Hi Mel. You wrote: <Anyway, it seems that we are stuck with Lead. Any suggestions as to what the telecom industry can do to fight against banning lead? >
I get the impression, from various sources, that the removal of lead from the environment is a politically driven thing, in the same way that lead was driven from petrol. No one can doubt that Lead in petrol has environmental risks, but the headless chicken charge towards removing it with a blindfolded view on what comes in it's place seems to have left us in a worse position. I've read vatious learned articles about the use of long chain polymers, phenols, metals, etc. in either 'Super Unleaded or 'Lead Replacement Fuel' causing long and very long term environmental time bombs. Lead has been made illegal for use in UK domestic plumbing systems for a few years now, I think, and lead free solders seem to work OK, but according to one chap are more difficult to work with - causing additional time/cost, need higher temperatures - causing more fires to be started, , are more prone to leaks (presumeably due to the difficulties) - causing more insurance claims and house and property damage, and there seems to be some doubt about the safety of the fumes during soldering. The point is that I can't see how the world has benefitted overall. A secondary advantage of the need to remove solder may be to force companies to produce thick film designs, or cram more onto silicon with attendant positive effects on reliability, but not necessarily reduced cost - at least for low quanties. I read somewhere of PCB's composed of screen printed conductive polymer inks which would melt and 'glue' the SM component to the track thereby removing the need for solder at all, but I've never seen any products made like this. Maybe they are out there somewhere, I'm no expert. Lead also appears in the environment in many other ways of probably equal amounts. For instance free turning steels are made with added lead, 'C12 modified' is one that comes to mind, This sort of stuff is used to make mass produced articles - there must be millions of tons of this stuff made every year, and as it rusts (as it surely will) the lead is put into the environment. I applaud the activities of the Poliitically Correct, Environmental police, Nature preserving amongst us, but I sometimes wonder if their enthusiasm is insufficiently tempered with a longer term view, or what used to be called Wisdom. Charging ahead blindly into doing the right thing today may well be laying the foundations of catastrophe for the future, the truth is we probably don't know. Just a few moments of completely self opinionated, uninformed, hunch. Chris Dupres Surrey, UK. --------- This message is coming from the emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to [email protected] with the single line: "unsubscribe emc-pstc" (without the quotes). For help, send mail to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected] (the list administrators).
