but you need lots of die space (= expense).

--

Resisters could be placed on silicon, but the tolerence will be something like +/- 50%. You could laser trim to get better tolerences, but at GREAT expense.

--

The smaller chips are REUSABLE design elements, produced in bulk quantities. I doubt they could be integrated for less cost than placing them on the PCB.

--

Contary to what you might think, a lot of effort has gone in to that PCB design. And a lot of effort in to the VLSI chips on that board. If it could be done better, cheaper then it would.

Looks like...

[tektek]

Looks like we might be in for a close shave this time.... (sorry.)

No

[Sycraft-fu]

All other factors aside, the reason that Y2K would have been the problem that some alleged is that all the failures would happen at the same time. If something fails, even something major like a powerplant, it's a problem not a catastrophe. It would only be a catastrophe if lots of tem, or worse yet all of them, failed at the same time.

So supposing this problem is as stated, it'll just lead to higher failure rates of electronics. That's not a catastrophe, just something we'll have to deal with, either by changing the methods used or simply by increasing the rate at which we replace devices.

Re:No

[tektek]

either by changing the methods used or simply by increasing the rate at which we replace devices. Hmm, which do you think the corporations will go with?

Re:No

[procrastitron]

The only potential similarity that I saw in the article to Y2K was the example of a satellite failing. In that case all of the devices communicating with the satellite would fail, at the same time.

Of course even this could be handled by having redundant communication links, but satellites are expensive to replace.

Re:No

[Sycraft-fu]

They are but it's still no big deal. When Galaxy 4 died it was inconvenient, and pushed the transisiton to fiber for a lot of services a bit faster, but no big deal really. IA7 receantly went down (and is now back) and again, inconvenient, not a huge disaster. Now if a large number of satilites died at the same time, that'd be a real big problem. However if they experience an increased rate of failure, it'll just be more expensive. However given that the price to put something in orbit may drop by 2 or more orders of magnitude, that may not be a big deal either.

It's not like these "tin whiskers" are going to all grow all of a sudden and all our electronic devices will fail, it will just possibly mean an increased rate of failure.

Re:No

[wkitchen]

The lead free requirements are for consumer electronics. Satellites, avionics, backbone routers, weapons guidance systems, industrial controllers, life support equipment, etc. will still contain lead until lead free devices can provide similar reliability.

paint finish?

[silence535]

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

Re:paint finish?

[The Flying Guy]

If you read the NASA website link to it you would learn that the whiskers grow through thin coatings, like for example paint

Re:paint finish?

[bombadillo]

those who are tempted to shout 'tree higger'

Looks like you combined to very commonly used words by bigots.

Re:paint finish?

[Detritus]

Tree Higger!!!

What the hell is a tree higger? Some sort of insect?

People need to get some fucking perspective. Lead solder on printed circuit boards is not a "huge sleeping environmental problem". The coal burning power plant that is supplying your electricity is a major problem. The 5-ton Canyonero SUV that your 110 lb wife uses to commute to work is a major problem. A gazillion tons of nitrates washing into the watershed is a major problem.

Re:paint finish?

[silence535]

Ok, I meant to write 'hugger', but with your 'to' instead of 'two' lets just call it even.

-s

Re:paint finish?

[quarkscat]

The solution is: conformal coating.

Conformal coating is used in MIL spec circuit
boards as an environmental barrier, but might
also be useful to suppress the "tin whiskers"
problem. It does introduce problems with
heat dissipation, however, which could cause
even earlier system failure. The only computer
users who wouldn't/couldn't use conformal coating
are OCes (OverClockers), but they routinely
trade up their computers long before any "tin
whiskers" might cause problems anyway.

Re:paint finish?

[bob beta]

Conformal coating also makes product re-work expensive and component level troubleshooting almost impossible.

Which increases the scrap rate- more wasted circuit boards headed to the landfill. More contiminants.

Re:paint finish?

[silence535]

fucking perspective

What does the angle at which you look at mating rituals have to do with the story?

Ok, maybe 'huge' was a bit exagerated. But it is a _sleeping_ problem. Look at all the electronics which are produced and how their usage time gets shorter and shorter. Lead poisioning is little fun. That's why we have unleaded fuel for a while now.

As for the other issues you mention: Yes! We have a lot to do. So lets straighten our t(h)in whiskers and get to it.

-s

Re:paint finish?

[phliar]

That's why we have unleaded fuel for a while now.

Conmparing lead in solder to leaded fuel is ridiculous. All the lead used in fuel goes directly into the atmosphere. How much lead will leach into groundwater from solder if I throw a PC directly into a stream?

In fact I am a pinko commie terrorist (or whatever they're calling people who care about the environment these days) but even I know the value of perspective.

Re:paint finish?

[einhverfr]

Paint reduces the issue of whiskers, but it does not eliminate the problem completely.

Also lead is used because it is suitable for keeping the melting point low for electronics soldering, but other metals also inhibit the formation of whiskers. This leads to a number of interesting questions:

1) How much lead is required to inhibit whisker formation? Is it possible to use a "very low lead content" solder instead of a "lead free" solder and avoid both problems?

2) What is the environmental cost of having the other electronic components sitting in land fills? How does this compare to the lead? Given the possibility of electronic damage from short circuits, how does this impact possibilities for component recycling?

3) Are there any other metals that might work for doping the tin? I know that the noble metals have extremely high melting points (Gold is close to 2000F), so despite being soft they are unsuitable for such alloying, and metals like aluminum might add undesirable characteristics. So what are the metallurgical alternatives?

4) Are there any possibilities of alternate delivery methods which don't require the low melting point? What about amalgams or the possibility of conductive resins?

NEPP link already partially Slashdotted

[Technostalgia]

Mirrordot link

Tin whiskers eh?

[bildungsroman_yorick]

Obviously to fix the problem we need some amalgamation of courage and heart in electronic form pronto. Is there any engineers here whose work includes hiding behind curtains and appearing to his co-workers in giant green mask form?

Where have I seen this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, it was on Slashdot.

Good job...

[JaredOfEuropa]

... you lot just slashdotted NASA.

"The page cannot be displayed. There are too many people accessing the Web site at this time."

