You assume correctly. However, it is a serious point, because there is more mercury in there than the official maximum limit for disposal in regular household garbage in Europe (apparently). At my local dump, there is a special bin for 'regular' fluorescent tubes, but no mention of CFLs, which I'm sure that many people don't realise, also employ the same basic technology. Incidentally, in an effort to promote these hateful lights, my local supermarket is 'giving them away' for 1 penny each. Another one was giving them free with a certain amount of shopping a few weeks ago. So I wonder how that equates with the proposals to 'build in' the cost of disposal of electronic waste, to the retail price ...?
I'm right-well pleased with the $2 21W CFLs from Home Despot. Their balance is close to daylight (as confirmed with digital photographs taken under their light), and in a glass (or even plastic) fixture, you'd never know they were fluorescents. *
They're not only cheaper to operate than incandescents (regular or halide), but they come on _instantly_. Faster, actually, than incandescents, which you can see "ramp up".
Last year Home Despot gave away 12W CFLs on Black Friday. I stuck mine in the fixture next to my condo's front door. It's always burning out, because the owners' association doesn't understand why they should use 130V, rather than 120V, lamps.
In my kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms, I've hung beautiful glass fixtures from IKEA. They're white glass, and have the sort of utterly simple design that will be considered classic even 1000 years from now. I just hope they survive that long, because IKEA doesn't make them any more. (Natch.) I had to scramble to find the four I have. By the way, they replaced four of those awful "tin-can" spotlights.
Thank you for publishing the article on tin whiskers (Within a whisker of failure, April 3). Too much attention has been given to well-meaning people who are pushing the environmental agenda but with very little science behind what they are trying to achieve. Some of the green community captured the public attention and pushed through the no lead on electronics, when there was not sufficient test data available (actually there was a lot of data on US military aircraft). Now we are finding the problems of having a political agenda and not one based on science and facts. Steven Adamson, IMAPS president and Asymtek market manager
-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
Very nicely put by Mr Adamson and, whilst The Guardian is not one of my favourite rags, all credit to them for at least publishing a reply that swims against the tide, and does not tow the government line ... It's good to see some 'alternative' views finally making themselves heard in the public domain !
# The Guardian, # Thursday April 17 2008 Tin woes solder on
Congratulations on the very interesting article on tin whiskers (Within a whisker of failure, April 3). You may be interested to hear of another phenomenon associated with lead-free solders in electronics, known as tin pest. Research was carried out into the allotropy of tin 80 years ago. Tin pest was found to occur by a process of nucleation and growth of "grey" tin (a form found below 13C), and was very slow - often requiring years to complete. Since the transition from "white" to "grey" tin involved a 27% increase in volume, its formation was restricted to the surface. Recently, tin pest has been reported in bulk samples of lead-free solder alloys following a few years' exposure at -18C, the usual freezer temperature.
To date it has not been observed on actual joints. But lead-free interconnections have been in service for a relatively short time. Although we do not know whether it is necessary to shut the stable door, we should make more effort to understand and control tin pest formation. Only time will tell whether it represents a real problem in electronics. Professor Bill Plumbridge Faculty of Technology The Open University
-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
'Plumb' -ridge. What an appropriate name for someone versed in lead matters ! Seriously though, I'm really glad that the scientific establishment is finally making some anti lead-free noise, and backing up with genuine science, what we lowly service engineers have been trying to tell the world, since the first day that this hateful material was foisted on us by self serving bureaucrats with a politically 'green' agenda ...
