EV Conspiracy and Runaway Toyotas
erco
Posts: 20,256
Short but interesting read on the "EV conspiracy" at http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1366&doc_id=245442
In the comments, one reply blames runaway Toyotas on ROHS whiskers in the speed control, that's news to me:
Toyota problem has been "quietly " resolved.It has nothing to do with mechanical stuff. It was simply a bunch or whiskers growing inside a speed control module, which caused the problem.These defects are not easily predictable ,although easy controlled by a proper PC board technology.We are having tons of problems with ROHS products. Now military is excluded from it and going to good , old lead.Many of the seniors in a society were listening to radios and TVs which contained pounds, not ounces of lead and their rate of cancer is lower than people below 50. Sometimes we just have to stop and think.Tin is the fastest in growing whiskers and we will have all gadgets with life of 1-3 years ,unless we learn how to make good precision masks , or use conformal coating (both expensive).But then again , it is what most manufacturers want - built in life span.Just like in "Bladerunner".
In the comments, one reply blames runaway Toyotas on ROHS whiskers in the speed control, that's news to me:
Toyota problem has been "quietly " resolved.It has nothing to do with mechanical stuff. It was simply a bunch or whiskers growing inside a speed control module, which caused the problem.These defects are not easily predictable ,although easy controlled by a proper PC board technology.We are having tons of problems with ROHS products. Now military is excluded from it and going to good , old lead.Many of the seniors in a society were listening to radios and TVs which contained pounds, not ounces of lead and their rate of cancer is lower than people below 50. Sometimes we just have to stop and think.Tin is the fastest in growing whiskers and we will have all gadgets with life of 1-3 years ,unless we learn how to make good precision masks , or use conformal coating (both expensive).But then again , it is what most manufacturers want - built in life span.Just like in "Bladerunner".
Comments
However, I've yet to see a problem with whiskers in the (presumably RoHS compliant) industrial devices I use at work (Siemens). By now some of the devices from 2005 should have long since grown whiskers, given the terrible environments they're working in. And yes these have the fine pitch surface mount chips, but maybe it's the coating?
Also, I don't think lead causes cancer? But lead ingested does cause cognitive problems, and the lead in gasoline may have explained the terrible crime waves in the past century.
But again, I was told if you're evaporating and inhaling significant quantities of lead while soldering, you're doing something seriously wrong. Otherwise I am very careful to put all solid scraps containing lead into a container that I keep far away from food or drink.
The boiling point of lead is over 3000 degrees F (1750 C). That smoke is just from the flux burning off. It's still not good to breathe it, but there's no lead in it.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/estonia-environment-cars-idUSL6N0BKAKC20130220?feedType=RSS&feedName=industrialsSector&rpc=43
Fun Fact: Lithium, used orally as the carbonate is a medication for several mental disorders. It's thought to affect the human nervous system in a similar manner as lead and other heavy metals.
Dang, where's those pictures of me casting fishing sinkers and bullets as a youngster? I of course also had the obligatory, for my time and location, the small bottle of metallic mercury to play with with bare hands. LOVED those old mercury switches!
-Mike
about the runaway cars.
From the start, I read all of the articles I could find on the subject.
My Prius really never ran away, However it would do some peculiar things under these situations.
#1
If ice on the road would have my tires slip, the traction control would not let me intentionally slip the tires.
While this is very annoying, I was able to overcome this trouble. I've never been buried in the snow and managed to work my way out.
#2
If I set my cruise control at about 45MPH and accelerated up to 55MPH I had complete control, but If my speed decreased to
less than 45MPH the cruise control would cause "unexpected acceleration" , But I actually did that.
I did not hear about the Whisker growth thing until Erco's post of this thread.
Seems to me that, with the coating that is sprayed or dipped on the not repairable auto circuit boards should pretty well eliminate that.
Somehow, I think that the News Media might be exploiting information and passing it on in an inappropriate way.
This seems to be happening very often and could be possibly linked to attorney's wages.
Just my 2 cents worth
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HA the Year I got a Oxy fuel torch when I was a kid I melted ( or tried to ) melt down a small Dead 5 AH AGM bat . man all those White lead fumes Ill bet took a few years off my life ,,,,, Soldering From age 7 onward . I broke statistics that I did not die at the very least 7 times in my teens .
As for Solder ............ the words I would used to discibe my feelings for lead free solder would likely get me banned from the web .........
Ill die with my multi-core 63-37 in my hands .. wets anything .. Flows great .. wont lift traces or Eat tips .....
Hehe I love Old Solder ,, it has this awsome 1970s geek-musk to it ..... work bench incense ! ..
This is called vapor pressure. The vapor pressure of lead at soldering temperatures is about 10-8 increasing to about 103 at its boiling point. This is really nothing enough to worry about.
I spent a few hours the other day investigating the whole lead-free solder issue and as far as I can tell, it made no sense at all to ban the use of lead in electronic solder. There was no scientific evidence that indicated lead from electronic solder was actually causing any harm to people or the environment and it has been very strongly suggested that lead-free solder is actually causing more damage to the environment than the continued use of lead solder would have. This is not to mention the economic costs already suffered due to failure of solder joints using lead-free solder.
I also found the NASA report concerning the Toyota sensor:
http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/reference/tech_papers/2011-NASA-GSFC-whisker-failure-app-sensor.pdf
Note that this is a sensor, not the one actually involved in the original accident.
More info on tin (and other) metal whiskers here:
http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/
The car had been rebuilt for a person with disabilities, and there's no mention of what was modified...
(Or if the manufacturer approved of the changes)
The car has a push-button start, not a key.
On most, if not all, modern cars with push-button start, holding the button down for a few seconds will force a shut down of the engine.
There's no mention that the driver actually tried to do that...
It was very disturbing to me in that as the size of space between traces using surface mount tech get smaller,
the whisker problem could get very large.
It seems like the whisker problem has always been around, but has increased because of the RoHS regulations.
Since there are lots of creative individuals in the world, I think over time the world will overcome this problem.
On a small hobby scale, Does this seem to be a threat to building new things?
I'm really hoping that building small scale hobby circuits and possibly being able to market new technology things will continue
and I believe it will.
I'm not really sure if the NASA document will help promote creativity by the hobby guys in the future.
Mabe this is one of those subjects best left for the AeroSpace industry to figure out without causing
panic in me the Basic Simple Hobby Electronic guy.