Duplicate story

[emj]

Same story as 6 month ago Zinc Whiskers Cripple Colorado's Computers. There's a PDF there that explains it all as well. They are pretty little whiskers, that can only be observed if examined very closely in the right environment.

Re:Duplicate story

[Detritus]

Similar problem, different story.

Re:Duplicate story

[chrome]

Yup, Zinc whiskers are a big problem as well. I worked in a company that had this problem, we had like 20 power supplies fail before IBM's forensics team could diagnose the problem.

Every time someone moved a floor tile, the whiskers would get broken off and thrown into the air (yeah, I was breathing this stuff) and some would go into the power supplies shorting everything out.

We didn't really notice until it was decided we neeted to run another loop of power and ALL the tiles were lifted along one row of cabinets.

Boom Boom Boom.

Yup, this is a problem people. If your company uses carpeted tiles, get them changed to non metallic, non carpet tiles, as soon as budget permits ...

Re:Duplicate story

[writermike]

Same story as 6 month ago Zinc Whiskers Cripple Colorado's Computers.

Not really a dupe. More like another story about the same thing.

Anyway, I recall that there isn't a consensus on whether zinc whiskers exist. Some folks say it's a huge problem, others haven't seen them at all.

Cat whiskers, however, do exist. And they are a MENACE.

sealant

[confusion]

Surely a bath in some sort of sealant post production would eliminate this problem? Finding a way not to seal up the connection points would be a challenge, though.

Then again, this problem doesn't work out so bad for the hardware manufacturers, now does it?

Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/

Re:sealant

[PornMaster]

I think you'd also have to consider things like the heat-insulating properties of the sealants. That whole law-of-unintended-consequences thing. Would suck to solve the tin whiskers problem, but have your CPU fail because of overheating.

Re:sealant

[bhima]

You can mask off areas when you conformal coat, works well enough...

Re:sealant

[t_allardyce]

Solve both problems with some sort of magic super-heat conducting liquid that could coat the whole circuit board and dry solid like rubber, it would be non-conductive but would shield certain radio frequencies and optionally glow in the dark..

Re:sealant

[DrSkwid]

nope, won't work.

from another post in this thread

For example, tin whiskers have been observed to form on tin finished surfaces that had been exposed to hot oil dip to fuse the tin (a known mitigating process) [Cunningham and Donahue, 1990]. Adding a trace amount of another element (i.e. Pb or Bi) has been shown to reduce the tendency of plating to grow whiskers.

Re:sealant

[SuperBanana]

Surely a bath in some sort of sealant post production would eliminate this problem? Finding a way not to seal up the connection points would be a challenge, though.

It's called "conformal coating", and many PCBs already have it.

Masking isn't even remotely a challenge- it's used extensively. Many PCBs are 'wave' soldered, which means a wave is set up in a solder tank, and the peak of the wave barely makes contact with the board from side to side.

Re:sealant

[twrake]

From the following artical Sealant may be a solution.

http://physics.about.com/od/condensedmatter/a/soft metalwisker.htm

Soft Metal Wiskers

from AIP Physics News
AIP Physics News Update #711
Soft-metal whiskers, tiny metallic protrusions that grow like hair from soft metals, are a problem that can cause electronic short circuits leading, in some cases, to the failure of heart pacemakers, avionic relays, and satellites. What to do with the unwanted whiskers---and, in the first place, understanding how they form---is a problem that's been around for fifty years. Now, researchers at Drexel University have arrived at what they think is an explanation for the cause of whiskers and a potential method for alleviating them. Basically, the whiskers form because of reactions between oxygen and the soft metal such as tin or indium. The reaction results in a volume increase that pushes the whiskers out. The whiskers that form do not have to break off in order to be troublesome; sometimes they cause mischief merely by bridging two neighboring electronic pathways that are supposed to be insulated from each other. The Drexel scientists believe that an oxygen-barrier coating on pertinent surfaces should prevent whiskers from developing. (Barsoum et al. Physical Review Letters, 12 November 2004)

Re:sealant

[Prune]

If the whiskers are, as some theories suggest, product of surface tensions, then they may be able to punch through even tough coatings (because they are so small == very sharp). If the process has something to do with oxygen as another reply to your post suggested, then coatings would work (though I doubt indefinitely, as very few polymers are completely gas impermeable).

Re:sealant

[NichG]

What about using an amorphous form of tin rather than crystaline? I.e., quench the solder very quickly to room temperature rather than letting it cool slowly. If its due to either compressive stresses or oxygen, the problem is that when it expands, it expands preferentially along certain directions and at certain sites. If its amorphous, it shouldn't have any preferred directions, so instead of forming a whisker it just grows or shrinks a bit all over.

I imagine thats the sort of thing that adding a few impurities does, i.e. preventing a perfect crystal from forming. One question I have is what determines the radius of the whisker. If the entire sample is a perfect crystal, do you still get a localized whisker, or is it only if you have many grains of crystaline tin, each with a different orientation (so the whisker corresponds to a single grain).

Of course, if its some kind of diffusive dendritic growth thing, then that process will
form crystals regardless of whether the underlying structure is amorphous or perfectly crystaline (grains might matter). But coatings should probably prevent processes of that kind.

Re:sealant

[GoRK]

It's not really a bath, but you can use conformal coatings to protect PCB's against this and other maladies such as high humidity, salt water spray, etc. I tend to spray down most PCB's I produce myself as they have no solder mask to protect the bare traces otherwise.

Mah cat has tin whiskers

[BadDoggie]

Oh wait, mah mistake. He has twailve.
</drawl>

woof.

Nasa blown into orbit

[wertarbyte]

The page cannot be displayed
There are too many people accessing the Web site at this time.

Please try the following:

* Click the Refresh button, or try again later.
* Open the nepp.nasa.gov home page, and then look for links to the information you want.

HTTP 403.9 - Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected
Internet Information Services

Technical Information (for support personnel)

* Background:
This error can occur if the Web server is busy and cannot process your request due to heavy traffic.

* More information:
Microsoft Support

Oh god, where will this end? Where will they put that burned down server?

