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> Further to Prawlin's post: a question for the q.c. engineers present.

> In the long long ago this writer, doing bench repairs of high end transceivers for a big company, had imposed upon him the use of lead free solder. That lead to bitter complaints until, a couple of months later, the same "little man" who had confiscated our good old eutectic solder had come around again with his cart and had taken back the lead free solder and replaced that with rolls of the lead containing eutectic solder that we knew so well. The arrogant V.P. of Q.C., who would not listen, had been forced to climb down!

> Lead free solder had become "fashionable" in his professional circle and he was going to thrust it upon us. He had probably never made a quick, competent and shiny solder joint in his life; a degree is not enough. Fortunately, some of the very senior engineers in the company, one a ham of the old school, "had dirt under their finger nails" and knew a good solder joint when they saw it.

> Now many of us on this list will know the nuisance lead free solder was in earlier days. From Prawlin's post it appears that the problems have not all been resolved. The stuff might be alright for equipment down at the consumer level. The question that arises is what high end users specify today. What does the N.A.S.A. the European Space Agency and any operation engaged in making man rated systems do to ensure reliable joints? Should we ordinary mortals, soured by early experience, be attempting to use lead free solder? Is it today as good as Kester 44 eutectic and similar?

> Those of us in the know about lead free solder in its early days would not care to board a space vehicle or even a commercial aircraft relying on what we knew at the time as lead free solder. The passengers on the "Gimli Glider" and others involved learned about solder joints that come apart.

> John,

> at radio station VE7AOV.

++++++++

Thanks Erik. Just sending pic again hopefully at better resolution. If you zoom a little, you can clearly see the places where the connector legs originally were. I had only used the connector a few times and had not knowingly exerted any excessive forces. Some insertion force is unavoidable with that particular Jack design. I wonder if gentle twisting of the Jack plug whilst inserting might reduce the risk? Then again, it might increase the chances of the blobs fracturing by twisting forces? Maybe adding a tiny dab of contact lube or silicon grease might allow easier Jack insertion/removal? I’ve considered carefully adding a tiny amount of thin cyano to bond the connector to the PCB. It is unlikely to ever need replacing in the future (though I can hear some groaning now as I write this)

I still blame the lead free solder. I’m retired now but in my career we lived through the introduction of lead free and it caused no end of similar joint fracture problems.?

I’m glad the same didn’t happen with the USB C as that would likely result in hard to fix or even unrepairable PCB (delaminating of those tiny close pitch pins)!?

On 10 Feb 2024, at 15:05, Erik Kaashoek <erik@...> wrote:

?/g/tinysa/message/9042
--

Designer of the tinySA
For more info go to

> Further to Prawlin's post: aquestion for the q.c. engineers present.

> In the long long ago this writer, doing bench repairs of high end
transceivers for a big company, had imposed upon him the use of lead
free solder. That lead to bitter complaints until, a couple of months
later, the same "little man" who had confiscated our good old eutectic
solder had come around again with his cart and had taken back the lead
free solder and replaced that with rolls of the lead containing eutectic
solder that we knew so well. The arrogant V.P. of Q.C., who would not
listen, had been forced to climb down!

> Lead free solder had become "fashionable" in his professional circle
and he was going to thrust it upon us. He had probably never made a
quick, competent and shiny solder joint in his life; a degree is not
enough. Fortunately, some of the very senior engineers in the company,
one a ham of the old school, "had dirt under their finger nails" and
knew a good solder joint when they saw it.

> Now many of us on this list will know the nuisance lead free solder
was in earlier days. FromPrawlin's post it appears that the problems
have not all been resolved. The stuff might be alright for equipment
down at the consumer level. The question that arises is what high end
users specify today. What does the N.A.S.A. the European Space Agency
and any operation engaged in making man rated systems do to ensure
reliable joints? Should we ordinary mortals, soured by early experience,
be attempting to use lead free solder? Is it today as good as Kester 44
eutectic and similar?

> Those of us in the know about lead free solder in its early days
would not care to board a space vehicle or even a commercial aircraft
relying on what we knew at the time as lead free solder. The passengers
on the "Gimli Glider" and others involved learned about solder joints
that come apart.

> John,

> at radio station VE7AOV.

++++++++


On 2024-02-10 08:35, Prawlin via groups.io wrote:

Thanks Erik. Just sending pic again hopefully at better resolution. If
you zoom a little, you can clearly see the places where the connector
legs originally were. I had only used the connector a few times and
had not knowingly exerted any excessive forces. Some insertion force
is unavoidable with that particular Jack design. I wonder if gentle
twisting of the Jack plug whilst inserting might reduce the risk? Then
again, it might increase the chances of the blobs fracturing by
twisting forces? Maybe adding a tiny dab of contact lube or silicon
grease might allow easier Jack insertion/removal? I’ve considered
carefully adding a tiny amount of thin cyano to bond the connector to
the PCB. It is unlikely to ever need replacing in the future (though I
can hear some groaning now as I write this)

I still blame the lead free solder. I’m retired now but in my career
we lived through the introduction of lead free and it caused no end of
similar joint fracture problems.

I’m glad the same didn’t happen with the USB C as that would likely
result in hard to fix or even unrepairable PCB (delaminating of those
tiny close pitch pins)!

IMG_4115

On 10 Feb 2024, at 15:05, Erik Kaashoek <erik@...> wrote:

?/g/tinysa/message/9042
--
Designer of the tinySA
For more info go to

The only benefit to the RoS initiative was that many tips for the Metcal
soldering stations became very cheap. I bought dozens for my hobby,
typically for a buck each.

When RoHS first hit the ground, there was an ample number of exemptions for
industrial equipment of a certain size, or larger.

I haven't had to prep for RoHS since 2005, so I can't speak to the issue
now. But I'd take advantage of any available exemptions because RoHS is a
foolish idea. Where I worked, we filed RoHS under "stupid ideas to ensure
full employment for European Union citizens."

We were trying to use the "industrial equipment" exemption because our
computer systems were designed specifically to fill up a room, and not be
usable except as a system. I pushed for that concept, but as a lowly
technical writer -- what did I know?

That was the same place where they locked me out of the code base because I
provided a rock-solid fix for a customer-visible bug that never should have
made its way into the golden build.

It was such an embarrassing bug that I think my NDA may still be in effect
for it.

73
Jim N6OTQ

On Sat, Feb 10, 2024 at 5:43?PM Jim Shorney <jimNU0C@...> wrote:

I had it forced on me at my day job. Partly due to the fact that we sold a
lot of product to EU and other offshore customers. We retained some of our
beloved 63/37 on the (valid) excuse that we serviced a 20 year old product
line that was still in production and we needed both kinds of solder.

NASA has a web page devoted to this stuff which, among other things, hosts
a paper that is a good send-up of the lead-free fiasco.



73

-Jim
NU0C

Same for car electronics.

I found whiskers growing in the main signal acquisition module, while resoldering (with good eutectic) the cracked joints for the headlamp connector.
Ended up cleaning and reflowing half the PCBs to make the errors go away, the rest were fixed with contact cleaner? on the plugs - no more gremlins.

I won't use lead free in any of my projects.