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Banning shit prematurely is how we ended up with solder/bump-gate when Europe prematurely banned leader solder and flaky wires when Apple dropped PVC in favor d

Banning shit prematurely is how we ended up with solder/bump-gate when Europe prematurely banned leader solder and flaky wires when Apple dropped PVC in favor due to Greenpeace handwringling.

0_____0 6y ago
and somehow humans are still alive, and largely have no idea what the issues you mentioned are.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  And now you understand climate change denial.
  - deeviant 6y ago
    Wow, is somebody mad their candidate lost? Don't you have some baby seals you can go club to feel better, or something?
  - 0_____0 6y ago
    Is there a massive issue with fatigue-related fracture failure of Pb-free solder joints that we need to fix to ensure the future of humanity?
    - andromeduck 6y ago
      No, but that argument is a bad for the same reason why it's bad when applied to climate change. No single lump of coal caused climate change, the problem is the avoidable harm in aggregate.
      - 0_____0 6y ago
        It's only a reasonable comparison if we're ignoring a large issue. I've spent the last 5 minutes looking for reports of failures due to tin whiskers, and mostly what I see is trade mag notes and essays from about 15 years ago that anticipate a coming plague of electronics failures from tin whiskers. If you have more info about the scale of the avoidable harm in aggregate, as you put it, I'd love to see it.
- gumby 6y ago
  Soldered connections don't last as long making products less repairable. Certain industries (e.g. aerospace) have wavers for these rules as connection failure could be fatal. I'm glad those ROHS rules are in place but the tradeoffs are real.
  - 0_____0 6y ago
    Soldered Pb-Free connections don't last as long under what conditions? High-vibe? Large and frequent temperature excursions? High mechanical loading (high-mass components or bulky ones with leverage?) What solder are you using? I think there's been a learning process since the adoption of Pb-free processes. Solder alloys have improved, package sizes have conveniently shrunk, you have underfill for BGA if necessary. Also when designing for high-vibe or large ∆temp, there's lab testing (shaker table, env. chamber) work that gets done esp. for safety-related hardware Like, yes, Pb-free has considerations, but so does any other component of a system. I find that I usually don't have to give it much thought these days, and the fracture failures I've seen could have been mitigated by design changes rather than returning to Pb solder.
    - analog31 6y ago
      It's interesting that during the switch to Pb-free, other changes occurred in the electronics industry almost concurrently. Those were a switch to water based fluxes and cleaning processes, and a shift to production facilities in China, both of which involved a certain learning curve. I remember a year or two of boards with high failure rates, yet we looked and looked for things like solder whiskers to no avail.
      - Gibbon1 6y ago
        The funny thing is the claim that the switch to PB free was some sort of sudden thing imposed on the industry from the outside instead of a 15-20 year long process where the industry have heavily involved in decision making. First rumblings I remember about phasing out lead was around 1988 or so. Same time they also had to deal with switching to surface mount packages and the phase out of Freon. The electronics industry didn't want the liability of having to deal with lead solder, lead contaminated waste, and worker safety. Seriously in 30 years I've never heard any complaints from the PCB manufacturers about phase out of lead. Only from people with no attachment to the industry.
AlotOfReading 6y ago
RoHS was great. Sure, there were a couple years when we all got sketchy electronics, but the technology fixing that was only developed because of the legal force applied.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  Cous have also ended up in the same place by just gradually internalizing the cost and higher for an effective ban - not unlike a carbon tax.
  - AlotOfReading 6y ago
    One of the criticisms of RoHS was that even the companies that had exemptions were unable to exercise them because factories found it uneconomical to maintain separate production lines. If the EU had simply raised the cost, it would have been added onto the price and nothing significant would have changed.
    - tuatoru 6y ago
      A lesson for proponents of a carbon tax. perhaps?
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        Why? If the tax attaches at point of production, the incentive is to use the output that is cheaper including the tax, or the best mix possible, shifting to less consumptive processes over time even if they can't meet demand at the start.
        tuatoru 6y ago
        It depends on the visibility of the tax to the final consumer, and its long run salience. Take water meters, a current topic in NZ. Some cities don't have them, some do. When I was last in the industry (over a decade ago) research had tended to show that after introduction of meters (usually with price rises) there was a reduction in per-household demand. But over the course of a few years this reduction vanished: households were back on their old water consumption trend. Water wasn't a big enough cost to matter either way. (Commercial consumers have always been metered, so there isn't a lot of evidence there. Those I looked at had good reasons for using as much water as they did.) If producers have to absorb the tax, things will probably work out as you say. If they can pass it along without losing much demand, maybe not.