Re:Nasa blown into orbit

[myowntrueself]

"Oh god, where will this end? Where will they put that burned down server?"

Knowing NASA, after just one server crashes and burns, the rest will be grounded for years and years and the USA will have to rely on Russian servers...

wither the tin-foil hat?

[close_wait]

This is just a government conspiracy to bypass tin-foil hats! Everyone knows that it's the 2% lead content which actually blocks the mind-control rays....

Why are they mentioning Y2K?

[DeBeuk]

I do not see the relevance, except for the fact that "something is malfunctioning".

Re:Why are they mentioning Y2K?

[fozzmeister]

because there is a lifetime for every component, it would be reasonable to expect a reasonably static rate of growth of tin wiskers, and it will therefore prolly take a set amount of time for them to grow between components and short (at least in particular types of products.

Forinstance if AMD started manufacturing the AMD64 3200+ and got the substitues wrong, they would all start failing at rougly the same time, taking down all computers that are built using them.

It's not such a date of failure but the inference is they will prolly all fail at similar times

Re:Why are they mentioning Y2K?

[DeBeuk]

I think that's a weird analogy. Well, either that or it must be sunday ;)

Re:Whatever.

[obiobi]

my motherboard JUST died as a result of 7 leaking caps...you are not out of the woods yet man!

Heavy Metal!

[Nikkodemus]

Oh man, this song could be sooo big!

Tin Whiiiiiiiiiskers
They cancelled IT Class
Tin Whiiiiiiiiiskers
They come from Satan's ass..

Hairs of the Devil, items of no good repute
If the grow to a certain lenght, the PC's can't compute!

Tin Whiiiiiiiiiskers

(guitar solo)

(reprise)

Re:Heavy Metal!

[sconeu]

Moderated +1 ZZ-Top tune

(TV Dinners)

I can't wait

[t_allardyce]

Dun-duh duh duh daa...
"Tonight on HypeLine,
Is Ashlee Simpson expecting twins?,
Was Michael Jackson wearing OJs glove?,
and the new terrorist weapon: millions of computers about to short circuit, what you don't know _COULD_ kill you!"

Cue scull and cross bones superimposed over burning computer.

Forget tin Whiskers, Nanotechnology will kill.

[d3nali]

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.

Re:Forget tin Whiskers, Nanotechnology will kill.

[scribblej]

Can you give an example of the sorts of small particles you're talking about? As far as I'm aware, the best nanotechnology is still on a molecular level, and we come in contact with some damn small molecules every single day. Breathable oxygen molecules are only two medium-sized atoms large. As far as I'm aware, nanotech isn't even being considered on that small a scale.

Re:Forget tin Whiskers, Nanotechnology will kill.

[dbIII]

Next to this problem however nanotechnology will make it look trivial.

Nanotech was too difficult a concept for journalists to contemplate - so they just fed us the half remembered plot from "Fantastic Voyage" instead. It don't think we'll see tiny medbots anytime soon - any until then the dangers are that of any small stuff that you can get in your lungs and not get out (eg. asbestos fibres), which are well understood, so no cretin is going to let these things float about freely where people can breath them in.

protections before a company starts spewing these waste/production nanoparticles off into the enviroment

At that point it's called very fine dust, and industry and regulatory bodies knows what to do with dust, and know to take it seriously.

Re:Forget tin Whiskers, Nanotechnology will kill.

[dbIII]

Here in Minnesota, the environmental definition of an "asbestos" hazard is very broad.

It is defined in such a way as to include fiberglass, zinc whiskers and anything else problematically prickly and fine

That's because asbestos is effectively chemically inert as far as the body is concearned, but a hard particle that gets into the lungs and can't get out irritates tissure and can cause cancer (breath in enough asbestos fibres and one of them is going to get you eventually - more exposure increase the risk). The other things listed can potentially affect you the same way - which is why most dust sources are kept wet now. Asbestos is as safe as beach sand as long as you keep it out of your lungs, and it's a good idea to keep simlarly sized and shaped particles out of there as well.

Temperature cycling

[NoseBag]

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.

Re:Temperature cycling

[NoseBag]

A) Brass has (historically) been made from both copper/zinc and copper/tin,

B) Copper usually has trace amounts of tin in it,

C) Zinc grows whiskers too.

nope, greens are still idiots.

[dfenstrate]

Yeah, how did humanity ever survive the dark ages of the early 1900's when we didn't have some fucking nanny-state telling us not to use something we shouldn't eat in components we won't eat, or eat off of?

When was the last time you were served a meal on an old motherboard, or had IC's for an appetizer? Maybe you've used an old heatsink as a lollipop?

Re:nope, greens are still idiots.

[myukew]

It's all about electronic waste! The lead gets washed out by the rain and lands in the heavy metal crops (as does cadmium...)

Re:nope, greens are still idiots.

[dougmc]

Yeah, how did humanity ever survive the dark ages of the early 1900's when we didn't have some fucking nanny-state telling us not to use something ...

To be fair, the average life expectancy back then (1901) was like 49 years. Now it's 77 years (in the US, anyways)..

Granted, much of the increase is due to better medical care, but much of it's due to knowing things about hygene and the like that we didn't know back then. At one point, plates and the like had lots of lead in them, and people ingested lots of lead from this and it caused them to live shorter lives.

But now that I know about the tin whiskers, I want lead in my electronic circuits! I wonder which is worse for the environment -- a stereo with no lead that gets thrown in the landfill after breaking after 10 years, or a stereo with some lead in it that lasts 20 years before breaking and getting thrown away ...

Re:nope, greens are still idiots.

[RedBear]

Yeah, how did humanity ever survive the dark ages of the early 1900's when we didn't have some fucking nanny-state telling us not to use something we shouldn't eat in components we won't eat, or eat off of?

When was the last time you were served a meal on an old motherboard, or had IC's for an appetizer? Maybe you've used an old heatsink as a lollipop?

Man, I'm not particularly "green", but I do feel the need to point out that you seem to be missing an important concept, which is the little fact that life is a cycle and we live in a closed ecosystem (it's called Earth). That means once you create a substance, it doesn't go away unless you destroy it or recycle it into a different substance. Do you have someplace else to take your family when every source of fresh water on this planet is contaminated beyond the ability of nature to decontaminate it? Well, do you? I don't see any other planets being terraformed just yet.

