[tinwhiskers] Fwd: RE: RoHS
- From: Steve Smith <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: tinwhiskers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:18:58 -0700
I happen to know a metallurgical scientist.
Gordon, what do you think about this?
Steve Smith
-------------------------------------------
This is a forwarded message
From: Bridgers, Gene <gbridger@xxxxxx>
To: <rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Leidecker, Henning W.
\(GSFC-562.0\)" <henning.w.leidecker@xxxxxxxx>, "John Burke"
<john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, March 24, 2008, 7:52:12 AM
Subject: RoHS
===8<==============Original message text===============
Hello Bob,
As I read the 760G specification sheet, the benefit described was to
seal the connection area preventing humidity from getting to the area
that is likely to degrade and produce fret corrosion debrie. I agree
that keeping the humidity away is very helpful to reduce the rate of
degredation. If you are going to select such materials with rapid
degredation characterristics, you need to do more environmental
protection. No argument from me. That protection will delay the fret
corrosion for a longer time relative to what would exist very early
without the environmental protection.
I am not a metalurigical scientist, so I do not knoww the metalurigical
acceleration factors for tin-tin versus 30 u inches gold-gold. I know
you can wearout gold-gold with enough vibration. It has an end-of-life.
I lose sleep when trying to walk a middle ground. I was very glad when
Dr Dave decided on a specific path, since I could adopt his
recommendation and then sleep soundly again.
Regards,
Gene
________________________________
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 10:06 AM
To: Bridgers, Gene; Leidecker, Henning W. (GSFC-562.0); John Burke
Cc: howie03@xxxxxxxxxx; Steve Smith
Subject: RE: RoHS
Gene,
Sometimes theory and experimental evidence will lead to different
conclusions. We had been chasing problems in the field with Molex tin
plated power cable connectors (between boards in our product) that only
seemed to occur in high humidity high temp environments where the switch
gear shakes rather violently when it operates. It took a great deal of
time to finally pin down this was the problem. The customer sent us
pictures showing what looked to be discoloration on portions of the
header pins on the boards. We called Molex and their engineering dept
recommended specifically Nyogel lubricant> They said that all the
automakers use it on every connection in vehicles, esp. hybrids, golf
carts, any place the environment can be a factor. Needless to say 30u
gold is preferrable, but in the industrial market (and in the case of
the auto market (commercial market) prohibitively expensive. So we
tried the lubricant at the customer and it's worked miracles.
Intermittant problems disappeared 100%. It's a thick grease
(proprietary formula) and we swear by it. We recommended it to some
other customers having problems with other equipment and again it solved
problems. One of the most vexing common problem is intermittant
flashlights. Greasing the terminals of the batteries eliminates the
problem. Even my HP 41CV calculator which has flexible gold plated
fingers (which turn green) now are totally reliable with this lubricant.
It seems to me that the air we breath today is so full of contaminants
we need this kind of contact protection.
(Info on the grease below)
Bob
We found a good price at BatteryJunction.com
<http://www.batteryjunction.com/>
Here's the page with the grease on it:
http://www.batteryjunction.com/nyogel-760g.html
Good article on the lubricant:
http://www.machinedesign.com/ASP/strArticleID/56604/strSite/MDSite/viewS
electedArticle.asp
Nye wrote me:
Bob:
The 760G will really help prevent any further deterioration of the
connector after application.
Sincerely,
Mark J. Coholan
Technical Support Engineer
Nye Lubricants, Inc.
12 Howland Rd. Fairhaven, MA 02719
Ph: 508.996.6721 Fx: 508.997.5285
Em:mcoholan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.nyelubricants.com <http://www.nyelubricants.com/>
Learn more about the SmartGrease brand in this 3 minute video
presentation: http://www.impactmovie.com/nye/
NYE LUBRICANTS
The SmartGrease Company
Bob
________________________________
From: Bridgers, Gene [mailto:gbridger@xxxxxx]
To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Leidecker, Henning W.
(GSFC-562.0) [mailto:henning.w.leidecker@xxxxxxxx], John Burke
[mailto:john@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Cc: howie03@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:06:13 -0400
Subject: RE: RoHS
Hi Bob,
Somday, I will buy you lunch and share with you Dr David
Steinberg's theory on contact lubricant. Dr Dave convinced me to avoid
connector lubricants. Dr Dave pointed out that what ever debrie is
created, is caught by the contact lubricant and it is then located just
where it can do the most bad things. We do not allow contact
lubrication to be used or the warranty is voided.
