Hacker News Reader

Comment by jaredandrews | Hacker News Reader

Fascinating, anyone here ever experience problems due to this phenomenon?

Yes. A startup where I worked built an internet appliance that had a socketed chip modem. One failed mysteriously, pulling it out and testing it, it worked, plugging it in, it failed. Looking closely at the area below the socket a tin whisker was pointed straight up from one of the socket pins. Almost impossible to see unless you looked at it at just the right angle.

Yes, I've seen RoHS-related whisker issues in production hardware, although not related specifically to lead-free solder. These whiskers [1] appeared on the body of a PCB-mounted TNC jack from Amphenol, a US-based vendor.

It's very upsetting to see this happen to your own hardware, just because some EU bureaucrats believe that long-lasting electronic products are a bad thing rather than a good thing. Fortunately, 6 years down the road, it appears to have been a one-time incident.

[1] https://imgur.com/kmb2mtZ

Lead leeching into the soil and water supply is a very, very bad thing. Eventually, even long-lasting electronics must be disposed of, and if it contains significant quantities of lead, it poses a risk of poisoning the environment.

Those "EU bureaucrats" are protecting their children, and by extension yours through a sort of regulatory herd immunity, from lead toxicity.

Yeah, right. Where are the numbers? If lead "leeches" out of solder and into the water table, it happens in microscopic quantities on geologic timescales.

Getting lead out of gasoline made sense. Solder and plating, no. At less than 0.66 grams of solder based on tin content alone [1], one iPhone built with 63/37 eutectic lead solder would contain less lead than about 20,000 car batteries. Last I checked, we're still poisoning your children with those.

[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/433wyq/everything-thats-i...

one iPhone built with 63/37 eutectic lead solder would contain less lead than about 20,000 car batteries

Sheesh, I'd hope so. Make that 20000 phones ~= one car battery. Must be all that lead getting to me.

You are very seriously underestimating the effect of lead in the environment. If this is the sort of thing that gets people upset at the EU bureaucrats then I'm all for it. ROHS free products have longevity on par with what was delivered before, yes, there have been some minor issues but in spite of the 'sky is falling' initial response that simply didn't happen.

Lead sucks, don't get me wrong. But it still has valid industrial uses. I just Googled for the stats, and we apparently still sell about 100 million car batteries a year in North America alone. Which seems crazy high, but at least they almost all get recycled since the market demand still exists.

We should be doing that for electronics, too. Right now "recycling" electronics means sending it to China where some kid takes it apart with a blowtorch, so yeah, I'm sure they appreciate RoHS. That doesn't make it a net win for the electronics industry or for humanity in general.

Admittedly, you're right about reliability increasing over time, and I'll further admit that I expected a different outcome entirely. By making manufacturing more difficult and expensive, RoHS forced everyone to pay strict attention to their processes, and that tends to result in better products. The Amphenol thing is a glaring exception.

Some patents seem to indicate that some companies have developed solder solvents. I don't know how prevalent it is but it exists.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com