[sdiy] Tin Whiskers

[Mattias Rickardsson]

At 02:11 2005-01-12, Glen wrote:
>I knew a lady from Florida who had repeated problems with her [...] organ
...
>it into the organ. As far as I know, the organ never needed treatment for
>whiskers again.

Ooh, scary. I've heard about tulips on an organ, but whiskers on an organ 
was something new.

But really: all this whiskers stuff - how serious could it be? I mean, it's 
not like it suddenly started to happen yesterday now or anything, and we 
still use lots of old electronics that still works. So it will in the 
future too.
I guess the whiskers are just a potential cause of spontaneous damage, 
which has always existed. Finding such a cause gives relief rather than 
anxiety, I think. Now we have a better chance to prolong the life of 
electronics (which was quite long already before).

Another thought: would the whisker phenomenon be a bigger risk for old 
electronics (with higher voltages and currents) or new electronics (with 
smaller distances)?

>That worked with a plated steel chassis, but it's a little harder to apply
>the principle to IC pins or relay contacts. It's someone else's turn to
>suggest a solution for those.   :)

ARP submodules had it solved already from the beginning... :-)

         http://www.arptech.synth.net/decap.htm


>take care,
>Glen
>
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/mr