[time-nuts] RoHS crap

[Didier Juges]

For those interested, google "tin wiskers" and look up the NASA web site 
that has lots of good pictures. It is scary to think people actually 
build equipment with that stuff.

Needless to say, in my business (military electronics), nobody wants to 
hear about lead free solder. The prime contractors and the military 
customers simply don't want it in their planes/ships. They don't care if 
it's the law or what not. But, as an equipment manufacturer, we are 
stuck very often with lead-free parts, simply because most part 
manufacturers and distributors don't want to carry two product lines, 
and for those few that still do, they make it very non-attractive to buy 
SnPb parts (price and lead time goes up), but that's OK, we get lead 
free parts which we solder with SnPb after adjusting the profile. That 
seems to work. Interestingly, none of our customers has asked (yet) to 
requalify any product because we now use Pb free parts... I expect a 
different ball game if we go to Pb free soldering.

It is true that for a lot of the purely commercial stuff, with very 
limited life expectancy (think digital camera or cell phone, who is 
using one that's more than 2 years old?), lead free will probably not be 
a problem, but there is a certain amount of commercial gear that is 
expected to last a lot longer, like a television or a stereo, land line 
telephone, garage door opener and fridge for instance. These things do 
not become obsolete over night (even though HDTV will try to do that) 
and people have gotten used to these things lasting a long time. I would 
expect a certain amount of backlash is everyone had to replace *all* 
electronic equipment every 2-3 years. So, the industry, after dragging 
its feet for a while, will have to adjust and come up with a workable 
game plan.

Didier KO4BB