Correct indeed.  When deaths from tin whiskers have been documented, the world press will jump on this fiasco like sharks to chum in the water.  Then we can sit back and enjoy watching those imbeciles in Brussels try to explain their faulty logic.

Of course the cellphone industry could have used SAC solder on tin/lead plated terminations any time they wanted to.  Lasky's Motorola argument is specious.

Note also that he never rebutted my comments re tin whiskers. Totally ignored them. Tin whiskers are real, they happen randomly and they have the potential to kill people, will fill landfills with products that prematurely fail.  

Look at the world's economy today. Who can afford to replace consumer electronics every few years?  I'm not speaking about cellphones or tablets, I'm speaking about washers, dryers, large screen Tvs, automobiles, general aviation airplanes, pleasure boat radars, the electric "smart" grid (billions of devices expected to be sold and have 20 year lifetimes), etc...  Electronics is invading all consumer space, from your coffee pot to your toothbrush (and some toilets such as the Japanese Toto brand with heated seat and a bidet for $2500).

I have an electric utility client who was going to do AMR (automated meter reading) to replace mechanical watt-hour meters but that project has been deferred because of the bad economy. When I told him about tin whiskers he said he would write into the future specs that they must be made with tin/lead technology as they were going to AMR to make the meters last LONGER, reduce SERVICE calls!  Not to increase them!

This industry has a lot of explaining to do, the piper to pay. Never say never. Can't means won't.  

This stupid legislation can be reversed to allow lead back into solder.

Leave it to the Japanese to do what we in the West are too timid to do. Domo arigato, Japan.

My colleagues Denny Fritz, Gordon Davy and I were compelled to develop a nickel metal capping process to prevent tin from whiskering and next month we'll have much more to disclose about how to stop whiskers.  Some of you may have learned of the process having read John Burke's article - see www.ldfcoatings.com. That being said, we would gladly pack it in were the world to return to sanity, return to providing tin/lead plating component terminations en mass.  For those of us who still use tin/lead solder, that's all we need for our "lead control plan".

Bob Landman
H&L Instruments, LLC
LDF Coatings, LLC

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stadem, Richard D.
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 10:59 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Lead Free solder has performed well...

Hi, Pete
Rex nailed it. Perfectly. 
You and I and all of us understand the point of the EU legislation was to be "green" or at least appear to be. However, lead in solder was already "green", as it turns out. Rex was simply stating that the due diligence was never done by the EU before they imposed the lead ban and then they and Mr. Lasky tooted their own horns and announced that lead-free solder was a huge success. But the whole world knows it was just the opposite of a huge success in terms of its impact on the environment, and it fostered no benefits in terms of health improvement directly because there were none required. In fact, as both Rex and Mr. Lasky have agreed, the lead ban instigated the growth of illegal (and unnecessary) recycling industries that have contributed to the  pollution in China's rivers, and has had a very negative direct health impact on the populations of large cities in China, India, and elsewhere. 

Lead ingestion into the human body from solder was never an issue to begin with.

As I stated in my original post on this subject, the only people who CAN lay claim for any success with regards to lead-free reliability are those who made it work in spite of the bumbling idiots who instigated it without any regard to the effects of their actions, and none of those people who made it work were government bureaucrats. The people who made it work had names like Hwang, Hillman, Hillman, Gregory, Wenger, Engelmaier, et al.
 
And I, for one, do not accept that it is a done deal. Someday, when the EU politicians (and others) who stand to lose face in this issue are gone, the almighty dollar will make leaded solder look really good again. 

And guess what? The dollar always wins.
dean

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rex Waygood
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 8:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Lead Free solder has performed well...

I don't think I missed the point at all. 
:-)
Rex

Sent by me on my iPhone. 


On 12 Aug 2011, at 14:28, "Pete" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Rex. you may have missed the point.
> 
> Everything about the lead free legislation is wrong, from it's intended purpose to it's end result.  From the standpoint that the whole point was to help the environment, and it's more likely to have increased environmental damage, it's been a collossal failure.
> 
> But, we're stuck with it.  Japan's petition is going to be met with 
> the same smug reaction that was applied when the EU used this 
> legistlation to prove their ability to shape global legislation.  So 
> complaining about it isn't going to help.  The damage is done, the 
> best we can do is learn the best way to deal with it.  So far, the 
> industry has done a commendable job learning to accomplish something 
> we thought nearly impossible.  So
> 
> It's just tough for an engineering mentality to put so much effort into something we know is far from the best answer.
> 
> Pete
> 


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