RoHS and older parts thought

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Hello

I operate an industrial surplus reuse store site called
reusestore.com. We deal with a lot of older obsolete parts. I also run
a company called Green Planet Solutions inc. We specialize in WEEE and
RoHS directives and engineering support. (www.atotalgps.com)

One of the reasons why I wanted to write in this message board is to
share some information with every one as are part of the data
collection on what we are seeing and some thing to think about.

When RoHS and WEE were first introduced to our clients here in the US
we saw a tendency to have a knee jerk reaction. Some clients wanted to
buy up as many old leaded parts as they could while they tried to
cross over to totally lead free products and processes.

While this can be a good plan it can damage you greatly also.

One of the first problems, among hundreds of others, is that when you
buy up older leaded components you have no idea if your states local
EPA laws will be changed and effect the use of your now thousands of
dollars worth of store leaded components.

Take for instance California EPA local prop 65. Certain fire
retardants that are found in some electronic component packages are
now deemed illegal for use in this state.

Other like cadmium among other materials are not only restricted from
use in the EU but now the US is starting to adopt the EU RoHS
regulations.

Most components that are not RoHS compliant will not be able to be
sold into the market in new products.

Most of our stock in our reusestore.com is only slated to be used as
replacement parts for products put on to the market before Jan 2006.

In most cases we research the components to see if they are higher in
the levels and then we send them to the proper recycling channels.

My worry I think here is, that in most cases, companies are putting
off this effort to change over to RoHS compliancy until the very last
moment where they could get caught in the local EPA laws cross fire.

What do you think?

Mike Dolbow

 

[Skybuck Flying]

I think:

"Their fucking problem"

Big deal.

Bye,
Skybuck.

 

[Rene Tschaggelar]

My worry I think here is, that in most cases, companies are putting
off this effort to change over to RoHS compliancy until the very last
moment where they could get caught in the local EPA laws cross fire.

What do you think?

What I've seen here is a multitude of actions. To
bigger companies it is a logistic nightmare. Siemens
Switzerland for example I was told figured that
distiguishing between leaded and unleaded of the
same part was considered to difficult, snd thus they
dumped truckloads of leaded parts on the transition
date. In order to have a smooth internal transition,
they had to buy the unleaded parts before that.

Other companies started planning two years ahead
of the transition date.

Me, having a smaller setup stopped buying leaded
parts a year before the date and am still in the
transition. The few remaining leaded parts are used
for prototypes that don't leave the house. It isn't
that an overhead for me to check which parts are
leaded and which are'nt.

It is much cheaper to get a few new parts than
being involved in law suits, or having your
reputation damaged by a competitor.

Rene