Regards,
Gene
________________________________
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 12:48 PM
To: Leidecker, Henning W. (GSFC-562.0); John Burke; Bridgers,
Gene
Cc: howie03@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
thankfully we don't use fingers on our PC boards but we do use
DB style connectors and I wonder if the microinches of gold on them has
also been reduced. 1-2 insertions is more typical for our equipment as
its normally installed and not removed unless the equipment fails.
Have not seen any connector reliability problems except on an
older product which had an AMP RJ-45 (telephone style jack). Green gunk
would appear on the jack in Southern climes which means that there were
pinholes in the coating and the copper(beryliium?) springy metal
underneath had tarnished.
Cleaning then coating with Nye contact lubricant eliminated
future problems.
Bob
________________________________
From: Leidecker, Henning W. (GSFC-562.0)
[mailto:henning.w.leidecker@xxxxxxxx]
To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, John Burke
[mailto:john@xxxxxxxxxxx], Bridgers, Gene [mailto:gbridger@xxxxxx]
Cc: howie03@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:54:01 -0400
Subject: RE: RoHS
Dear Bob,
Some years ago, just after gold jumped in cost again,
the Pacific rim suppliers dropped the thickness of gold coating on the
gold-coated fingers on the contacts of the Personal Computer plug-in
cards from 30 micro-inches to 10 micro-inches. The USA gang followed
this within hours, saying "competitive pressure" and "it must be OK".
It took about two years for the reliability studies to
be finished.
The 10 micro-inch thick stuff was OK for about three
mate/demate cycles, and was certainly worn out (= erratic in contacting)
after 10 cycles. Also, pin-hole corrosion exploded in harm.
The older 30 micro-inch was OK for about 200 cycles, and
far less troubled by pin-hole corrosion.
And by then, field use had confirmed terrible
reliability problems with the thiner stuff.
Sincerely,
Henning
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wed 3/19/2008 6:02 PM
To: John Burke; Bridgers, Gene
Cc: Leidecker, Henning W. (GSFC-562.0);
howie03@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
This is a company who supplies shields that are RoHS
compliant
http://www.lairdtech.com/pages/products/index.asp
They are all MATTE TIN. Henning Leidecker at NASA
commented:
Matte tin, electroplated over steel, has a chance to
develop whiskers at a density of between zero to 500 -- 1,000 whiskers
per square centimeter; these would probably have a log-normal
distribution of lengths with a median length growing at 0.3 to 1 mm per
year, starting after perhaps 6 months.
Bob Landman
From: John Burke [mailto:john@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 4:26 PM
To: 'Bridgers, Gene';rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Henning.W.Leidecker@xxxxxxxx;howie03@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
Excellent!!
Thank you.I am running several programes on RoHS 6 some
for telecoms applications..
The interesting thing is that no one wants to do the tin
whisker testing because of the time frame/cost, so they all point at
their competition (larger ones) saying "well they (the competition
company) must have done it and we use the same components so it must be
OK".............8-(
John Burke
(408) 515 4992
From: Bridgers, Gene [mailto:gbridger@xxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 6:08 PM
To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Henning.W.Leidecker@xxxxxxxx; howie03@xxxxxxxxxx;
john@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
Bob,
Our local IEEE Reliability ADCOM met tonight and the
attached proposal was made and approved.
Gene
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 11:13 AM
To: Bridgers, Gene
Cc: Henning.W.Leidecker@xxxxxxxx; howie03@xxxxxxxxxx;
john@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
Excellent news Gene! I would very much like to be a part
of this effort.
I've copied this reply to Howie Johnson, Henning
Leidecker and John Burke so they'll be aware of our efforts.
Hopefully other IEEE groups will form to do likewise.
Best regards,
Bob
From: Bridgers, Gene [mailto:gbridger@xxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 8:16 AM
To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
Bob,
The day after we met, Craig Hillman visited us at
Mercury and we discussed this risk in addition to other risks.
I have made a proposal to our local IEEE to make thois
topic a formal project. Next week, the leadership will meet and we
should have clear marching orders in less than 1 month.
Thanks,
Gene
PS, I start my vacation on Saturday but I will have some
limited access to email.
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:25 AM
To: naraway@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Bridgers, Gene;
pmccormack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; ramon.de-la-cruz@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: john@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
Bob Landman, President
Senior Member, IEEE PES
H&L Instruments, LLC
(tel) 603-964-1818
www.hlinstruments.com
Dear Nancy Naraway,
(I've CC'd this reply to others who expressed a similar
concern about the reliability issues with RoHS.)
Thanks for the note re meeting you at the Boston IEEE
Reliability seminar at EMC. I was pleased to see that many in the
audience, besides the speaker (Dr. Craig Hillman of DfR Solutions)
agrees with me that eliminating lead from solder was a mistake.
