I completely agree with you Denny. Furthermore, as John Burke and Bert Mason have just commented, commercial equipment has been failing. What manufacturer in the commercial world is going to go to the trouble to research the cause of a failed unit in the warranty period? They will try a few simple repair steps then when the cause isn't obvious (and with tin whiskers it never is) then they simply replace the failed unit and throw it in the nearest dumpster. After the warranty has expired (generally 90 days or as much as a year) then the consumer will throw the failed unit in their garbage can. In either case, no-one will report to this group or iNEMI or NASA (and certainly not the press) that their products are failing more often and doing so for misterious reasons. Ron Lasky is making his conclusions up from thin air and scientifically speaking based on, as Werner says, all manner of tests except for iNEMI, conclude that SnPb is far better than lead-free solder (tin whiskers aside). Bob Landman H&L Instruments,LLC www.hlinstruments.com LDF Coatings, LLC www.ldfcoatings.com -----Original Message----- From: tinwhiskers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tinwhiskers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Fritz, Dennis D. Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 3:18 PM To: tinwhiskers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [tinwhiskers] Not exactly tin whiskers, but I seek your support. Recently, on the Circuits Assembly blog, Dr Ron Lasky published a column, bragging about the reliability of lead-free electronics - based on the presentations at a session of SMTAI where he was the chairman. All of these papers were about commercial electronics, and are well done. Dr Ron goes on to infer that lead-free electronics should be accepted as reliable, (in my interpretation) for all environments and situations. Dr Ron implies that scientists against lead-free are just wrong. I maintain that the information in this column in Circuits Assembly is very misleading - regarding harsh environments. I cite the three papers later at SMTAI from the NASA/DoD participants who each state "lead based assembly out-performed lead-free in these harsh tests". Here is the link to the Lasky column: http://circuitsassembly.com/blog/?p=1332 Please read it, and add your comments if you wish. Should you feel inclined to drop a note to Circuits Assembly or to Mike Buetow, I am not going to stop you. Thanks - Denny Fritz