Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Chuck Harris writes: Actually, as I understand it, all test equipment is exempt from RoHS. As are all batteries, oddly enough. RoHS is mostly aimed that the high-volume markets. Batteries are not excempt, they get their own special rules. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: How much test equipment ends in a land fill? RoHS also addresses this, the manufacturers have to take back old equipment and dispose of it properly. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Brooke Clarke writes: Hi Chuck: I think it will take 4 to 6 years for the tin whiskers to grow to the point of shorting out IC packages, relays, etc. That's already well past the lifetime of most consumer electronics. RoHS has various excemptions and TM is indeed one of them. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
Hi all, Yes some TE is exempt. Not all batteries are, mercury cells were banned about 10 years ago. This was a great pity as they make great voltage references! Hg is allowed in lamps, lead in ceramics and Cd in light dependant resistors. I don't know who will enforce it, I can't see trading standards wandering around with an X-ray fluorescence tester! EMC has been around for a while and there are lots of non-compliant items for sale. Some are obviously non-compliant others fail under test. We make laboratory automation equipment that uses PC's for control, We take a unit for testing and it fails because of the PC. One failed with the PC running with just the power lead connected, no keyboard, mouse or monitor. The supplier said it was compliant because all the parts we CE marked! Sorry for the rant, but I feel better now. Robert G8RPI. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 18 July 2006 01:16 To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium? Hi Chuck, yes, all test equipment is excempt from RoHS, until between 2009 - 2011. Europe is not sure how long they will keep this exemption in effect. There are so many legacy products that are vital to the industry and that will not be re-designed that I think the exemptions will continue beyond that. Doing Lead-free has many reliability issues, let me just mention shorts caused by tin-whiskers, and the problems of visually identifying a cold-solder joint... The assembly houses I have talked to hate doing lead free work for critical, expensive items. How much test equipment ends in a land fill? Probably not too much due to all of the gold used in it, the collectors' value etc. Also, who is going to test all the products for compliance? It's probably very easy to get away with not complying. I would guess this will happen to a lot of products made in China... bye, Said ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the individual and not necessarily Genetix Ltd (Genetix) or any company associated with it. This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for delivering to the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error please notify Genetix by telephone on +44 (0)1425 624600. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. This mail and any attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving the Genetix network. Genetix will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or consequential damages as a result of any virus being passed on, or arising from alteration of the contents of this message by a third party. ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
Both cesium and rubidium is harder to come by, but ebay being what it is, it is no longer that hard if I really wanted to. I have always wondered where one actually get these things on a commerical basis. There are companies in the business of supplying that sort of thing. You just have to find them. It took me a few minutes with google to find Fisher Scientific. https://www1.fishersci.com/Coupon;jsessionid=E8gHglzLzW1nLscKcCAg1axhtmV2a7zfj 47fHzNtEPdHNCtzaM2x!-994379636?cid=1334gid=222808 $57 for 1g of Cesium. If you feed cesium to their search box, you get 100s of hits. (Many are different quantities of the same thing.) Or look at the ads along the right side of a google search. (Lots of snake oil.) -- The suespammers.org mail server is located in California. So are all my other mailboxes. Please do not send unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited commercial e-mail to my suespammers.org address or any of my other addresses. These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam. ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: How much test equipment ends in a land fill? RoHS also addresses this, the manufacturers have to take back old equipment and dispose of it properly. Actually, this is covered by a different set of rules in the EU called WEEE which requires manufacturers to take back either gear that they've sold, or sometimes other people's equipment that they're replacing. It actually went into effect last year (ahead of RoHS). And, lots of other countries and several US states are getting on the WEEE/RoHS bandwagon, so it's going to be a pretty universal set of requirements before too long. John ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
They should be able the standard uses a single mercury atom!! ;-) --- Jack Hudler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now if they can just make that fit inside a soup can and cost less than $300; we'd all have our own Mercury Standard. :) ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Normand Martel writes: They should be able the standard uses a single mercury atom!! ;-) Which interestingly enough might make them incompatible with the RoHS (Reduction of Harmfull Substances) regulation here in EU. As far as I've understood RoHS, you can get away with trace amounts of heavy metals on the banned list, under a theory of environmental contamination, but if you include them deliberately, you're in violation. Fortunately metrological equipment is easy to get an excemption for :-) -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Normand Martel writes: They should be able the standard uses a single mercury atom!! ;-) Which interestingly enough might make them incompatible with the RoHS (Reduction of Harmfull Substances) regulation here in EU. As far as I've understood RoHS, you can get away with trace amounts of heavy metals on the banned list, under a theory of environmental contamination, but if you include them deliberately, you're in violation. Fortunately metrological equipment is easy to get an excemption for :-) Actually, as I understand it, all test equipment is exempt from RoHS. As are all batteries, oddly enough. -Chuck Harris ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
