Failing electronics

One thing that interests me lately is repairing electronics, or at least trying to. I thought it might be interested to blog about the various projects I attempted and their outcome.

Before I talk about the projects I've been working on, I wanted to elaborate on why electronics seem to have shorter lifespans. Many people have noticed that electronics lately seem to die within about 5 years. Why is that? A lot of people probably have a VCR at home from the 80s that still works fine, so why is it their DVD player from just a few years ago has died? The answer to that is complicated. I'm sure part of it is because most electronics manufactures don't manufacture their own products anymore. As I talked about in previous posts, just as Dell doesn't actually make their computers, the same is true of Toshiba and their TVs, or a DVD player from LG. It's just the way the industry works these days.

But I think the 2 single greatest problems resulting in electronics failure are bad capacitors and lead-free solder.

1. In 2006 the European Union started enforcing the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive. As the name implies, the intent is to reduce the amount of hazardous substances in electronics. One of the changes required is the use of lead-free solders. Most electronics solder is a mixture of tin and lead. But the use of lead-free solders has caused to a lot of problems. Lead-free solders are a lot more brittle, over time they crack which can break the electrical connection. Even if the electronic device doesn't move (like a TV mounted on the wall), the expansion and contraction as the device heats up and cools is enough to cause cracking. Another problem caused by lead-free solder is called tin-whiskers. The solder joint actually begins to grow tin crystals which look a lot like microscopic whiskers or hairs. If these whiskers come in contact with a nearby piece of metal, it can cause a short. There is a reason why they added lead to solder in the first place, the lead prevents these problems from occurring. Admittedly they are getting better at the recipes of lead-free solder they use. Electronics manufactured around 2005 - 2007 seem to be most susceptible. Only time will tell if the new lead-free solder formulas work better.


2. The second common failure point for electronics is a bad capacitor. A capacitor is a small electronics component. The problem here is a certain type of capacitor called an electrolitic capacitor. If you've ever looked at a circuit board, they look like small cylinders with a shiny metal top. From what I've heard the problem is a few years ago a bunch of Chinese companies started producing very inexpensive electrolitic capacitor which, because of their price, were quickly adopted by manufactures and made their way into most electronics. But these electrolitic capacitors were inferior to higher cost Japanese electrolitic capacitors and would fail in time. But no one knew this at the time. If you tested a Chinese capacitor and a Japanese capacitor, they both checked out. But the Chinese capacitors had a high failure rate in the 3 - 5 year range.

Next time I'll talk more about these two problems, and even how to diagnose and fix them.