So the question is, what can we do about it?
Well, I'm not sure what we can do about RoHS but we have
to try to do something. Our lives and the products we manufacture depend
on there being at least 5% lead in solder (and in the solder plating of
all electronic parts) to prevent tin whisker growth and provide joints
that do not fracture due to temperature cycling.
It is not an environmental problem - it is a problem in
the heads of people who do not understand the chemistry of lead in
solder.
As John Burke (www.rohsusa.com) states:
It is widely accepted in the engineering community that
the recent ban of lead in solders for use in electronics in Europe is
not only erroneous, but will actually lead to a worsening situation on
the environment with the replacements being in general use from July '06
having a GREATER environmental impact.
His source? - The US Environmental protection agency.
The EPA report on Solders in Electronics: A Life-Cycle Assessment (472
pages) published August 2005 has some very interesting data. It shows
that the replacements for "leaded" solder generally referred to
as "SAC alloy" has a higher impact than tin lead solder
in a number of areas such as:
Non-renewable resource use
Energy use
Global warming
Ozone depletion
Water Quality
for Environmentalists and Engineers everywhere here is
the link:
http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/dfe/pubs/solder/lca/index.htm
To refer to such solder replacements as "Green" is
laughable given the much greater impact on non-renewable resources
(NRR). Check out tables ES-4 and ES-5 in the report. A quote from the
report:
"The difference between SAC (the replacement solder) and
SnPb (the leaded solder) is 453 kg of NRR per 1,000 cc of solder
applied. If this were all automotive gasoline, this difference is
equivalent to 162 gallons of gasoline. Assuming a driver consumes 20
gallons per week, this is also equivalent to approximately 8 weeks of
driving".
===================
For now, I'd like to ask you all to please get
acquainted (if you have not already done so) with the websites/articles
(and share them with colleagues who are like-minded).
We have to get the word out that RoHS is not a done deal
- that we can turn back the clock and at least get 5% lead back in
solder so we can eliminate tin whisker problems and joint reliability
and solderability problems.
I have a web folder with many articles on RoHS that you
can reference and share with others
http://hlinstruments.dnsalias.com/bob/RoHS/
CALCE has a website for Pb-free issues
http://www.calce.umd.edu/lead-free/other/
CALCE also has a tin whiskers site
http://www.calce.umd.edu/tin-whiskers/
NASA has a tin whiskers site with movies of whisker
growth http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/
Also see
http://nepp.nasa.gov/index_nasa.cfm/619/?id=E7C59CB3-E848-41DA-BC81C3607
CF0D1C2
=============================
Dr Henning Leidecker at NASA Goddard (Greenbelt Md) (one
of my physics profs at AU) wrote me the following:
Our world depends on the proper functioning of
electronics, and so this is a world-wide problem. We already see
eliminations of lead as causing failures in newly-produced electronics,
and we can be sure we will see many more failures as the older equipment
ages out of service and is replaced by this new lead-free stuff.
Lives will surely be lost as a result, and probably
already have been. But our systems are not set up to track this.
Deaths are tracked at individual levels, but medical
doctors assigning causes are not trained to report: "Cause of death was
the failure of electronics, which in turn failed because the lead-free
replacements did not work."
Epidemic-tracking centers are set up to work with known
diseases, and not deaths or injuries caused by equipment failing as a
result of lead-free substitutes.
Companies using the lead-free replacements are not (as
far as I know) reporting any injuries or deaths caused by the failures
of their equipment, caused by lead-free substitutions. I suppose they
are more likely to settle any cases that are brought to their attention
"out of court", which is to say, "out of the public's attention."
Consider the failure of Galaxy IV, that silenced 35
million communication devices for about a day. Some of these devices
were used by medical doctors.
Can we suppose that there were NO cases of patient
suffering (or worse) as a result of the loss of contact between patient
and doctor? But who would track this? And make the findings publically
available?
And companies that suffer as their products fail as a
result of use of leaded-tin substitutes are not tracked either. While
the company remains in business, it is typically reluctant to advertise
that it is suffering from such problems. If the company dies, then so
too does the reason. No one tracks this cause. No one can say, "We lost
57 companies this year, as a result of failures due to the
ill-performance of the leaded-tin substitutes."
So we have a world-wide situation that is "under a
basket", "out of the light', and likely to remain that way!
One of the strong drivers for RoHS has been that people
DO count the number of folks harmed by lead in their environment. But we
do not count the number harmed by removing lead from electronics. So the
situation is unbalanced.
