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Retired MVS Contributor

Tin Whiskers

Post by Retired MVS Contributor »

"Tin Whiskers" is a phenomenom that those of us who were in the aero-space industry have known about for years...Now it has been implicated as the cause of Toyota's unintended acceleration problem... (Google, see "Tin Whiskers" for photos, etc)

In Europe, and to some extent here in the US, lead/tin solder has been banned and lead-free solder (tin/silver/copper) is used in manufacture...This solder, besides being harder, more difficult to melt, and prone to fatigue cracking, has the unique ability to grow whiskers that can span across circuit board gaps and cause short circuits...

It is such a serious problem that NASA, the military, and a few other vital industries are exempted from the RoHS protocol that mandates lead-free solder...Since most Volvo modules are manufactured in Europe where there is a total ban on lead bearing solder, it would not surprise me if a lot of our Volvo electrical problems are due to tin whiskers...
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