Everything we build eventually finds its way into a landfill where the chemicals in it are leeched out into ground water. It doesn't matter that this takes a long time if you have a billion tons of toxic stuff to leech chemicals from. Many of those chemicals have no known safe concentration, meaning they are toxic at even the smallest concentrations. Or they are cumulative toxins meaning they build up in living tissue and never go away. Nature doesn't do a good job filtering out stuff like that.

How did humanity ever survive the dark ages before certain substances were banned? Last time I checked, a whole lot of humanity didn't survive a lot of things, including exposure to lead paint, asbestos, dioxins, even mediocre stuff like coal dust. There is a reason that things like CFCs and dioxins and asbestos get banned.

The "fucking nanny state" you refer to isn't protecting you from licking your circuit boards (feel free). It's protecting the rest of us and our children (your children too, amazingly enough) from having to drink contaminated ground water coming from landfills full of your old, broken lead-filled circuit boards and dioxin-based herbicides. Unless you have a safe way to deal with a toxic substance throughout its entire lifetime, you should not be using it. Period. Unless it degrades into something safe (or we invent a cheap way to throw toxic waste into the sun) it will eventually come back and bite us in the ass if it remains part of the Earth's ecosystem. And by us I mean the human race. I may not be proud of every member of the human race but I do support its continued survival. I think we have a lot of potential. Including the potential to kill ourselves off via numerous methods if we're not careful.

Maybe you were just trying to be facetious and the moderator didn't catch it, but if you weren't I have to say I'm glad there are plenty of greenie "idiots" out there to oppose your kind of idiocy and short-sightedness. We have to look ahead and find a sustainable balance between technology and the only ecosystem we have available to keep us alive. That usually means erring on the side of not irreversibly contaminating our life support system. Sometimes, that means giving up the most efficient way of doing something for a cleaner way. The horror. The Horror!

Mad Tin Disease?

[handy_vandal]

All other factors aside, the reason that Y2K would have been the problem that some alleged is that all the failures would happen at the same time. If something fails, even something major like a powerplant, it's a problem not a catastrophe. It would only be a catastrophe if lots of tem, or worse yet all of them, failed at the same time.

Tin Whiskers are less like Y2K, more like Mad Cow -- an insidious, slow-growing disease that consumes our neural infrastructure.

-kgj

At last a sciency based explanation

[tezza]

Perhaps this explains why my Sony Minidisc started playing up

($WARRANTY_PERIOD + 1)

.

Gadget makers rejoice, you've got a new excuse to keep refresh cycles short...

Let's talk reality here

[Sycraft-fu]

The lead in solder accounts for a very, VERY tiny percentage of the lead we use and dispose of. It's a really stupid thing to be targeting since there are much bigger problems. It's like worrying about a basket of dirty laundry when your entire floor is covered in garbage. You aren't fixing a problem worth solving.

Now these tin whiskers aside, this sucks for people who like ot do electronics work at home. The only solder blends that are easy to work with contain lead. A 63/37 Sn/Pb or 62/36/2 Sn/Pb/Ag blend is what you need for a low melting point and nice, clean, easy application. The non-lead solders are much harder to work with since they need much higher temperatures. Easy to burn out a component if you aren't careful.

Now compare the amount of lead I use to make an electronic device (like 25-30% of a tube the size of my pinky, that's less than 40% lead and wound such as to use less than 30% of the space in the tube) to a lead-acid car battery, which all cars have and are replaced about once every 5 years.

The no lead in circuts is a wonderful example of environmentalists going after a non issue and fucking things up for people. Yes, lead is a problem, it can contaminate water tables and lead poisoning is NASTY. However the small amount of lead used on PCBs is NOT the problem, and getting rid of it just creats MORE waste by creating electronics that die faster.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[Waffle Iron]

The lead in solder accounts for a very, VERY tiny percentage of the lead we use and dispose of.

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.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[Thomas Shaddack]

However the small amount of lead used on PCBs is NOT the problem, and getting rid of it just creats MORE waste by creating electronics that die faster.

This is the likely reason why the manufactures aren't loudly protesting the lead-free future. If a device dies, it enforces an upgrade much better than mere moral obsolescence, which promises some future profit.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[Thomas Shaddack]

Now these tin whiskers aside, this sucks for people who like ot do electronics work at home. The only solder blends that are easy to work with contain lead.

My suggestion is to stockpile the lead-based solder. It's a temporary solution, but will buy some time. (Making your own SnPb alloy and turning it into flux-filled wires is a bit too difficult to propose as a solution, though in the future it will probably be the only way.)

Also, it's necessary to be aware about various gotchas. Some parts are plated with tin-bismuth alloy. When these are soldered with tin-lead solder, a tin-bismuth-lead alloy is formed which has significantly lower melting point, which can lead (no pun intended) to a nasty surprise when a high-power part heats up and desolders.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[amorsen]

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.

Not around here. Lead is not allowed in projectiles.

Lead encased in computer monitor glass is a huge crisis

I have not heard anything about that. As far as I know putting lead into glass is a pretty good way of disposing of it.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[fshalor]

Not ignored, but not focused on. Just look at RCRA and stuff...

There's only 12 states right now that even have legislation in the works to mitigate the disposal of computer products. The EPA has to suggest a problem and then states have to decide upon a solution that works for them.

It's a process that's slow, but has been doing a heck of a lot since 1976.

And it is a LOT eaisier to regulate the use in newer products than older ones. Keep in mind, there's very few houses that have wine glasses, and a heck of a lot that have computers. And all of them have plumbing. If you regulate out leadded soilder for new houses or rennovations, then you save youself a heck of a lot of work later, since you can essentially ignore them.

It frees up resources to work on older products while steming the sevarity of new problems.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[amorsen]

The tube of typical monitor contains 4-8 lbs of lead.

Yes I knew that much. But as far as I am aware, lead glass is stable and does not leak lead into the environment. Incidentally, you can get unleaded crystal with chalk instead -- "Bohemian Crystal".

