Internet commentary

Citation

(2002), "Internet commentary", Circuit World, Vol. 28 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/cw.2002.21728aag.001

Internet commentary

What with excellent browsing and sluicing and cheery conversation and what-not, the afternoon passed quite happily (P.G. Wodehouse, "Jeeves and the unbidden guest", My Man Jeeves (1919)).

As regular readers will know, I have used various browsers at different times. My least favourite one is the Microsoft Internet Explorer. I have a number of reasons for this judgment. One of the most telling of these is the fact that this program, along with the e-mail client Outlook Express, is the most prone to things like viruses and their close relatives. For this reason, I have always used Netscape Communicator as my principal browser and e-mail client. Although this has been relatively free from attack by viruses, up to now, it is almost certain that when hackers get bored with the Microsoft programs, they will turn their attention to the second most popular system. Forewarned is forearmed. I am not saying that the Netscape system is perfect – it isn't – but I think it is much more user-friendly than the Microsoft.

It has been said that Netscape Communicator is a system for "techies", while the Microsoft Internet Explorer and Outlook Express are for those who know little better. I disagree with this judgmental statement, although, like all generalisations, there may be a modicum of truth in it, because Netscape has more choice of configuration, if you look into the details.

Nonetheless, even though I am more or less satisfied with Netscape, I am always on the look-out for something better. Nothing that I have tried up to now has measured up to either of the main softwares. It may be that, at last, I have found something which, if not better, at least equals them. This has been developed by a Norwegian company and is called Opera. I have been trying their new version 5.12 for a couple of days now and, on the whole, it looks good. It can be downloaded free of charge in a version which carries advertisements. By paying about $40, a version without advertisements is available. Like Netscape, it combines an e-mail client with the browser. It has most of the facilities of a more conventional system and one or two others, besides. I have not yet made the decision to go over to it but I do feel that it is worth consideration. One of the claims that the authors of the software make is that it is a much faster browser than any of the others. I have not been able to verify this claim, mainly because the speed limitation more often comes from the servers than from the browser itself.

If you wish to try this system out, I think you will find it interesting. You can locate it at http://www.opera.com If you download the full version with Java, it may take you a few minutes, as the file size is about 10 megabytes. Without Java, it is much smaller. Incidentally, talking about Java, Opera does seem to have a quirk with a few scripts which modify the appearance of a page. One of these, which I have noticed, is that hover buttons do not display perfectly. I am not particularly worried about minor things like this.

Oh! And yes! Opera is available for all the usual platforms. Other than Windows, of all types, you can have it for MAC, Linux, BeOS and more again. You can also be sure that any of these systems is very unlikely to be affected by worms, unlike the main systems. I'm sorry, but I can't resist, with the name Opera, a quotation from that most wonderful of comic operas, G&S's The Mikado: "Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?"!

Before getting into the meat of this article, let me mention another problem that I have been having, this time a hardware problem with mice. About 20 months ago, I bought two Microsoft Intellimouse Explorers. For those who don't know it, these are very ingenious optical mice, which I find infinitely better than those horrible things which rely on the rotation of a rubber coated metal ball. I was over the moon with these rodents, that is until a couple of weeks ago. Then one of them started to go to sleep for a moment and then wake up again. At first, I thought that this was a driver problem but re-installing the software made no difference. I could find no reference to this problem on the Microsoft Internet site but I did visit a News Group, which did give me a clue. Apparently, it is a known problem with this kind of mouse and is caused by a wire breaking at the point where the cable enters into the rodent's body. With trepidation, I phoned Microsoft and was very pleasantly surprised to find that they were willing to replace the mouse, free of charge. The unfortunate thing is that, today, my other mouse of the same species has suffered from the identical dislocation of its vertebrae! I haven't yet phoned Microsoft about this but I rather dread doing so, as they will think that I'm making a habit of complaining about this problem! The drama of this is that I have been reduced to working with a mouse with one of those balls and a mouse pad (the optical mice work on almost any surface). After many months of precise operation, this is like splodging around in a muddy field! I hope that at least one of the new ones arrives very shortly.

