Dammuso Research Lab

Must I shout loud against any GOD? Actually, YES.

I didn’t know before; I searched for informations about the soldering thin I used from years, the old’n gold 60/40 tin/lead composition with flux in it… that now isn’t produced anymore in Europe, due to this sort of insane terror about the toxicity of a pico-gram of lead that we, electronic technicians, can ingest or inhalate, during years of solders on our lab tables…

And for this incredible PARANOIA (it’s ok to eradicate lead from paints or other stuff, but a 100g roll of solder lead, that last about 15 years on our lab table? You are SOO STUPID) now we have this CRAP called RoHS Lead-free.

Ok, I said; that’s evolution, things changes, bla bla bla. Ok. Now instead of solder my stuff with a 350° solder, I have to use a 2800° torch, and shit like that. Ok, let’s adeguate ourselves…

But after a while, a lot of electronic boards passed in my hands, all with those RoHS crappy solders. And those solders, yeah, they’re atoxic, they follow this damned RoHS European directive, written only to spill money from producers and to enrich some burocrats… well, those solders are simply CRAP. They’re  “cold”, they broke, they’re full of false contact, etc. etc.

And, last but not least, they have WHISKERS. What ? WHISKERS? YES, THEY DO.

WISKERS ON SOLDERS! HEY FELLA, NASA SAID THAT SHIT, NOT ME. LOOK HERE:

https://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/index.html

WOW, what a beautiful WHISKERS we have on our solders! THANK YOU, DAMNED RoHS!

And now, please follow my hint: don’t waste your time about this false ecological crap they are using to get MORE MONEY, a LOT of money, selling this RoHS CRAP. Search and store all good old 60/40 Tin/Lead soldering wire! HURRAH FOR LEAD!

And please have a good time reading the NASA site, in which they analyze every aspect of RoHS soldered circuits, and check out the huge list of satellites that had some faults for this!

In particular, please read THIS PAPER, that clearly explain how this RoHS story is a burocratic CRAP created only to fool people with enviromentalist false problems, giving out a false solution and a false security feeling, just to make A LOT OF MONEY out of this business, creating a lot of other problems bigger than the problem created by 10g of lead:

https://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/reference/tech_papers/2011-kostic-Pb-free.pdf

just some quotes from the above paper:

Pb Entering the Environment – Recycling Impact
• Concern about recycling electronics in third world countries over open fires
– May create Pb vapor that would be inhaled causing Pb poisoning
• Pb boils at 1,740  C
• Typical open fire temperature is approximately 1,000  C
– Vapor pressure of Pb is negligible at that temperature
• Little/no possibility of Pb vapor inhalation
• Same reason why Sn/Pb soldering personnel do not have elevated blood Pb levels 

– Electronics industry consumes approximately 0.5% of world’s Pb
– No mechanism exists for transfer of Pb to blood through direct contact or proximity to Pb in electronics 
– No evidence of any elevated Pb levels in blood of soldering personnel
• Lead-acid batteries account for over 80% of Pb consumed IN THE ENTIRE WORLD
– Batteries are exempt from all RoHS legislation

Please dowload the PDF, it’s so interesting, a lot of pictures about WHISKERS, about problems on lead-free solders, about their cracks (did you have an APPLE MAC in need of “reflow”? now you know why)…

Sorry for my bad english language. I hope you will understand the message (and I don’t care about errors, if you want, help me in this translation) 🙂