Re:Let's talk reality here

[ChrisMaple]

Actually, lead in batteries will also be banned in a couple of years,

In automobile batteries? Get real. There's no suitable replacement available.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[ChrisMaple]

The lead in monitor glass is an oxide, poorly soluble and not a threat in modern landfills.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[coyote-san]

Actually that is a concern. An occasional glass of (red?) wine is fine, but daily use or a leaded glass decanter for a prolonged period is a Bad Idea because the acid can leach the lead.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[pronobozo]

A big CRT can contain up to 5 pounds (2.2 kilograms) of lead. Think of how many tvs/monitors there have been disposed of already. But since U.S had dumped it in China a few times I'm sure that's the problem solved. Don't believe me? Look it up.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[coyote-san]

TVs don't have the same optical requirements as monitors. That 36" legacy TV is still limited to 525 scan lines, a 19" monitor may be driven to 1500-2000 scan lines. Even with HDTV you're looking at significantly lower resolutions than a monitor.

On top of that a bit of "smearing" is actually desirable on TVs since it helps to mask artifacts. In contrast monitors must be crisp because they're usually used for relatively small print. Imagine using a monitor with only 6 lines of text.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[lambadomy]

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.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[Waffle Iron]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that one reason CRT glass contains lead is to shield against X-rays. If so, wouldn't that be independent of optical quality?

Re:Let's talk reality here

[TheGavster]

Apparently lead-free solder, with its higher melting point and this wisker problem, also is not a suitable replacement.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

I think CRT glass contains lead to make moving them take a prohibitive amount of effort and thus driving sales of flat panels

Re:Let's talk reality here

[khallow]

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.

I don't understand why. Prioritize. It's better to deal with the big, dangerous problems rather than to squander your political capital on small problems - especially if the solution to the small problems are as costly as this one appears to be.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[fermion]

I am a reasonable well off white person is not really concerned about the things that the bleeding heart liberals complain about. Even though I have worked in manufacturing, i was mostly in a clean office while the poor white and minorities were the ones exposed to the chemicals, albeit in small doses that were likely not harmful, even after many years. I never had to live next to the factories that dumped the chemicals into my drinking water, even though the levels were probably dilute enough not to matter. If I worked with dangerous chemicals, i did so in a lab environment where there were no production issues forcing me to cut corners that might risk my health. I used chemical in personal quantities, and was seldom if ever exposed to the industrial quantities that many poor white and minorities are exposed to.

As such it makes little sense for me to suffer the mild aggravation of having to use lead free solder, or acetone instead of trichloroethylene, or perhaps, god forbid, drive a car that get better than 20 miles to the gallon. After all I have air conditioning so I do not have to breathe the air. I have water filtration so I do not have to drink straight tap water. My kids have clean play grounds to they do not get exposed to the toxic sludge in that the poor kids play in.

In fact there is no reason why i should not just starting getting into the American spirit and get an obedient wife, some servants, and watch my property cut down the sugar cane. Why we ever gave poor and colored people any power at all is a mystery to me. Fortunately our president and congress will fix that mistake.

Re:Let's talk reality here

[dbIII]

The only solder blends that are easy to work with contain lead.

That's because the alloy has a very short freezing range and a lower melting point than either tin or lead - you don't have "mush": liquid flows in then solidifies all at once instead of solid chunks floating in the liquid slowing down the flow.

Making your own SnPb alloy

Incredibly easy - just use an old saucepan you never want to use for anything else again to mix it up on a stove or whatever. You don't have to worry much about fumes, to produce lead vapour you have to boil it, which is at a much higher temperature than the melting point of lead or tin.

turning it into flux-filled wires

Not so easy, but there's the old solution of dipping the soldering iron into flux every now and again.

The whole lead restriction thing started with toys and moved onto house paint - now it has moved into low risk areas. The chances of lead exposure from electronics or even roofing materials or water pipes is very low - you've really got to ingest the stuff to get it into your system - which is why it was banned in toys in the first place. 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,

Re:Let's talk reality here

[deathazre]

There's no suitable replacement available.

well, let's see.

supercapacitor starting systems may be coming out rather soon... in trucks.
Yes, a few capacitors will be carrying most of the starting duty for those big 18-liter diesels.

Still need a seperate battery for sustained loads, but not anywhere near as big, and a different type of battery would be quite doable.

Mod Parent +Funny

[handy_vandal]

Made me laugh!

-kgj

Other Brands?

[polyp2000]

I've always bought tins of whiskers for tiddles, should I switch to another brand - He's never been too keen on kit-e-cat. How will this affect my cat ?

Nick ...

Re:Other Brands?

[Walt Dismal]

Dear Nick;

We at Fsck Your Pets Lab, Inc. have conducted TONS of research on this, and conclude that unless your cat plans to attend college, and hence must pass his O-levels, lead is perfectly okay in the diet. Besides, the world does not need smarter cats, or at least cats smarter than our President.

And anyway, not many cats know how to solder.

I trust this relieves your worries.

Sincerely,

Dr. William "Billy Tibbles" Kevorkian, Ret.

Re:Whatever.

[baptiste]

Yeah - Dell's SX270's apparently had a LOT of motherboards with leaking caps. We just got boxes of motherboards from Dell (well rather FoxConn) to swap them out in the units that hadn't died yet (about 20% already had) That cost someone dearly - hopefully FoxConn and not Dell :)

Opportunity?

[6800]

Looks like the razor mfg's should wake up to this grand opportunity to broaden their customer base!

Re:Nothing like a

[Sai Babu]

That's the lead ballon of zero tolerance.

Problem:
"volume of electronic waste showing up in landfills began ballooning."
EU solution:
Ban lead use in electronics.

Why not stop putting the lead in the landfills instead?
This helps with both the landfill volume shortage and 'envronmental lead' problems.