I'm experimentally changing my reviews this time. Rather than comment on a site, I'll briefly summarise some Web pages, whether they be home pages or embedded in a site, on a single theme, so I won't give an illustration or marks. To do this, I am interrogating Google with the key-words "printed circuit OR wiring environment": this gives me, at the time of writing, about 195,000 results and I'll choose some of these more or less at random. The actual subjects, although pertaining to the single theme, vary over a wide range. Before I start, I want you, my reader(s?), to e-mail me and tell me whether you prefer the site reviews on a subject, as in the past, or page reviews on a theme, as below. Without your feedback, I find it difficult to provide the information that suits you best. You'll find my e-mail address at the foot of this article.

http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/dfe/pwb/pwb.html

The title of this page is "Design for the environment, printed wiring board project". This may be misleading, because it is nothing to do with printed circuit design in such a way as to help the environment, but it is the first of a series of pages destined to help printed circuit manufacturers to reduce their pollution. By itself, this page is almost without value but many of the sub-pages are very valid to our industry. In particular, there are nine case studies which give details of some actual achievements in this field. On the whole, this site is well worth a visit, if you are a printed circuit manufacturer seeking to reduce pollution levels or, in some cases, to reduce costs.

http://www.incubators.org.il/03024.htm

This appears to be an Israeli project to eliminate volatile organic compounds from liquid photoresists. I am not sure that there is anything really innovative in this short document. However, the important point is perhaps not so much the fact that pollution is reduced as that production costs may also be reduced. There is a hyperlink for a request for more information but, unfortunately, this requires a user ID and password to gain access, which greatly reduces the value of the page.

http://www.dupont.com/pcm/techinfo/environ/

This page is useful. It provides a menu to enable users of dry-film resists to handle them safely, in terms of both the operator and the environment. The sub-pages lead to an abstract and the PDF files covering one of five different aspects of the subject. I would say that this page leads to mandatory reading for anyone using dry-film resists, no matter what the name of the manufacturer.

http://www.pcbmilling.com/index.htm

I know from experience that many companies with small installations for making prototype printed circuit boards do not have the facilities to prevent their processing solutions from entering into the environment. This page offers one of the least polluting methods of rapidly producing single- or double-sided prototypes. In reality, the principle of mechanically engraving the copper is not new and probably goes back six decades or more. Certainly, equipment like this has been available commercially for at least 40 years. Of course, with the development of better tools, the definition of milled circuits has improved. It would appear that a simple Gerber file is now sufficient to produce prototypes by this method.

http://www.cpn.org/cpn/sections/topics/environment/stories-studies/dfe_printedwiringboard.html

This is a report on the background of the EPA study (in the first of these reviews, above). As such, it is hardly worth introducing it here. However, I am doing so just to have the opportunity of quoting from the first paragraph, "The production of printed wiring boards accounts for 79 percent of the energy used, 95 percent of the water used, and 95 percent of the hazardous waste associated with computer manufacturing. The potential for improvement in these areas led EPA's Design for Environment program to forge working partnerships with the PWB industry, environmental and public interest groups, and others." These statistics are astounding, assuming that they are correct.

http://www.eecoswitch.com/Catalog%20Files/cat_sth.htm

This is an academically interesting page, because it offers a different concept of plated through-hole boards, using a conductive silver ink. According to the Chinese manufacturer, these boards are considerably less expensive and avoid the environmental hazards of chemical through-hole plating. As in many examples, ecology and economy would appear to go hand in hand. Whereas I am willing to concede that an interconnection between faces may be possible using a conductive ink for via holes, does this technology work for plated through-holes for component leads?

http://www.osmonics.com/products/Page755.htm

The owner of this page, Osmonics, specialises in filtration and membrane technology for many applications. This page is headed "Printed circuit boards" and consists of a menu referring to five other pages on ultra-pure fluids, waste water treatment, environmental air safety, gas filtration and ultra-pure water. In reality, some of these pages go beyond the requirements for printed circuit board manufacture. However, it is a useful reference.

http://www.nttc.edu/env/waste/rrel510.html

This page is entitled "Waste minimization assessment for a manufacturer of prototype printed circuit boards". As a general rule, when one thinks of a manufacturer of prototype boards, one is apt to think small. It is obvious that in this case the company is not small. This is a co-operative project between the US Environmental Protection Agency and Colorado State University. It is a well described page about the methods used to reduce waste, resulting in three sub-projects with payback periods varying from 2.2 to 2.7 years, not counting the interest on investment.

http://www.brndog.com/pcbdesign.html

This page belongs to a company in Oklahoma, offering printed circuit board design with particular mention of severe environment and high-reliability systems. The board that is used to illustrate the page does not reflect this theme, because it is a simple personal computer plug-in board, which even looks rather antiquated. The company advertises the fact that it uses a popular, rather than a specialised, software package for its design.

http://greenmfg.me.berkeley.edu/green/Publications/electronicspub.html

This is really a specialised bibliography on environmental factors in electronics manufacturing. There are eight references, each with a hyperlink to an abstract. The authors are all from the University of California, Berkeley.

http://www.zipperling.de/Products/PAni/datenbla/CSN/CSN-Wirkung.en.html

This page, from Germany, describes a proprietary process, which is claimed to provide an alternative to hot air solder levelling. For me, it is totally incomprehensible and contradictory. The claims of the company include "it is purely organic (it consists of the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur)"; "it is metallic"; "it is a noble metal (nearly as noble as silver)"; "it is a catalyst". Later on in the same document it says, "it causes the deposition of pure tin" and "a tin layer of 0.7m is sufficient". Taken at its face value, this is a little short of miraculous, because it would appear that organic molecules are transmuted into a base metal, which is noble. There must be more behind this page than meets the eye!

http://www.saecircuits.com/environm.htm

SAE Circuits is a Colorado-based company manufacturing printed circuits. This page describes their environmental policy, including their co-operation with local and national organisations. They are to be congratulated for having received a "Partners for a clean environment" (PACE) certification. Companies requiring printed circuit boards which are manufactured with respect for the environment would be well advised to go to fabricators such as this for their supplies.

http://www.teknicircuits.com/pages/recycle.htm

This is another printed circuit fabricator with a policy of maximum recycling and minimum waste. This time, the company is in Florida. The page itself is not well designed nor is it very informative. The graphics look very amateurish. Notwithstanding, it would appear that the company is probably approaching the state-of-the-art in environmental matters.

http://www.republicmetalscorp.com/rmcslide/index.html

This is a slide-show featuring 93 slides showing a precious metal recovery unit, specialising in printed circuit waste. Although the company claims to respect all environmental matters, it is unclear what happens to non-precious metals. The organic materials are incinerated. It is evident that this company cannot be classed as a recycler of waste electronics equipment, as it is only the precious metals that are a useful component for them.

http://www.sony.co.jp/en/SonyInfo/Environment/group/env-adv/env-adv_e03.html

This page is pure publicity but none the less is interesting. It describes how a large Japanese company has eliminated the use of lead and halogens in a consumer product and has reduced the environmental impact of packaging.

http://www.circuit-pro.com/circuit.html

I must admit that this page caused me a great deal of surprise. It is well-known that many of the IPC events are accompanied by a golf tournament. Did you know that you can hit that little round white ball with printed circuits? I certainly did not. Apparently, this company uses scrap PCBs, casts them into a block and carves out the head of golf clubs from the blocks. What better way of recycling scrap boards? Perhaps Tiger Woods should change his name to Tiger Epoxies!

http://www.nec.co.jp/english/r_and_d/techrep/r_and_d/r98/r98-no2/rd392e09.html

This is an abstract of an article entitled, "Recycling system for printed wiring boards with mounted parts", published by NEC. It describes the methods of removing the components, recovering the metals and using the ground polymers and glass fibres as reinforcement for plastics. Being an abstract, it does not go into details but, despite this, it is well worth reading.

http://www.ricoh.co.jp/ecology/e-/recycle/product.html find

Indeed, the Japanese do seem to be making more efforts at conservation of the environment than manufacturers in some other countries. This page is one of a number on the subject of the environment published by Ricoh. In this case, it is essentially about "environmentally-friendly" photocopiers, but there is a paragraph about one of their French subsidiaries, which recycles printed circuits. The company claims that one photocopier is manufactured using 60 per cent recycled materials, by weight. Another interesting page!

http://pn.iee.org/

I openly admit that I shall cheat for this and the next page. This URL did not come up in the list. It is the site for the brand new IEE Professional Networks. Have a look at the one entitled "Engineering for a sustainable future". The Institution of Electrical Engineers is the world's largest learned society and covers all branches of electrical, electronics and manufacturing engineering. This is, therefore, very directly relevant to the rest of the pages that I've touched upon.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solvents_group

For my final piece of cheating, this is a net group or, if you prefer it, forum dealing with all matters related to solvents. Because solvents are amongst the most polluting of all chemicals we use, whether in an HASL flux, in a solder mask or ink, for cleaning PCBs, silk screens, etc., or whatever application, this forum, which I openly admit I moderate, is relevant.

Well, that's it for this issue. I've given you a wide range of subjects within the central theme. Do you like this approach? If so, or if you prefer my last Internet Commentaries, either way, do please drop me an e-mail. My address is below.

Brian EllisMosfiloti, Cyprusb_ellis@protonique.com