Lead is bad. Everyone knows that. We should keep it out of our water and our air. Until recently lead was used in solder, which means that every electrical or electronic device contained lead. Enter the European Union and their RoHS Directive. In July of 2006 lead solder was banned from the EU. Manufacturers have been forced to find replacements, usually an all tin solder instead of the lead/tin solder formerly used.
Many engineers have raise concerns. Tin solder has a number of drawbacks – it is brittle; it has a tendency to cause shorts; it requires more heat; it doesn’t “get along” well with other types of solder on the same board. This last issue can cause problems with repairs and with electronics that are composed of parts from multiple manufacturers.
Although the RoHS only applies to the European Union, it affects us all. Manufacturers cannot supports different processes for different countries. Assembly lines have been switched over to the new soldering techniques whether they are making radios or communications satellites or medical equipment or airliners.
It’s too early to tell if this will cause problems, although anecdotal evidence suggest that it has. Studies on Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) have been hampered by manufacturers who are unwilling to let their failure rates be documented. Meanwhile, the manufacturers are blaming hot-headed environmentalists for possible failures and environmentalists claim that greedy industry welcomed the change because failures sell more product.
