tin whiskers

Quite some time ago, these were in the news, but I noticed this morning that
these are being blamed for small shorts on Cassini now. With the ISS being
life extended etc, i wonder how long it will be before we hear about hese
here. I find it odd that according to the Cassini story, they are still not
really sure why these occur. Its definitely something one will need to stop
if we want to live on other planets I'd suggest. Do they only occur in
microgravity, or is it some interaction due to radiation and free radicals
or maybe ionised gas.
Brian

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"Brian Gaff" wrote in
:

Quite some time ago, these were in the news, but I noticed this
morning that these are being blamed for small shorts on Cassini now.
With the ISS being life extended etc, i wonder how long it will be
before we hear about hese here. I find it odd that according to the
Cassini story, they are still not really sure why these occur. Its
definitely something one will need to stop if we want to live on other
planets I'd suggest. Do they only occur in microgravity, or is it some
interaction due to radiation and free radicals or maybe ionised gas.
Brian


back when I was still working, we were having a real issue with
Silver Migration in the touch pad control panel membranes

takes a while for some issues to come to the forefront.

Yes, I seem to remember some strange oddities in the old Sinclair computer
membranes, some of the first to be made for consumers.Some would crack, some
apparently have minute shorts tripping keys in a ghostly manner!

Brian

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in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"John Szalay" john.szalayATatt.net wrote in message
42...
"Brian Gaff" wrote in
:

Quite some time ago, these were in the news, but I noticed this
morning that these are being blamed for small shorts on Cassini now.
With the ISS being life extended etc, i wonder how long it will be
before we hear about hese here. I find it odd that according to the
Cassini story, they are still not really sure why these occur. Its
definitely something one will need to stop if we want to live on other
planets I'd suggest. Do they only occur in microgravity, or is it some
interaction due to radiation and free radicals or maybe ionised gas.
Brian


back when I was still working, we were having a real issue with
Silver Migration in the touch pad control panel membranes

takes a while for some issues to come to the forefront.

In sci.space.station message , Tue, 20 Mar
2012 06:00:43, Brian Gaff posted:

Quite some time ago, these were in the news, but I noticed this morning that
these are being blamed for small shorts on Cassini now. With the ISS being
life extended etc, i wonder how long it will be before we hear about hese
here. I find it odd that according to the Cassini story, they are still not
really sure why these occur. Its definitely something one will need to stop
if we want to live on other planets I'd suggest. Do they only occur in
microgravity, or is it some interaction due to radiation and free radicals
or maybe ionised gas.


They are a natural property of some low-melting-point metals, well-known
on Earth.

Consult http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_%28metallurgy%29.

They are not to be confused, of course, with Electric Whiskers :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annibale_Bergonzoli.

--
(c) John Stockton, near London.
Web http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQish topics, acronyms, and links.

"Brian Gaff" writes:

Quite some time ago, these were in the news, but I noticed this morning that
these are being blamed for small shorts on Cassini now. With the ISS being
life extended etc, i wonder how long it will be before we hear about hese
here. I find it odd that according to the Cassini story, they are still not
really sure why these occur. Its definitely something one will need to stop
if we want to live on other planets I'd suggest. Do they only occur in
microgravity, or is it some interaction due to radiation and free radicals
or maybe ionised gas.

See:

http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/