Swatch kills RoHS

Over here we have a saying: The first will be the last. Most companies that have switched to lead-free soldering succesfully have waited for the process to mature and learn from mistakes made by others.

As far as I can tell, the process is far from mature and this whole RoHS endeavour was initiated without regard to the consequences on relying on immature technology.

Swatch say they are experiencing the tin whiskers problem. If so, and I see no reason to disbelieve them, then almost the whole elctronics industry will suffer the same problems. Interesting to see that they're having trouble at 0.8mm pitches.

" It becomes clear that this exemption, when granted, will be the basis for many more, and they will be permanent. "

There are also a significant number of applications for exemption yet to be even considered despite the 1st July introduction !

Interesting also to see that a number are using the need for a long product life as a reason for their claim.

Graham

After electronics fails because of whiskers and other lead-free defects, guess what happens to it?

So, ROHS may considerably increase the amount of e-waste.

John

suffer

even

We (the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation) seem to have a reliable lead-free process, but it took a *lot* of effort and expense--dozens or hundreds of man-years from some very smart people. Besides tin whiskers, the big problem is the formation of brittle intermetallic compounds under temperature cycling, leading to brittle fracture, pad erosion, you name it. The solutions involve very specific alloy formulations, pad metallurgies, and non-plated solder.

A huge waste of effort, mandated by bureaucrats who don't know the difference between rhetoric and reality.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Yes, and all those girlies who use panty pads. Oh that's wrong, they don't get blob weeks when they are on the pill... do they?

Anyway... If they are on the pill then that seriously fucks up the water source and makes fish gay and if they are on the blob then that fucks up the water treatment plant.

Plus they all use mobile phones to natter at each other and store up stress for you later and take the two week challenge to make their bums smaller.

So, where is the section in RoHS that deals with Girlies?

Not there is it?

DNA

"One is blinded to the fundamental uselessness of their products by the sense of achievement one feels in getting them to work at all. In other words, their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws."

It definitely will. Recently I had at least 3 light bulbs die at first ever turnon - had bought a dozen package - their solder joints were such a mess they had inhaled air. The package read "made in Germany" (osram), no specific RoHS marking. This entire RoHS nonsense is so stupid it just cannot be made up only by idiot-bureaucrats. Sounds like a well done job by some non EU intelligence services, some sort of operation to kill the EU electronics industry. I guess the easiest part has been to take advantage of the moron-based political "class" - as they call it nowadays - in Europe (to my experience, this "class" consists of 3-component people - the components being mouth, gut and ass).

Dimiter

------------------------------------------------------ Dimiter Popoff Transgalactic Instruments

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John Lark> >

suffer

even

Ah ! Is *that* the reason ? I've had something similar.

Especially the smaller companies.

As I love reminding ppl, the EU Commision is appointed not elected and is essentially unaccountable.

Graham

That's one of my favourites from So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish--and is quoted at the head of Chapter 20 of my book. It's more appropriate for the bureaucrats in this instance--they're the real "bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first ones against the wall when the revolution comes". (My other favourite from that one is the biscuit duel in the train station.)

Our servers have a specified availability of 5 nines--a maximum downtime of 5 minutes per year--so having something like a backplane solder joint fail is Very Bad News. You can't fix that by failover or plugging in a new blade.

We're totally paranoid about field failures, for which our customers thank us if they ever think about it.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

We have a klunky old IBM file server, running NT, that been sitting under a table gathering dust - and hosting all the company's files - for about 6 years.

John

essentially

That's true, but the Commission is only a part of the EU. The European Parliament is an excellent example of how democratic government

Tim

Hello Graham,

essentially

And that's a hardcore problem. They don't write to their representatives because it most likely wouldn't have much effect. I know that some EU folks aren't so fond of the US but I must say that we here in the US do have the better government structure, IOW a quite well functioning democracy. When we write to our rep they respond and if the case has merit they'll get on it pronto. They want to be re-elected next time.

The other puzzler is the press. I am surprised how silent the European press is about RoHS all that. In the US they'd be all over the bureaucrats by now.

Hello Phil,

Reminds me of the "pressfit" days. A rep came and said that this new solder-less pressfit method would guarantee 99.95% good contacts. Our motherboard had about 6000 contacts. So when he did his spiel in front of the big brass I raised my hand and asked him: "That would mean that three contacts are statistically open. Can you tell me which ones that would be?" After that you could have heard a pin drop in that meeting room.

essentially

Exactly so and I also have had an insight into how the IEC sets standards too and it doesn't impress. Hence the f*** up wrt IEC1000-3-2 and CE.

I get the impression it works ok at that level. In the UK we want politicians cheap so typically 2 MPs have to share a 'broom cupboard' office. No proper staff at all. Wives often deputise as secretaries.

The press hasn't a clue about technical things.

Graham

I'd nearly forgotten about compliant pin technology. Insertion forces seemed scary.

Graham

We did a couple hundred big ugly 25-slot CAMAC crates with AMP pressfit card-edge connectors, and I can't recall having any problems.

John

essentially

I've never written to my Commissioner, but I wrote to my MEPs regarding software patents. They replied individually. The EP rejected the proposals for software patents.

All down to me personally, of course. OK, perhaps not, but it was an example of EU democracy in action. The bigwigs had been conned into thinking patenting any and every kind of software was good, but the people didn't want it. The people won.

Tim

Hello Graham,

Here the press does. When they smell a rat they quickly secure some experts and get to the ground of it. Being first to put the finger into the wound sells a lot of papers.

There is another reason why press and news services are often better in the US: Feedback. I wouldn't know any TV station that doesn't have a clearly outlined channel for viewers to "snitch". And when you write to an editor you get a response. A couple weeks ago I did and had a detailed reply the very next day.