Possible incentives include:
1)An increasing $/(lead unit) deposit on problematic consumer items. Deposit is returned to the consumer when the old item is turned in at either the purchase point of the new item or at a recycling center. Interest pays for administering the program. What this does is provide a competitive advantage by affording manufacturers with products having a lower lead content to offer consumers a lower initial outlay of $ (lower deposit) It removes this silliness of zero tolerance because items that just can't do without a bit-O-Pb can still be manufactured. Let your estate turn in your pacemaker for the deposit! Better tell the family or a crooked funeral home ma pocket the deposit bux!
2)Industrial lead credits similar to the credits used for power plant emmissions.
3)???Hey, I'm only on my 2nd cup of coffee!

Re:Whatever.

[gvc]

How exactly did you diagnose that leaking caps were the problem?

what a phenomenal pain in the...

[mderes]

After adding a new HVAC to our computer room, drives and power supplies started popping. In a 2 week period we lost 20 power supplies before we could figure out what it was. One LOOONG maintenance period later, we had replaced all the floor tiles and had the entire room sanitized. It ended up being much cheaper than expected to actually change all this out, but it can be a huge hit against a groups credibilty in keeping uptime.

PDA

[nurb432]

You are effectively describing a PDA with slots..

So yes, they can do it. But apparently there isn't a big enough market for it.

Embedded systems development can do this now.. SoC is the acronym to google for.

Typical Fortune crap

[Ars-Fartsica]

They are slowly morphing into a Forbes/Economist pseudo-fascist neocon wannabe rag with the perceived "rightward drift" of the public and the frothiness of the market.

Plastic is superior in any case

[Ars-Fartsica]

A new development where they aren't using plastic tubing? I find that suspicious.

Re:Plastic is superior in any case

[LastAndroid]

They probably use metal for certain parts such as under fixtures like toilets and sinks and for hot water.

Re:Plastic is superior in any case

[Anonymous Coward]

Plastic isn't "better", moron. There are applications where plastic is better. If it's going to drop near freezing, copper is much better at resisting occasinoaly freezes. PVC dies inside a year when exposed to sunlight, so if it's outside you better use CPVC or copper. You can also get copper pipe by the roll. It's a tradeoff.

Re:Plastic is superior in any case

[ChrisMaple]

Good points. It would be interesting to see the results of using plastic pipe for circulating hot water heating. It would certainly help keep the water from cooling as it went around the house!

Re:Plastic is superior in any case

[jmichaelg]

Your suspicion is understandable but the development went up years ago back when plastic plumbing was just taking off.

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.

Re:Plastic is superior in any case

[ErikTheRed]

Still happens. We're living in a brand-new low-rise (7-floor) building, and pipes are failing everywhere. Of course we make the contractors fix it, but it's an extreme pain in the ass when you can't occupy your condo for two months (we've been fortunate so far, but a couple of our neighbors have not) while they repair flood damage. And we're not living on the cheap either - this is Downtown San Diego; the least expensive 1 bedroom unit in our building goes for well over half a million $US.

Re:Plastic is superior in any case

[Mattintosh]

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.

google cache

[martums]

The nasa web server is at capacity, but here's the google cache of it

Re:Whatever.

[Shipwack]

A "leaky capacitor" can be identified by the foreign material seeming stuck to it on the outside of the capacitor, almost like glue, but not sticky. A less extreme sympton of a bad capacitor is a bulge in the sides or top. Really big capacitors (used in high power electrical applications)or older (20+ years,maybe?)capacitors actually have liquid inside, so the sign of leakage might be a stain on the circuit board or chassis.

A capacitor can be identified by the letters "uF" (which stands for "micro-Farads", which capacitors are measured in) after a number. They tend to be either cylendrical, with the leads coming out of the bottom circular base, or "plate shaped", with the leads coming out of the edge.

Re:Whatever.

[RollingThunder]

Leaking caps are usually pretty obvious. Brown gunk all over the cap or base of the capacitor, where it should be nice and smooth. Sometimes it just swells on the visible end, though, with the electrolyte being hidden underneath.

Why not just use conformal coating?

[winkydink]

won't this avert the problem?

Re:Why not just use conformal coating?

[ckedge]

Since they are either acrylic, urethane, or silicone based - would a tiny hyper-sharp tin needle slowly being extruded by crystal stresses at a rate of 0.1mm/year be able to push their way right through them?

The whiskers that form, do tin atoms migrate from the base to the top, or do tin atoms get extruded and form it from the bottom. If the latter, I might expect them to force their way through a coating.

Just guessing out of my ass here.

One answer is balls

[Jack William Bell]

Ball Semiconductor has an interesting take on creating integrated circuits: Put them on little spheres of silicon!

The beauty of this approach is that you can create different balls with different functionality and then cluster them in 3D shapes. You also can cool by using fluid or air-flow through the spaces between the balls. Of course you have to use something to create the connections between the balls, but it requires so little material that you can go back to using a pinch of lead in the mix.

Result? All the functionality of the computer on your desk (other than long-term storage) could be put into a 3" cube of bb-sized spheres. And each one could be custom made to your specifications by picking which spheres are included in what configuration.

Re:Whatever.

[gl4ss]

it's pretty easy to diagnose if all your caps are leaking.

even for someone who's never seen it before it's easy to spot.

Metallurgy

[HermanAB]

There are many metallurgical issues in electronics: Tin whiskers and Copper Black Death are two of the most prominent, though they can be prevented with a proper coating. Anyhoo, who cares if a cell phone stops working after 3 years due to tin whisker growth? By that time the battery is dead and the technology obsolete...

Re:Whatever.

[gvc]

Oh! I thought you meant "leaky" in terms of electrical current. I'm not sure that I've ever seen such a thing - a capacitor that physically self-destructs, though the responses here seem to indicate they're commonplace. Surely, such destruction is preceded by electrical failure.

Re:Whatever.

[mrbcs]

The machine will crash at random. You can change ram, cards, chips and it will still crash often. (not just windows )You will see the seeping caps inside.

Dead board. I've seen a few ibms and no-name boards with these. Most of the affected capacitors seem to have an x on the top of them. They split apart at the seams and ooze all over the board.

Re: I wonder

[EvilMidnightBomber]

Top ten list of critique openers most likely to get you prematurely killed by an engineer

10. I wonder...
9. I was just thinking...
8. That's great, but what I was really looking for was...
7. You know what would be really cool...
6. Was it supposed to do that?...
5. I'm sure it'll look better by the time you've finished...
4. Would it be possible to...
3. To: Engineering From: Marketing Priority: Urgent
2. Did someone tell you to do it this way?...
1. How hard would it be to...

Re:Whatever.

[andreyw]

My motherboard is in the process of dieing from leaking caps :'(. I don't even bother looking at it anymore... I have leaking and bulging caps, and technically it could break at any second.

Damn.

Yes, it is.

[MarcQuadra]

Hey there, there's a HUGE difference between pipes made out of lead and a bit of solder with lead in it.

Lead isn't a death-sentence, it can be safely used. I've been drinking from lead pipes and living in lead-painted walls my whole life and never shown elevated levels. My dad is a lead inspector and he says that virtually all the lead poisoning cases are caused by lead paint dust and chips, kids get the dust on their hands and toys and it ends up in their blood.

This sort of demonizing really pisses me off, some of the best materials we had for common uses has been outlawed because of irresponsible use and disposal. Asbestos insulation, lead solder, and asbestos brake pads are all superior at what they do. Hell, my heating bill (gas, in Boston) is about 30% of most of my coworkers because my house is jacketed in asbestos, and as long as I don't fsck with it it's perfectly safe.

Ever notice how often you have to replace brake pads these days? Or how much rusty dust they drop on your rims? That wasn't a problem with asbestos brake pads, they were awesome. I'm still looking to see if I can get my hands on some from overseas (I'll replace them myself or tell my mechanic before he services them).

Lead solder is a dream to work with compared to other materials, it's cheaper, and it lasts much longer. Outlawing it because people illegally dispose lead-containing stuff in landfills is moronic at best.

Re:Yes, it is.

[berzerke]

It doesn't seem to be widely known, but there are actually 3 types of asbestos. I forget the scientific names, but the common names are white, blue, and brown (probably refers to the actual color, but I'm not sure about this; it's been almost a decade since I studied this).

Blue and brown are deadly and you want nothing to do with either. Stay as far away as possible. However, all the studies I read on white (the type used in roughly 98% of all US products) showed it is harmless. The lung cancer rate is lower in fiberglass workers exposed to 1/4 the number of fibers than white asbestos miners.

Unfortunately, people don't understand the 3 different types issue and just lumped the good in with the bad.

Re:Yes, it is.

[MarcQuadra]

I disagree. Asbestos, when UNDERSTOOD and properly handled is harmless. There wouldn't be a problem if people hadn't died from BEFORE we knew how to properly handle it.

I'm sitting under a ceiling made out of asbestos tiles right now, and I'm perfectly safe as long as I don't dick with it. Should I want to dick with it I'd have to set up a quarantined and ventilated zone to modify it, it's not rocket-science.

I'm drinking water from lead pipes, and my walls are lead painted, but my blood levels are BELOW average, because I make sure not to sand the paint and I run the water for a few minutes after the plumber comes.

Should we outlaw glass because it breaks into sharp, hard-to-clean shards? Should we demonize wood homes because they burn and collapse easily compared to cement and brick? How about legislating gas stoves away because they release radon, despite their superior culinary contribution?

Virtually all the problems we had with lead and asbestos could be solved by educating consumers, developing a 'deposit' system, and making parents responsible for lead poisoning. We'd all have better plumbing, motherboards, and lower heating bills.

Re:Nothing like a

[LoadWB]

I agree, and was actually looking for a post like this so I did not sound redundant.

If Bad Things (tm) are winding up in the dump, then start educating those who discard them, even offering some kind of incentive.

My city has a solid waste recycling facility just outside of the city limits. For the last two years I have taken everything electronic which needs disposal to this site. Interestingly, all electronics go into the "hazardous waste" section. I have explained the reasoning to a number of people.

I do not get paid for doing this, but I feel better that I am not adding to the "balooning" growth of lead in our landfill. Especially considering I take about a trunk-full of stuff up there once a month (I have even begun collecting things from other people.) In that small of a quantity the city, or at least the workers, does not require me to weigh-in.

I feel this is no different than other recycling programs in the past. Some cities now will actually charge you extra on your waste management bill if you discard recyclables in your regular garbage. Then again, some places really do it half-assed -- for instance, there is a residential recycling program where my parents live which only takes certain glasses, plastics, and NO PAPER.

In my home I have gotten pretty anal about it. Since our local recycling program will take ANY plastic, EVERYTHING plastic goes in the recycle bin; same with glass.

So, start explaining to people living in complexes with dumpsters that TVs should not go in the dumpsters. Same with old computers and electronics. Recently we had an "e-Day" sponsored by a grant from Dell. Everyone was encouraged to bring electronics for disposal. That is a start.

Many people may be surprised to learn that Freon is actually still used in a lot of systems. However, there are now strict regulations in effect which govern its sale and use, including documentation of every bit that is used and the requirement that a leaking system be fixed or replaced. Leaded electronics could be just as simple, especially if, as stated in the parent, incentives are offered to consumers for compliance.

Bah. That's all I got right now.

Etch-a-sketch Fix

[servognome]

Instructions: Before and after each use shake your computer vigorously for 45 seconds.

This happens with leaded solder too...

[Tandoori Haggis]

During a course on hand soldering of surface mount components the phenomenon of solder creep was demonstrated. You could see the crystaline path that formed under a binocular microscope.

Lead free may be more prone to this kind of solder creep. I don't know. However, for a reaction to take place there must be some catalyst. Board preparation is paramount. Lead solder has its own problems, maily due to oxidisation. Oxygen can be present in a vaccuum as oxides in a poorly formed solder joint. Indeed, no vaccuum is perfect.

Its not easy to guarantee immunity from contamination. Soldering is an effective but old technology. Space programs can have a duration which transcends many generations of innnovation.

As we know, Rockwell employed ferrite core store memory on the shuttle for a long time after the technology had been superceeded.

I would expect to see VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) modules to be used as opposed to discrete components. You want to ensure that there are no pathways for crystaline growth. I say modules as opposed to Integrated Circuits. Modules can incorporate IC's and discrete components but they really should be potted in a resin which cannot conduct electical current, metallics or moisture.

