{"id":55,"date":"2005-01-09T11:10:34","date_gmt":"2005-01-09T17:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/?p=55"},"modified":"2005-01-09T13:21:54","modified_gmt":"2005-01-09T19:21:54","slug":"watch-out-for-tin-whiskers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/?p=55","title":{"rendered":"Watch Out for Tin Whiskers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There was an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fortune.com\/fortune\/thisjustin\/0,15704,1012859,00.html\">interesting article<\/a> this morning on fortune.com about the phenomenon called &#8220;tin whiskers&#8221;.  (No.  I don&#8217;t normally read fortune.com.  There was a link to the article on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slashdot.org\">Slashdot<\/a>.)  I know that sounds like a made up phrase, but it isn&#8217;t.  Tin whiskers are just what the name implies &#8212; little thin strands of tin that arise off of tin solder joints in electronic components.  These whiskers, being metal, can wreak havoc if they bridge two electronic circuits and create a short.  <\/p>\n<p>According to the article, they were discovered in the 1940s and the solution was to mix a very small amount of lead into the solder.  The lead inhibited the formation of the whiskers.  This worked fine until it was discovered that lead is neuro-toxic to humans and other animals.  Now many governments, including the European Union are outlawing lead in electronics.  Of course, this is being done with having found a sure-fire replacement to it.  What does that mean?  The author of the article argues that it means a resurgence in electronics problems due to tin whiskers.  He believes it is the new Y2K.  What do you think?<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Pete<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There was an interesting article this morning on fortune.com about the phenomenon called &#8220;tin whiskers&#8221;. (No. I don&#8217;t normally read fortune.com. There was a link to the article on Slashdot.) I know that sounds like a made up phrase, but it isn&#8217;t. Tin whiskers are just what the name implies &#8212; little thin strands of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geek-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.minnesotageek.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}