Hi Chuck, yes, all test equipment is excempt from RoHS, until between 2009 - 2011. Europe is not sure how long they will keep this exemption in effect. There are so many legacy products that are vital to the industry and that will not be re-designed that I think the exemptions will continue beyond that. Doing Lead-free has many reliability issues, let me just mention shorts caused by tin-whiskers, and the problems of visually identifying a cold-solder joint... The assembly houses I have talked to hate doing lead free work for critical, expensive items. How much test equipment ends in a land fill? Probably not too much due to all of the gold used in it, the collectors' value etc. Also, who is going to test all the products for compliance? It's probably very easy to get away with not complying. I would guess this will happen to a lot of products made in China... bye, Said ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
Hi Said, I'm inclined to believe that a fairly short period of time after the world goes lead free with electronics, there are going to be disastrous numbers of failures. Basically, the electronics industry is being asked to forget all of the advances it has made in manufacturing, and production, and reinvent the wheel, in a big way. I can only hope that sanity will return, and RoHS will be modified to something more realistic. Just consider the amount of lead in a car battery, and consider how one improperly discarded car battery will introduce more lead into the environment than several metric tons of improperly discarded electronic equipment. As to China, they are already ready to make things any way you want to pay them to. -Chuck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Chuck, yes, all test equipment is excempt from RoHS, until between 2009 - 2011. Europe is not sure how long they will keep this exemption in effect. There are so many legacy products that are vital to the industry and that will not be re-designed that I think the exemptions will continue beyond that. Doing Lead-free has many reliability issues, let me just mention shorts caused by tin-whiskers, and the problems of visually identifying a cold-solder joint... The assembly houses I have talked to hate doing lead free work for critical, expensive items. How much test equipment ends in a land fill? Probably not too much due to all of the gold used in it, the collectors' value etc. Also, who is going to test all the products for compliance? It's probably very easy to get away with not complying. I would guess this will happen to a lot of products made in China... bye, Said ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
[time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
Keeping time with a single Mercury atom? How come I did not hear about it here first? :-) Didier KO4BB http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=293 ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
From the horses mouth: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/mercury_atomic_clock.htm This brings up a question I've been meaning to ask for a while. How do you tell how good your best clock is? I can figure out how good a not-great clock is by comparing it to a better one. But what if there isn't a better one? -- The suespammers.org mail server is located in California. So are all my other mailboxes. Please do not send unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited commercial e-mail to my suespammers.org address or any of my other addresses. These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam. ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
Dave Andersen wrote: Compare your clock to an ensemble of really good clocks. -Dave UTC is determined by using a large ensemble of clocks and weighting the individual clocks contribution depending how much they varied from the average (or some such measure) The details I don't remember :-) Bill K7NOM Hal Murray wrote: From the horses mouth: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/mercury_atomic_clock.htm This brings up a question I've been meaning to ask for a while. How do you tell how good your best clock is? I can figure out how good a not-great clock is by comparing it to a better one. But what if there isn't a better one? ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
I still think that the statement on TVB's website is the best. It is also pretty much the truth. I am sure all of you on here are familiar with it and it has to do with a man owning one clock vs. a man owning two clocks. The one with one clock always knows what time it is, the one with two is never sure. That is truly a classic that I love. We are playing the same game. - Mike Mike B. Feher, N4FS 89 Arnold Blvd. Howell, NJ, 07731 732-886-5960 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bill Janssen Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 9:18 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium? Dave Andersen wrote: Compare your clock to an ensemble of really good clocks. -Dave UTC is determined by using a large ensemble of clocks and weighting the individual clocks contribution depending how much they varied from the average (or some such measure) The details I don't remember :-) Bill K7NOM Hal Murray wrote: From the horses mouth: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/mercury_atomic_clock.htm This brings up a question I've been meaning to ask for a while. How do you tell how good your best clock is? I can figure out how good a not-great clock is by comparing it to a better one. But what if there isn't a better one? ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.1/389 - Release Date: 7/14/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.1/389 - Release Date: 7/14/2006 ___ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