Thus, one way to go forward in achieving a better
balance in RoHS actions, is to add "problems to people caused by
failures of equipment caused by lead-free substitutes" to the problems
noted by epidemic-tracking centers.
Ditto for companies.
=========
Another expert I was introduced to (Dr Howard Johnson,
Signal Consulting www.sigcon.com -- High-Speed Digital Design seminars,
publications and films) sent me this:
When you pass around the article, please also reference
the full EDN link with the associated video interview:
http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6477864
Video gets people's attention far more directly than any
article ever could.
In the film, Joe Fjeldstad (my interviewee) does a
pretty good job of laying out the case that the RoHS lead-free
initiative is bad for the environment, and bad for business. By the way,
Joe has no objection to the other materials addressed by RoHS. He
doesn't think the whole thing should be repealed, just the
lead-in-solder part of it.
=============
I received this from Dr. Howard Johnson
Dear Dr. Johnson,
I read your article about tin whisker problems and I
thought I send you information about Corfin Industries and our ability
to mitigate tin devices to SnPb devices. Please review the attached
information on Corfin and feel free to contact me if you have any
questions.
Corfin Industries was a key player in a Navy MANTECH tin
whisker study that proved Robotic Hot Solder Dip was an excellent
process to remove pure tin and replace with tin lead. The other members
of the study were Raytheon and the University of Maryland BMP lab. I
have attached a copy of the report for you to review.
Corfin Industries is an ISO certified trim, form and
tinning facility. The three primary business functions are trim, form
and tinning of fine pitch high reliability surface mount electronic
devices, tinning of DIP's SIP's, PLCCs, LCCs, PGAs, RF Transistors,
Connectors, TAB, Microwave and Hybrid devices and reclamation of product
which is no longer solderable due to extended shelf life. We also
provide tape and reeling, marking and lead reconditioning services.
We service the Commercial, Military, Aerospace, Consumer
Electronics and Telecommunications Industries. Our facility is certified
to MIL-I-45208 and processes product to MIL-STD-2000A, MIL-M38510J,
ANSI-J001 and MIL-PRF-38534. All Corfin Industries equipment are
calibrated to
MIL-STD-45662 and we maintain an ESD program to
Mil-Std-1686. Our customers included Raytheon, BAE Systems, Lockheed-
Martin and NASA to name a few. We will be happy to provide references
upon request.
Corfin Industries equipment utilizes nitrogen blanketing
over the solder surface, thereby eliminating icicling and bridges.
Please review the videos which show our equipment
processing product at www.corfin.com. We also welcome visits to our
facility in Salem, NH (about an hours drive from Boston) to review our
processes.
Please contact me with any questions you may have about
Corfin Industries and our processes.
Best Regards,
Brian Gallagan
From: Nancy Araway [mailto:naraway@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 9:48 PM
To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Pleasure meeting you tonight
Hello Bob,
It was a pleasure meeting you this evening. You brought
up some very interesting issues around RoHS and WeE.
I'm attaching my resume only so you can get an idea of
where I come from. I'm currently working a contract at Philips Medical,
which very nicely leaves me open to do other consulting work.
I have in the past worked on European Computer
Manufactuurer's Assc. (ECMA), Computer and Business Equipment
Manufacturer's Assc.(CBEMA), Telecom Industries Assc. (TIA), IEC and
NFPA committees, authored the international standard for LAN safety and
developed the presentation materials to influence an NFPA decision to
rapidly cut in fast trip breakers. While none of them are recent, and it
would require re-establishing contacts, I do know the processes and
politics of the various standards making bodies. I also am experienced
in the politics of working across the various European cultures.
Based on my experience, I would focus on ECMA as a path
to change the approach of the environmental standards. While I don't
know if it can be done, I am quite sure that progress could be made
through this organization. http://www.ecma-international.org/ While I
realize that computers are not your focus, my rationale is that this
organization has more impact on EC standards than any other that I know
of. And it is currently European standards that are driving the
environmental laws. The difficulty is that these regulations prey on
people's fears, and they are spreading. It may be possible to sponsor a
new ECMA committee focused on product reliability to address the impacts
on reliability of the materials changes.
On another front, a front page expose on USA Today of
the cost of these regulations to businesses and users may be helpful in
slowng down the adoption of them in the US. Do you know anyone that is
tracking time to failure statistics on their product lines, and is
seeing a significant decline since the lead free components have been
introduced? I do know that Sycamore had that capability several years
ago, but I don't know if they still do.
Let me know if I can be of help. You can have some of my
time. If travel is required, I will ask you to find someone to fund it.
