Respectfully,
You will not turn this around. The next generation of solder wave equipment,
solder pots, reflow ovens, solder, fluxes, etc. that support Pb-free
production are already being made or planned by those driving this effort.
The plans include a new "buying round" of advanced equipment to handle the
"new" Pb issue. This, coupled with a not fully understood problem, and a
fairly vocal group of environmentally-minded folks (the groundswell seems to
have begun in Japan and Europe), leads to governments taking actions before
they are completely aware of the final result. How many studies have you
seen on the problem with increasing tin in the landfills? Or byproducts of
tin breaking down in the soil or water over time? Certainly there have been
some, but money talks.
Call me a cynic, but where there is a new round of "buying" involved that
has the promise of helping out ailing economies, the governments of those
locales have a tendency to support these actions - with legislation and/or
insufficient or perhaps mis-guided information, thereby appeasing not only
the equipment industry but also the vocally outspoken environmental critics
both of which can and do affect the outcomes of general elections. It's a
win-win situation for politicians. Those of us who would like to think we
know more about the true situation don't have a chance to contain the fervor
that has arisen around this subject unless the electronics manufacturing
business, as a whole, lets everyone know that this is all rubbish; proves it
with documented studies undertaken by credible (read: independent) sources;
and makes a good case to the world about the unnecessary hand-wringing going
on...
This discourse is, of course, loaded with my personal opinion - not to be
construed as any endorsement by my employer or any other organization. But,
unfortunately, it looks to me like we will all be building Pb-free products
soon.
Dale Ritzen, CQA
Quality Manager
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Bloomquist, Ken
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 9:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Is removal of lead from electronics solders a
legitimate effort?
Joe,
That is great information! Now how do we use it to drive back the
initiative? It appears that industry and a great number of scientists are in
agreement that going lead free is not any where near the highest priority
for improving the environment, not to mention the potential impact on
product reliability. If the efforts and dollars being spent on going lead
free in electronics were redirected to real problems we might just see a
real improvement.
The problem? How do you turn the train around???
Thanks again Joe,
KennyB
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