"Gizmo......GA GA!"
Posted on 01/28/2015 9:11:12 AM PST by dennisw
Almost ever electronic device made today except some for the military have solder joints that contain no lead. This is an effort to save our groundwater and our public health. The fact that the lead has been generally replaced with silver or bismuth, both of which are actually greater health risks than lead, well we’ll leave that one for Ralph Nader. The longer-term trend is toward all-tin connections, anyway, but they don’t work very well, either.
Costs have gone up for computers with lead-free solder, mean time between failures (MTBF) has gone down (in this case down is bad) and reliability has suffered. Since we don’t fix things anymore, it’s hard to say whether your gizmo failed because of bad solder or not, but the problem is becoming worse as a greater percentage of total circuits in use have lead-free solder. The military and NASA were especially concerned, so they generally operate under waivers allowing lead solder in the gear on which our space program or national security supposedly depend.
If your PC lives long enough it will eventually be killed by what are called tin whiskers — single crystals that mysteriously grow from pure tin joints but not generally from tin-lead solder joints. Nobody knows how or why these whiskers grow and nobody knows how to stop them, except through the use of lead solder. Whiskers can start growing in a decade or a year or a day after manufacture. They can grow at up to nine millimeters per year. They grow in any atmosphere including a pure vacuum. They grow in any humidity condition. They just grow. And when they get long enough they either touch another joint, shorting out one or more connections, or they vaporize in a flash, creating a little plasma cloud
These two statements make absolutely no sense at all. Please try again.
and i use lead/tin around my house for all my plumbing.
FTA
“silver or bismuth, both of which are actually greater health risks than lead”
If I go to dinner at the author’s house, can I expect to find he is using lead dinnerware instead of that unhealthy silver?
Silver is medicine and millions of folks put it in or on their bodies every day.
Please read my follow up posts. I’m not going to repeat my apologies for a misnomer.
probably worth a try....Taking apart a laptop is a pain
You can still buy 60/40 rosin core solder at any electronics store or online electronic parts site such as MCM Electronics.
Well, NASA had a waiver for the shuttle external tank insulation formula, too. It chose to go with the "green" alternative anyway.
A good thing to do in an older house where some lead may exist in the plumbing is to run the water for a minute before getting water for consumption by infants and young children. And to use cold water only for preparing food for children as the water in the water heater is stagnant compared to the cold water. i.e Use cold water to make soup that children will consume, don’t use hot water to make the soup.
None of that is needed in a modern home with lead-free or PVC pipe and connectors...although some feel that it is still a good idea.
Silver is a metal, not a medicine. All it does is migrate to the skin and turn the user into a smurf.
We will have a fridge with a filter, and will put one on the sink for cold water, primarily because the water where we live tastes like crap without a filter of some sort. Not too worried about hot water, as it always runs for a while to get hot, and then more so to wash anything. We don't use hot tap water for any food prep.
This comment is absolutely untrue. There are 3 untruths in your comment.
#1: Silver has been used medicinally for hundreds of years. It is a potent antibacterial and antiviral. It was used in antiquity to make water safer to drink. Nowadays silver drops are used for newborns' eyes as soon as they pop out the womb, and Johnson and Johnson recently released a bandage for burns that is imbued with silver.
#2: Migrate to the skin? There is no evidence of that, never heard it before, and I have researched (and used) Medicinal silver for a while now.
#3: Colloidal Silver has NEVER turned anyone blue. What has turned people blue is the imputrites in the CS that they made at home. Specifically, it is silver chloride that does this. Plus, those people take massive doses.
interesting,, lately Im having issues with the consistent soldering of BGA modules onto boards....
too bad the thread died so early.
What’s “lead core solder”?
Did you mean “acid-core solder”?
"Gizmo......GA GA!"
Read the rest of the thread. I’m not going to continue to repeat apologies for my misnomer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.