Nancy Araway
Principle Consultant
NAF Consulting
===8<===========End of original message text===========
--
Best regards,
Steve Smith <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
www.woodrestoration.com www.fiveyearclear.com
www.smithandcompany.org, and especially www.smithandcompany.org/mwp/
http://www.lignu.com/lignu/tech_info/tech_info.php
www.consultingscientist.us --- Begin Message ---
- From: "Bridgers, Gene" <gbridger@xxxxxx>
- To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Leidecker, Henning W. (GSFC-562.0)" <henning.w.leidecker@xxxxxxxx>, "John Burke" <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:52:12 -0400
Hello Bob,
As I read the 760G specification sheet, the benefit described was to
seal the connection area preventing humidity from getting to the area
that is likely to degrade and produce fret corrosion debrie. I agree
that keeping the humidity away is very helpful to reduce the rate of
degredation. If you are going to select such materials with rapid
degredation characterristics, you need to do more environmental
protection. No argument from me. That protection will delay the fret
corrosion for a longer time relative to what would exist very early
without the environmental protection.
I am not a metalurigical scientist, so I do not knoww the metalurigical
acceleration factors for tin-tin versus 30 u inches gold-gold. I know
you can wearout gold-gold with enough vibration. It has an end-of-life.
I lose sleep when trying to walk a middle ground. I was very glad when
Dr Dave decided on a specific path, since I could adopt his
recommendation and then sleep soundly again.
Regards,
Gene
________________________________
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 10:06 AM
To: Bridgers, Gene; Leidecker, Henning W. (GSFC-562.0); John Burke
Cc: howie03@xxxxxxxxxx; Steve Smith
Subject: RE: RoHS
Gene,
Sometimes theory and experimental evidence will lead to different
conclusions. We had been chasing problems in the field with Molex tin
plated power cable connectors (between boards in our product) that only
seemed to occur in high humidity high temp environments where the switch
gear shakes rather violently when it operates. It took a great deal of
time to finally pin down this was the problem. The customer sent us
pictures showing what looked to be discoloration on portions of the
header pins on the boards. We called Molex and their engineering dept
recommended specifically Nyogel lubricant> They said that all the
automakers use it on every connection in vehicles, esp. hybrids, golf
carts, any place the environment can be a factor. Needless to say 30u
gold is preferrable, but in the industrial market (and in the case of
the auto market (commercial market) prohibitively expensive. So we
tried the lubricant at the customer and it's worked miracles.
Intermittant problems disappeared 100%. It's a thick grease
(proprietary formula) and we swear by it. We recommended it to some
other customers having problems with other equipment and again it solved
problems. One of the most vexing common problem is intermittant
flashlights. Greasing the terminals of the batteries eliminates the
problem. Even my HP 41CV calculator which has flexible gold plated
fingers (which turn green) now are totally reliable with this lubricant.
It seems to me that the air we breath today is so full of contaminants
we need this kind of contact protection.
(Info on the grease below)
Bob
We found a good price at BatteryJunction.com
<http://www.batteryjunction.com/>
Here's the page with the grease on it:
http://www.batteryjunction.com/nyogel-760g.html
Good article on the lubricant:
http://www.machinedesign.com/ASP/strArticleID/56604/strSite/MDSite/viewS
electedArticle.asp
Nye wrote me:
Bob:
The 760G will really help prevent any further deterioration of the
connector after application.
Sincerely,
Mark J. Coholan
Technical Support Engineer
Nye Lubricants, Inc.
12 Howland Rd. Fairhaven, MA 02719
Ph: 508.996.6721 Fx: 508.997.5285
Em:mcoholan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.nyelubricants.com <http://www.nyelubricants.com/>
Learn more about the SmartGrease brand in this 3 minute video
presentation: http://www.impactmovie.com/nye/
NYE LUBRICANTS
The SmartGrease Company
Bob
________________________________
From: Bridgers, Gene [mailto:gbridger@xxxxxx]
To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Leidecker, Henning W.
(GSFC-562.0) [mailto:henning.w.leidecker@xxxxxxxx], John Burke
[mailto:john@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Cc: howie03@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:06:13 -0400
Subject: RE: RoHS
Hi Bob,
Somday, I will buy you lunch and share with you Dr David
Steinberg's theory on contact lubricant. Dr Dave convinced me to avoid
connector lubricants. Dr Dave pointed out that what ever debrie is
created, is caught by the contact lubricant and it is then located just
where it can do the most bad things. We do not allow contact
lubrication to be used or the warranty is voided.