Banning shit prematurely is how we ended up with solder/bump-gate when Europe prematurely banned leader solder and flaky wires when Apple dropped PVC in favor due to Greenpeace handwringling.

0_____0 6y ago

and somehow humans are still alive, and largely have no idea what the issues you mentioned are.

andromeduck 6y ago
And now you understand climate change denial.
- deeviant 6y ago
  Wow, is somebody mad their candidate lost? Don't you have some baby seals you can go club to feel better, or something?
- 0_____0 6y ago
  Is there a massive issue with fatigue-related fracture failure of Pb-free solder joints that we need to fix to ensure the future of humanity?
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    No, but that argument is a bad for the same reason why it's bad when applied to climate change. No single lump of coal caused climate change, the problem is the avoidable harm in aggregate.
    - 0_____0 6y ago
      It's only a reasonable comparison if we're ignoring a large issue. I've spent the last 5 minutes looking for reports of failures due to tin whiskers, and mostly what I see is trade mag notes and essays from about 15 years ago that anticipate a coming plague of electronics failures from tin whiskers. If you have more info about the scale of the avoidable harm in aggregate, as you put it, I'd love to see it.
gumby 6y ago
Soldered connections don't last as long making products less repairable. Certain industries (e.g. aerospace) have wavers for these rules as connection failure could be fatal. I'm glad those ROHS rules are in place but the tradeoffs are real.
- 0_____0 6y ago
  Soldered Pb-Free connections don't last as long under what conditions? High-vibe? Large and frequent temperature excursions? High mechanical loading (high-mass components or bulky ones with leverage?) What solder are you using? I think there's been a learning process since the adoption of Pb-free processes. Solder alloys have improved, package sizes have conveniently shrunk, you have underfill for BGA if necessary. Also when designing for high-vibe or large ∆temp, there's lab testing (shaker table, env. chamber) work that gets done esp. for safety-related hardware Like, yes, Pb-free has considerations, but so does any other component of a system. I find that I usually don't have to give it much thought these days, and the fracture failures I've seen could have been mitigated by design changes rather than returning to Pb solder.
  - analog31 6y ago
    It's interesting that during the switch to Pb-free, other changes occurred in the electronics industry almost concurrently. Those were a switch to water based fluxes and cleaning processes, and a shift to production facilities in China, both of which involved a certain learning curve. I remember a year or two of boards with high failure rates, yet we looked and looked for things like solder whiskers to no avail.
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      The funny thing is the claim that the switch to PB free was some sort of sudden thing imposed on the industry from the outside instead of a 15-20 year long process where the industry have heavily involved in decision making. First rumblings I remember about phasing out lead was around 1988 or so. Same time they also had to deal with switching to surface mount packages and the phase out of Freon. The electronics industry didn't want the liability of having to deal with lead solder, lead contaminated waste, and worker safety. Seriously in 30 years I've never heard any complaints from the PCB manufacturers about phase out of lead. Only from people with no attachment to the industry.

AlotOfReading 6y ago

RoHS was great. Sure, there were a couple years when we all got sketchy electronics, but the technology fixing that was only developed because of the legal force applied.

andromeduck 6y ago
Cous have also ended up in the same place by just gradually internalizing the cost and higher for an effective ban - not unlike a carbon tax.
- AlotOfReading 6y ago
  One of the criticisms of RoHS was that even the companies that had exemptions were unable to exercise them because factories found it uneconomical to maintain separate production lines. If the EU had simply raised the cost, it would have been added onto the price and nothing significant would have changed.
  - tuatoru 6y ago
    A lesson for proponents of a carbon tax. perhaps?
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      Why? If the tax attaches at point of production, the incentive is to use the output that is cheaper including the tax, or the best mix possible, shifting to less consumptive processes over time even if they can't meet demand at the start.
      - tuatoru 6y ago
        It depends on the visibility of the tax to the final consumer, and its long run salience. Take water meters, a current topic in NZ. Some cities don't have them, some do. When I was last in the industry (over a decade ago) research had tended to show that after introduction of meters (usually with price rises) there was a reduction in per-household demand. But over the course of a few years this reduction vanished: households were back on their old water consumption trend. Water wasn't a big enough cost to matter either way. (Commercial consumers have always been metered, so there isn't a lot of evidence there. Those I looked at had good reasons for using as much water as they did.) If producers have to absorb the tax, things will probably work out as you say. If they can pass it along without losing much demand, maybe not.