

Tin Whiskers: Within a whisker of failure - bootload
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/apr/03/research.engineering

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phaedrus
This is exactly the reason I became concerned and ticked off when learned of
this RoHS regulation when buying electronics components for hobby projects.

You get these politicians who are not scientists or engineers making mandates
that make them look good but which have terrible consequences for technology &
society. I also seriously doubt eliminating lead from solder is really that
important for the environment, compared to everything else we do. It's
certainly not worth the problems it will cause when our already densely-packed
electronics doesn't last more than a year due to tin whisker growth.

On the other hand, maybe they know _exactly_ what they're doing. It's not
enough that that TV will be obsolete in a few years - let's make sure you
can't even use it after 2.

Could be good for me though: I may one day be able to pick up TVs, computers,
and all sorts of "broken" electronics for free; five minutes running a heat
gun over the boards to melt the tin whiskers and suck them back into the
solder joints, and voila! It works again.

~~~
bootload
_"... This is exactly the reason I became concerned and ticked off when
learned of this RoHS regulation when buying electronics components for hobby
projects. ..."_

I first stumbled across this problem looking at the whisker site nasa has ~
<http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker> where there is some serious "whisker
mitigation" going on. There are lots of interesting images showing why this is
a real problem.