Regards,
Gene
________________________________
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 12:48 PM
To: Leidecker, Henning W. (GSFC-562.0); John Burke; Bridgers,
Gene
Cc: howie03@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
thankfully we don't use fingers on our PC boards but we do use
DB style connectors and I wonder if the microinches of gold on them has
also been reduced. 1-2 insertions is more typical for our equipment as
its normally installed and not removed unless the equipment fails.
Have not seen any connector reliability problems except on an
older product which had an AMP RJ-45 (telephone style jack). Green gunk
would appear on the jack in Southern climes which means that there were
pinholes in the coating and the copper(beryliium?) springy metal
underneath had tarnished.
Cleaning then coating with Nye contact lubricant eliminated
future problems.
Bob
________________________________
From: Leidecker, Henning W. (GSFC-562.0)
[mailto:henning.w.leidecker@xxxxxxxx]
To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, John Burke
[mailto:john@xxxxxxxxxxx], Bridgers, Gene [mailto:gbridger@xxxxxx]
Cc: howie03@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:54:01 -0400
Subject: RE: RoHS
Dear Bob,
Some years ago, just after gold jumped in cost again,
the Pacific rim suppliers dropped the thickness of gold coating on the
gold-coated fingers on the contacts of the Personal Computer plug-in
cards from 30 micro-inches to 10 micro-inches. The USA gang followed
this within hours, saying "competitive pressure" and "it must be OK".
It took about two years for the reliability studies to
be finished.
The 10 micro-inch thick stuff was OK for about three
mate/demate cycles, and was certainly worn out (= erratic in contacting)
after 10 cycles. Also, pin-hole corrosion exploded in harm.
The older 30 micro-inch was OK for about 200 cycles, and
far less troubled by pin-hole corrosion.
And by then, field use had confirmed terrible
reliability problems with the thiner stuff.
Sincerely,
Henning
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wed 3/19/2008 6:02 PM
To: John Burke; Bridgers, Gene
Cc: Leidecker, Henning W. (GSFC-562.0);
howie03@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
This is a company who supplies shields that are RoHS
compliant
http://www.lairdtech.com/pages/products/index.asp
They are all MATTE TIN. Henning Leidecker at NASA
commented:
Matte tin, electroplated over steel, has a chance to
develop whiskers at a density of between zero to 500 -- 1,000 whiskers
per square centimeter; these would probably have a log-normal
distribution of lengths with a median length growing at 0.3 to 1 mm per
year, starting after perhaps 6 months.
Bob Landman
From: John Burke [mailto:john@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 4:26 PM
To: 'Bridgers, Gene';rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Henning.W.Leidecker@xxxxxxxx;howie03@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
Excellent!!
Thank you.I am running several programes on RoHS 6 some
for telecoms applications..
The interesting thing is that no one wants to do the tin
whisker testing because of the time frame/cost, so they all point at
their competition (larger ones) saying "well they (the competition
company) must have done it and we use the same components so it must be
OK".............8-(
John Burke
(408) 515 4992
From: Bridgers, Gene [mailto:gbridger@xxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 6:08 PM
To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Henning.W.Leidecker@xxxxxxxx; howie03@xxxxxxxxxx;
john@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
Bob,
Our local IEEE Reliability ADCOM met tonight and the
attached proposal was made and approved.
Gene
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 11:13 AM
To: Bridgers, Gene
Cc: Henning.W.Leidecker@xxxxxxxx; howie03@xxxxxxxxxx;
john@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
Excellent news Gene! I would very much like to be a part
of this effort.
I've copied this reply to Howie Johnson, Henning
Leidecker and John Burke so they'll be aware of our efforts.
Hopefully other IEEE groups will form to do likewise.
Best regards,
Bob
From: Bridgers, Gene [mailto:gbridger@xxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 8:16 AM
To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
Bob,
The day after we met, Craig Hillman visited us at
Mercury and we discussed this risk in addition to other risks.
I have made a proposal to our local IEEE to make thois
topic a formal project. Next week, the leadership will meet and we
should have clear marching orders in less than 1 month.
Thanks,
Gene
PS, I start my vacation on Saturday but I will have some
limited access to email.
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:25 AM
To: naraway@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Bridgers, Gene;
pmccormack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; ramon.de-la-cruz@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: john@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RoHS
Bob Landman, President
Senior Member, IEEE PES
H&L Instruments, LLC
(tel) 603-964-1818
www.hlinstruments.com
Dear Nancy Naraway,
(I've CC'd this reply to others who expressed a similar
concern about the reliability issues with RoHS.)
Thanks for the note re meeting you at the Boston IEEE
Reliability seminar at EMC. I was pleased to see that many in the
audience, besides the speaker (Dr. Craig Hillman of DfR Solutions)
agrees with me that eliminating lead from solder was a mistake.
