Homebrew PCBs

On 18/11/11 22:53, Stefan Trethan wrote:
> This is an old story, decades older than RoHS, some "consultant"
> probably just warmed it up to make a quick buck.
> The industry is well beyond this problem by using alloys instead of pure tin.
>
> The problems we have in modern equipment are due to bad design (over
> stressing of cheap components), and increasingly bad software (when
> have you last bought something software driven that doesn't have
> bugs?). Everyone who does repairs knows this.
>
> It's easy to blame the government because they are idiots, but it's
> just not the truth. The problem is us buying cheap, cheap stuff from
> china, and shipping it right back as junk, to be "recycled" by
> children who should be in school rather than in front of a pot of
> molten solder. Sure, RoHS doesn't really solve the problem, but
> neither does it cause it.

I hand-solder controllers for farm machinery and the last thing anyone wants is 
a blown controller in the middle of harvesting a million dollar crop. The 
problem is compounded by the temperature and vibration extremes.

Same goes for anything else mission critical. Luckily, i still use lead-tin 
solder and am far away from europe (the further the better).