[AR] Re: Removing Coking Deposits
- From: Norman Yarvin <yarvin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2016 23:20:24 -0400
On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 02:42:34AM +0100, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
We all now know lead-free solder is not really satisfactory, but the ban
was made before that came to be well-known, as part of a general ban on
lead. Is it now time to revisit it?
That's not something I know. Indeed, I was half-expecting a huge wave
of failures back when the industry switched to lead-free solder, and
it basically didn't happen. Yes, there's the tin whiskers problem,
but that's a matter of the plating used on electronic components;
lead-free solder doesn't grow whiskers. And the plating involves a
much smaller amount of lead: 1% or 2% rather than the 37% or 40% in
leaded solder, and more material is used in solder than in plating in
the first place.
I did hear some talk about lead leaching out of dumps of used electronic
equipment which had been shipped to Africa, but I don't know the details
- however, another way of preventing this potential harm would be not to
ship old electronics to Africa...
The version I heard (again vague talk) was that the concern was of
lead ending up in landfills: there were projections that the
accumulation might start to be a problem in about 800 years, to which
the Americans had the reaction that this wasn't worth worrying about,
while the Europeans had the reaction that the phaseout should start
immediately. ("The difference between Europeans and Americans is that
Europeans think 200 miles is a long distance and Americans think 200
years is a long time.")
Thanks for the clarifications as regards trichloroethane.
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