Caveat - all materials have a break down potential in terms of voltage current and charge at which they will conduct (closed circuit) or fuse (open circuit).

Re:Whatever.

[(negative video)]

The 'X' is the bent metal where the cap is closed and welded.

The cans are stamped out of a single seamless piece of aluminum, like the base of a beer can. Aluminum electrolytic capacitors are filled with water, and therefore explode when they overheat. The 'X' weakens the can, so it ruptures at a lower, less dangerous, pressure. Their plastic end caps also often have weak spots deliberately designed in.

Re:Whatever.

[Kris_J]

We replaced every motherboard in a 38 PC lab (stupid Acer). It was annoying and it wasted a couple of lunchtimes, but this is why we have an IT Manager.

Re:Whatever.

[EightBitHustler]

I just replaced my Epox motherboard and my little brother's mobo has a few caps ready to burst. I think we'll be seeing the effects of that for a while.

Re:Whatever.

[Digi-John]

That's nothing. I had a motherboard die when the barrel of a cap actually BLEW OFF the board... I came home from a trip to find the little metal bit on the bottom of the case and long strands of paper spiraling from the board.

But it's just such a non-issue

[Sycraft-fu]

90% of lead waste comes from lead-acid batteries. With their use in cars, UPSes, telephone networks, etc this isn't really a supprise. So that's the real problem that needs solving, you could eliminate the rest of lead usage entirely, and still ahve made only a tiny dent.

But for PCBs it's even stupider. Of the remaning 10%, PCBs are only about 5% (I can't get an exact number, but it's around 5%). So basically you are talking about targeting any significant portion of the lead. Getting rid of a half a percent just doesn't do anything.

Now supposing this was an all-good proposition, as in the only requirement was a little most cost for solder, I'd be all for it. I'd have no problem at all with spending more money for lead free solder if it worked as well. But that's NOT the case, it's not only harder to work with, but as this article notes, leads to increased equipment failures.

Well what happens then? People don't repair burnt out electroncis, it's not worth it even when it's possible. They throw them out and buy new ones. So now we are talking about something which not only fails to make any real dent in the lead problem, but increases waste over all!

That's what I hate, is that the enviornmentalists, or rather I should say the mob that chooses to call themselves environmentalists have no idea what they are actually doing. They push for knee-jerk, feel good legslation that often ends up making things worse than if they had just stayed out of it.

We are not going to give up all our technology and go live in the forest with the wild animals. Thus improvements to enviromental impact have to be made without fundimentally changing society. Well, when working in those parameters, it's a lot harder to make sure what you are proposing actually does more good than harm, and it's important to properly research that.

The problem is environmentalist groups start out wanting absurd absolutes like the total abolition on the use of lead. Then to them, any little step towards that is a victory. No doubt they pushed for this PCB thing since someone got them riled and in their minds it's a huge problem because of all teh computers our there (failing to account for what a small portion of them is solder). They were able to get the electronics industry to go along with it since it doesn't raise costs much and makes them look good. Besides, more device failures just means more repeat customers and more money.

Then the environmentalists are patting themselves on the back for supposedly inching closer to some completely unatainable absolutist goal, while ignoring that their change is making the enviroment worse on other fronts.

Tin Whiskers?

[catdevnull]

That's the same name as my new Japanese robotic cat! [I know, I know: -5 Troll]

Extreme ignorance, news at 11

[Ars-Fartsica]

In 1900 the economy was still alost entirely agriculture-based. Industrialization was filthy business but not widespread enough to have an impact. Does any take history anymore?

Re:Whatever.

[bluephone]

Dude, if you know this, you can save it. Buy identical caps, and go to town with a soldiering iron. Of course, most "geeks" these days would never do such a thing. I remember when we'd never throw out hardware just because it was "broken". :)

so THAT's why you have to kick it to make it work:

[dapic]

to shake down the whiskers shortening the circuit. :)

Oh really?

[bluGill]

Do you have any outdoor faucets? They are exposed to sunlight. How about windows in the basement, which can let sunlight in?

Modern farms are highly industrial, yet they almost universally have at least one outdoor faucet that is just a pipe sticking out of the ground.

Re:Whatever.

[wkitchen]

Manufacturers used cheap capacitors in an attempt to save money. Manufacturers will be using lead free solder because they are required by law to do so. Unlike the capacitor debacle, you can't just replace a few $.30 parts to fix an ailing piece of equipment. And the manufacturer's can't just switch back to the better quality components to fix the problem in production. And it ain't cheap, either. You'll be paying more money for equipment that you have to replace sooner.

Re:Whatever.

[Kris_J]

Here's my blog entry from way back.

Ah, the sweetness of lead.

[dustymugs]

So I guess its time to go stock up on lead-tin solder before they pull them off the shelves.

I really do with they'd go after other products with lead, batteries and such, before they go after our electronics. Its not like little kids are licking their parents' spool of solder!

Re:Ah, the sweetness of lead.

[belg4mit]

RTFP. Environmental ne Health

The problem is with heat.

[IdahoEv]

Where is the problem in making a final layer of paint finish on the tin circuitry?

Heat. Paint is a shitty conductor of heat, and heat dissipation is already a nightmare in many electronics. Now add an insulating layer of on top of everything? Damm....

Also, expense. Try painting all the exposed solder joints on a PCB while leaving the chips and heatsinks unpainted. Not easy...

Re:The problem is with heat.

[silence535]

Heat. Paint is a shitty conductor of heat

Should not be a problem for satellites, but in general I guess you're right.

Maybe some kind of silicone paint that only sticks to metal? Silicone is a good heat conductor compared to 'normal' paint.

-jsl

Tin Whiskers?

[serutan]

I can't help but think that would be a great name for a band.

Rodney Dangerfield

[4of12]

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!"

Re:Whatever.

[andreyw]

First I need a soldering iron that can be used for finer work than soldering pots :-)

Some Tin Whiskers Pics from NASA

[DopeyPotatoe]

Selected especially for you by Google :) http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/ NASA has been looking into the problem since a comm sat failed a while ago due to Tin Whiskers. Yea, Pb-free electronics could make solid-state electronics a disposable commodity.