So the question is, what can we do about it?
Well, I'm not sure what we can do about RoHS but we have
to try to do something. Our lives and the products we manufacture depend
on there being at least 5% lead in solder (and in the solder plating of
all electronic parts) to prevent tin whisker growth and provide joints
that do not fracture due to temperature cycling.
It is not an environmental problem - it is a problem in
the heads of people who do not understand the chemistry of lead in
solder.
As John Burke (www.rohsusa.com) states:
It is widely accepted in the engineering community that
the recent ban of lead in solders for use in electronics in Europe is
not only erroneous, but will actually lead to a worsening situation on
the environment with the replacements being in general use from July '06
having a GREATER environmental impact.
His source? - The US Environmental protection agency.
The EPA report on Solders in Electronics: A Life-Cycle Assessment (472
pages) published August 2005 has some very interesting data. It shows
that the replacements for "leaded" solder generally referred to
as "SAC alloy" has a higher impact than tin lead solder
in a number of areas such as:
Non-renewable resource use
Energy use
Global warming
Ozone depletion
Water Quality
for Environmentalists and Engineers everywhere here is
the link:
http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/dfe/pubs/solder/lca/index.htm
To refer to such solder replacements as "Green" is
laughable given the much greater impact on non-renewable resources
(NRR). Check out tables ES-4 and ES-5 in the report. A quote from the
report:
"The difference between SAC (the replacement solder) and
SnPb (the leaded solder) is 453 kg of NRR per 1,000 cc of solder
applied. If this were all automotive gasoline, this difference is
equivalent to 162 gallons of gasoline. Assuming a driver consumes 20
gallons per week, this is also equivalent to approximately 8 weeks of
driving".
===================
For now, I'd like to ask you all to please get
acquainted (if you have not already done so) with the websites/articles
(and share them with colleagues who are like-minded).
We have to get the word out that RoHS is not a done deal
- that we can turn back the clock and at least get 5% lead back in
solder so we can eliminate tin whisker problems and joint reliability
and solderability problems.
I have a web folder with many articles on RoHS that you
can reference and share with others
http://hlinstruments.dnsalias.com/bob/RoHS/
CALCE has a website for Pb-free issues
http://www.calce.umd.edu/lead-free/other/
CALCE also has a tin whiskers site
http://www.calce.umd.edu/tin-whiskers/
NASA has a tin whiskers site with movies of whisker
growth http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/
Also see
http://nepp.nasa.gov/index_nasa.cfm/619/?id=E7C59CB3-E848-41DA-BC81C3607
CF0D1C2
=============================
Dr Henning Leidecker at NASA Goddard (Greenbelt Md) (one
of my physics profs at AU) wrote me the following:
Our world depends on the proper functioning of
electronics, and so this is a world-wide problem. We already see
eliminations of lead as causing failures in newly-produced electronics,
and we can be sure we will see many more failures as the older equipment
ages out of service and is replaced by this new lead-free stuff.
Lives will surely be lost as a result, and probably
already have been. But our systems are not set up to track this.
Deaths are tracked at individual levels, but medical
doctors assigning causes are not trained to report: "Cause of death was
the failure of electronics, which in turn failed because the lead-free
replacements did not work."
Epidemic-tracking centers are set up to work with known
diseases, and not deaths or injuries caused by equipment failing as a
result of lead-free substitutes.
Companies using the lead-free replacements are not (as
far as I know) reporting any injuries or deaths caused by the failures
of their equipment, caused by lead-free substitutions. I suppose they
are more likely to settle any cases that are brought to their attention
"out of court", which is to say, "out of the public's attention."
Consider the failure of Galaxy IV, that silenced 35
million communication devices for about a day. Some of these devices
were used by medical doctors.
Can we suppose that there were NO cases of patient
suffering (or worse) as a result of the loss of contact between patient
and doctor? But who would track this? And make the findings publically
available?
And companies that suffer as their products fail as a
result of use of leaded-tin substitutes are not tracked either. While
the company remains in business, it is typically reluctant to advertise
that it is suffering from such problems. If the company dies, then so
too does the reason. No one tracks this cause. No one can say, "We lost
57 companies this year, as a result of failures due to the
ill-performance of the leaded-tin substitutes."
So we have a world-wide situation that is "under a
basket", "out of the light', and likely to remain that way!
One of the strong drivers for RoHS has been that people
DO count the number of folks harmed by lead in their environment. But we
do not count the number harmed by removing lead from electronics. So the
situation is unbalanced.
