[Elecraft] OT: News Article on "Tin Whiskers" Ruining Electronics

[Don Wilhelm]

Typical of news reports, the media seems to concentrate on the 
sensational.  Certainly, the proliferation of throw-away consumer 
electronics ending up in landfills is a grave concern for adding to the 
lead content of our environment, and I applaud the efforts to keep that 
to a minimum.

But, consider just how many ham rigs end up in landfills - not many in 
my opinion.  We have many avid collectors of old ham gear and in many 
cases, boat anchors are a prized possession.  Lead-free solders are a 
real salvation for manufacturers (BTW, the K3 and later K2 boards are 
RoHS compliant) who can implement the lead-free techniques.  For 
personal soldering, I chose to use my 63/37 alloy solder, and I know 
that little of it will ever find its way to the landfill.

The 'tin-whiskers' problem is one that exists mainly at the chip level.  
The migration of conductive paths between pins that can be soldered by 
hand techniques is *not* a problem because the 'whiskers' typically do 
not extend that far.  It is a problem inside the chips where distances 
are measured in angstroms rather than in fractional inches or millimeters.

Bottom line - while you may eventually see this 'tin whiskers' problem 
resulting in IC failures, it will not be apparent in the soldering that 
we hams do, even with the fine pitch SMD devices.

73,
Don W3FPR

Dick & Judy Lamb wrote:
> A recent Associated Press article discusses a topic that's received 
> much attention on this reflector:   the negative consequences of 
> environmental restrictions on lead in solder for electronics.  The 
> primary concern the article mentions is that tin, when in an alloy 
> absent of lead, promotes the spontaneous  growth of tiny  "tin 
> whiskers" that can short traces in circuit boards.  Failures stemming 
> from whiskers are cited in electronics ranging from consumer items to 
> satellites. The article as it appeared in my local newspaper had a 
> very dramatic photo of whiskers on a tin-plated tuning capacitor.
> http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2007/10/06/news/doc4707c03901b23958789121.txt 
>
>
> I should note, for newcomers to the reflector, that Elecraft's list of 
> approved solders specifically cautions against using any that are lead 
> free:
>