# The Guardian, # Thursday April 24 2008 A whisker of doubt
I believe there are several inaccuracies in Kurt Jacobsen's article (Within a whisker of failure, April 3). He cites the Swatch watch company as recalling a "huge batch" of watches that amounted to a financial loss, when in fact Swatch was denied its request for a RoHS exemption, as another supplier makes lead-free quartz movements it could use with no whisker issues. Also, Swatch makes no mention of a recall in its EU request. The nuclear power plant failure example and others are also misleading, as these were failures due to pure-tin formulations that predate RoHS. The new formulations reduce these issues. Here's a good article that refutes the "gloom and doom" predictions: tinyurl.com/4wxmkz. Marcus England, by email
-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
Hmmm. Have you ever come across any solder that's pure tin ? It would take a blowtorch to melt it. Also, there is plenty of research that shows that the lead in tin-lead solder alloy, mitigates the growth of tin whiskers, whereas copper doesn't. And anyway, none of the whisker issues alter the fact that the bloody stuff just doesn't make reliable joints on many component forms, as anyone involved at the sharp end, would attest to ...
The article that Mr England cites, does not instil a great deal more confidence in me. Whilst it may be true that *some* cellular phones have been manufactured in lead-free since 2001, this 'fact' tells us nothing about the long-term reliability of them, as most are owned primarily as a fashion statement - even amongst 'mature' businessmen - and only secondarily as a communications device. This, as well as the fact that the battery only lasts a short while, dictates that it is replaced on a yearly basis, which is encouraged by the cellular operators, when they give the latest all singing and dancing models away, as an incentive to stick with their network.
Further, this is just one single low power device, As all of us involved in electronic service work know, there are many other consumer devices such as TV sets, DVD players, HiFi, microwave ovens etc which, unlike cellphones, contain large power components and connectors, which do not enjoy good long term - or often even short term - reliability, when jointed using lead-free solders. This in no way supports the statement in the article that :-
"This field data indicates the reliability of lead-free assemblies is equal to, or better than, tin-lead soldered assemblies".
You simply can't make statements like that based on a single product group, and claim them to have blanket validity.
The further statement ....
"While laboratory studies suggest lead-free solder does not perform as well in high-stress applications, such as might occur in a ?drop test', many applications with these types of concerns (i.e. military) are currently exempted from RoHS. Meanwhile, alloy developmental work to address lead-free shortcomings is already underway."
.... contains three areas of concern in that (1) lead-free solder does not perform *as well* ... (2) some applications e.g. military have concerns about this, and (3) that it is accepted that the technology has shortcomings that need to be addressed.
Further, I also have a problem with the first paragraph in the article :-
"Most people incorrectly think the primary intent of RoHS is to protect the environment. In truth, the fundamental purpose of RoHS is to make recycling EEE easier and safer."
Protection of the environment was the ticket on which RoHS in general - and this substitute lead-free technology in particular - was originally sold to an unsuspecting world. It seems to me that those who make up this eco-legislation (as they go along, I suspect) are now discovering the error of their original concept as to why the mature and proven lead solder technology needed replacing, and are now seeking to bury that error in a different concept altogether. I can't remember ever before seeing any reference anywhere to RoHS being primarily to improve the ease and safety of WEEE recycling, rather than as an environmental issue.
So, far from this article "refuting the gloom and doom", I think it serves only to further highlight the well known shortcomings of lead-free solder technology, and unfortunately for Mr England's case, I don't believe that his letter holds a candle to the two from the other side of the coin, which preceded it.
What exactly can be recycled from say a PC? As far as I can see the steel casing and perhaps some copper if it is not too widely distributed , fragmented, needing human separation and plastic separation environmental problems. RoHS for recycling implies component level recycling - recycling 3 to 10 year old pc ICs - pull the other one. Failing that, recycling processed sand and hard plastic after desoldering, very unlikely. Leaves just the solder itself, which is just as recyclable with or without lead presumably .
-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
That would appear to me to be the nub of the matter, so it sounds as though you agree with me that this 'ease of recycling' thing is a subtle shift of tack to better handle the changing wind direction ...
I know that they do recover gold from gold-plated connectors and IC pins, but other than that, I agree that there's not a lot that can be recycled from a purely practical point of view in terms of cost-effectiveness, both from purely monetary and energy budget considerations.
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