Thus, one way to go forward in achieving a better
balance in RoHS actions, is to add "problems to people caused by
failures of equipment caused by lead-free substitutes" to the problems
noted by epidemic-tracking centers.
Ditto for companies.
=========
Another expert I was introduced to (Dr Howard Johnson,
Signal Consulting www.sigcon.com -- High-Speed Digital Design seminars,
publications and films) sent me this:
When you pass around the article, please also reference
the full EDN link with the associated video interview:
http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6477864
Video gets people's attention far more directly than any
article ever could.
In the film, Joe Fjeldstad (my interviewee) does a
pretty good job of laying out the case that the RoHS lead-free
initiative is bad for the environment, and bad for business. By the way,
Joe has no objection to the other materials addressed by RoHS. He
doesn't think the whole thing should be repealed, just the
lead-in-solder part of it.
=============
I received this from Dr. Howard Johnson
Dear Dr. Johnson,
I read your article about tin whisker problems and I
thought I send you information about Corfin Industries and our ability
to mitigate tin devices to SnPb devices. Please review the attached
information on Corfin and feel free to contact me if you have any
questions.
Corfin Industries was a key player in a Navy MANTECH tin
whisker study that proved Robotic Hot Solder Dip was an excellent
process to remove pure tin and replace with tin lead. The other members
of the study were Raytheon and the University of Maryland BMP lab. I
have attached a copy of the report for you to review.
Corfin Industries is an ISO certified trim, form and
tinning facility. The three primary business functions are trim, form
and tinning of fine pitch high reliability surface mount electronic
devices, tinning of DIP's SIP's, PLCCs, LCCs, PGAs, RF Transistors,
Connectors, TAB, Microwave and Hybrid devices and reclamation of product
which is no longer solderable due to extended shelf life. We also
provide tape and reeling, marking and lead reconditioning services.
We service the Commercial, Military, Aerospace, Consumer
Electronics and Telecommunications Industries. Our facility is certified
to MIL-I-45208 and processes product to MIL-STD-2000A, MIL-M38510J,
ANSI-J001 and MIL-PRF-38534. All Corfin Industries equipment are
calibrated to
MIL-STD-45662 and we maintain an ESD program to
Mil-Std-1686. Our customers included Raytheon, BAE Systems, Lockheed-
Martin and NASA to name a few. We will be happy to provide references
upon request.
Corfin Industries equipment utilizes nitrogen blanketing
over the solder surface, thereby eliminating icicling and bridges.
Please review the videos which show our equipment
processing product at www.corfin.com. We also welcome visits to our
facility in Salem, NH (about an hours drive from Boston) to review our
processes.
Please contact me with any questions you may have about
Corfin Industries and our processes.
Best Regards,
Brian Gallagan
From: Nancy Araway [mailto:naraway@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 9:48 PM
To: rlandman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Pleasure meeting you tonight
Hello Bob,
It was a pleasure meeting you this evening. You brought
up some very interesting issues around RoHS and WeE.
I'm attaching my resume only so you can get an idea of
where I come from. I'm currently working a contract at Philips Medical,
which very nicely leaves me open to do other consulting work.
I have in the past worked on European Computer
Manufactuurer's Assc. (ECMA), Computer and Business Equipment
Manufacturer's Assc.(CBEMA), Telecom Industries Assc. (TIA), IEC and
NFPA committees, authored the international standard for LAN safety and
developed the presentation materials to influence an NFPA decision to
rapidly cut in fast trip breakers. While none of them are recent, and it
would require re-establishing contacts, I do know the processes and
politics of the various standards making bodies. I also am experienced
in the politics of working across the various European cultures.
Based on my experience, I would focus on ECMA as a path
to change the approach of the environmental standards. While I don't
know if it can be done, I am quite sure that progress could be made
through this organization. http://www.ecma-international.org/ While I
realize that computers are not your focus, my rationale is that this
organization has more impact on EC standards than any other that I know
of. And it is currently European standards that are driving the
environmental laws. The difficulty is that these regulations prey on
people's fears, and they are spreading. It may be possible to sponsor a
new ECMA committee focused on product reliability to address the impacts
on reliability of the materials changes.
On another front, a front page expose on USA Today of
the cost of these regulations to businesses and users may be helpful in
slowng down the adoption of them in the US. Do you know anyone that is
tracking time to failure statistics on their product lines, and is
seeing a significant decline since the lead free components have been
introduced? I do know that Sycamore had that capability several years
ago, but I don't know if they still do.
Let me know if I can be of help. You can have some of my
time. If travel is required, I will ask you to find someone to fund it.
Nancy Araway
Principle Consultant
NAF Consulting
--- End Message ---
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