Lunacy from Brussels

You got your temporary solution? Good!

So what's toxic about the no-lead solders that's worse than leaded solders? Or is it just that the no-lead business got folks to thinking about it?

That was an electronic engineer? The Germans (unlike the British) do differentiate between engineers and technicians, but mechanical engineers don't have to know much about electronics.

And so you should. Over in Europe, we wonder about the US lunatics who sit still while Dubbya packs all the technical committees with industry experts, who'd condone sending arsenic up the smoke stack on the basis that it was good for the skin (as it is - in very low doses).

Whenever you get too uptight about all these modern rules and regulations, think about the asbestos, chromium, mercury and all the other "harmless" stuff that cheapskate manufacturers let lose on their communities. One aspect of the withering away of the state that we could well skip.

----------- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

And often that "narrow band" is in the acoustic range!

Ah well, did say that I often think that Europeans are more sensible than we are here in the "Land of the Free." Certainly have misgivings about our current frenzy to dismantle environmental regulations here.

But, did find it startling that trade mags had to caution users on toxic qualities of materialsfor use in electronic assemblies, when these materials are mandated by the folks in Brussels.... for safety reasons!

W Letendre

snipped-for-privacy@ieee.org wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that W Letendre wrote (in ) about 'Lunacy from Brussels', on Wed, 12 Oct 2005:

Well, he had totally misunderstood. There is EMC legislation, designed to protects all forms of radio reception and the quality of the public electricity supply, and then there is 'EMF' (Electro-Magnetic Fields) legislation, which hasn't received anywhere near enough publicity, and which addresses the human health issue.

The permissible emission levels are quite different and unrelated. Control of EMF is being implemented under the Low Voltage and RTTE Directives, not the EMC Directive.

I read in sci.electronics.design that Tim Wescott wrote (in ) about 'Lunacy from Brussels', on Wed, 12 Oct 2005:

The 'toxic crud' comes from the flux, which is, or can be, different from that used with PbSn solders.

The real problems are millions of devices all producing tiny amounts of interference. It adds up.

Well.... Not really. That sort of thing does indeed give a soup of E.M. radiation but one that'ts generally easily dealt with.

The real problem is nearby radiation in a narrow band.

Notably cellphones !

Graham

One reason being that fluxes for lead free need to be more *active*.

I'm wondering if 'no clean' is still going to be a workable option when the changeover finally happens.

Graham

Hello Tim,

That is usually the result after over-zealous regulators have managed to push through some partially non-sensical law. Then everybody scrambles to find a fix that allows to continue business.

The EU is crazy in that respect. But not just them. Remember the oxygenation mandate for California gasoline? MTBE was hastily added because it looked like "the" quick fix. Only a year later and ... "oh s*it". It turned out to leach into the ground water, big time.

Regards, Joerg

Or not so easily dealt with in future with just about everything being an em transmitter or responder. Like real smog, one car doesn't cause much of a problem.

Well, roll on spread spectrum...

What chemicals in the flux?

Sal Ammoniac

W Letendre wrote:

Every regulation has at least one un-intended consequence. That lead-free solders need a flux that is more toxic than the fluxes we now use with lead-based solders probably wasn't obvious to the rule-makers in Brussells.

There's probably a good chance that someone will eventually develop a less toxic flux for lead-free solders, but these things do take time.

It is unfortunate that these well-intentioned policies about the way we do things have to be instantiated as inflexible bureaucratic regulations - like democracy, it is a hopeless way to run a system, but unfortunately better than anything else we've tried.

Chomsky preaches the virtue's of an anarcho-syndicalist social organisation, but has nothing to say on how it would actually work. The German Betriebsrat (Works Council)

is drawn from the anarcho-syndicalist tradition, but in an anarcho-syndicalist state it would be one of the political forums, roughly comparable with municipal councils or city councils (depending on the size of the firm - the works council of a big multinational company would probably have their own representative at the U.N.) and we could expect the bureaucrats making the rules in Brussells to be drawn - in part - from the industries being regulated, not as management appointess(as in the US at the moment), but as political activists coming in through the economic branch of government, where all we have today are representatives drawn from the law-makers and the supervisors.

--------------- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

anarcho-syndicalist tradition?

Or Monty Python. It is beyond belief to me that anyone could point to any aspect of Brussels and consider it a good example of any positive trait. It's a very long trough full of very stupid snouts.

Wow, Bill - thats a beautiful piece of obfuscation - what does it mean

- are you postulating that a workers collective could do a better job than a bunch of bureacrats - why? - would they be more or better educated, altruistic, concerned only with the good of their fellow man

- or would it degenerate into just another mess by a different name - which incidentally, is what usually happens........

Andrew VK3BFA.

BTW - I laid asbestos pipe and pit, wiped lead joints, used toxic chemicals as cleaning solvents, worked around exposed heavy maxhinery - all the current no no's - hopefully the workers after me will not be exposed to these things anymore - so maybe the bureaucrats DO have some useful function. And it wasnt in a workers paradise either..... (and I miss Freon, still the best contact cleaner I ever used...)

Bad as it is, the Republican administration in the U.S. is worse - before you get too rude about Brussells, you have the review the existing alternatives, which are remarkably unattractive.

----------- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Don't I know it. However, you can't describe it as obfustication.

The anarcho-syndicalist point is that electing democratically chosen representatives to the legislature only only gives you a half democracy. You spend half your time working for a company where power is concentrated in the hands of the major shareholders and their appointed managers, where these people also have a disproportionate influence in the legislature.

I've worked for some absolutely brilliant bosses, but I've also worked for a rather larger number of total idiots, who shouldn't have been allowed to run any busness more complicated than an ice-cream van.

The classic anarcho-syndicalists did want to run companies as worker's collectives, and the only time anybody tried it - in Catalonia in 1936

- it worked pretty well, until the central Spanish government and their Russian-controlled Communist allies managed to assert military control (Orwell complained that the troops sent to occupy Catalonia were fitter, fatter, and much better equipped than those sent to the front to fight Franco),

Attractive as this idea is, it frightens too many rich and powerful people to be a practical proposition or any kind of acknowledged ultimate aim.

German firms run quite effectively with workers councils working in parallel with their Anglo-Saxon style boards of directors - this seems to provide a forum for sensible and wide-reaching negotiations between trade unions and management.

Strengthing this sort of political forum within business life could provide a route for politicians to emerge from technical and business activities, and might - in time - lead to a better class of bureaucrat in Brussells.

At the moment, the only politician I can think of with a business background is Berlusconi and he seems to have decided that it was cheaper to bribe the electorate and become the government than to keep on bribing whatever government was in power.

-------- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen