Tin Whiskers

[Al Skierkiewicz]

A co-worker came across this NASA site. Interesting photographs that may be of interest to some of you.

http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/photos/index.html

[DonRotolo]

Nice photos, but not a new phenomenon, that's been known for much longer than the 25 years I've known of it.

[techhelpbb]

On a similar sort of fun and interesting scale...

Look up 'silver migration'.

This is a fun sort of trick in which the silver...moves...over time in semiconductors and even in some cases wiring.

[taichichuan]

This is a particularly bad problem with the newer ROHS solder. In fact the new lead-free solders start to deteriorate after about 5 years and fail. Built in obsolesce for all of your new electronics.

Enjoy,

Mike

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Mike,
We are seeing that at much smaller intervals in some of our equipment. Sometimes in a year.

[taichichuan]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Mike,
We are seeing that at much smaller intervals in some of our equipment. Sometimes in a year.

Yeah, I've heard rumors that some of the ROHS solder formulations were worse than others. In the mean time, I'm stocking up on 60/40 before they try to outlaw it all together. The team's got some pretty good kids with a soldering iron, but if we have to switch to ROHS, we'll have to change temperatures and techniques. Something to look forward to, I guess.

Mike