RoHS just a thought

[[email protected]]

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.

Others 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

 

[Eeyore]

What do you think?

The general consensus among all the electronic enginers I know is that the whole
lead-free thing is 100% barmy and is a solution looking for a problem.

No-one I know wants to make equipment that will be less reliable (lead free).

Stop to consider why the miliary, aerospace (AIUI) and certain
telecoms/networking are exempt.

Furthermore, the regulations (certainly in the EU) regarding documentation are
so excessive that no small company can ever actually afford to comply fully.
It's simply bureacracy gone totally mad.

Graham

 

[Bob Masta]

The general consensus among all the electronic enginers I know is that the whole
lead-free thing is 100% barmy and is a solution looking for a problem.

No-one I know wants to make equipment that will be less reliable (lead free).

Stop to consider why the miliary, aerospace (AIUI) and certain
telecoms/networking are exempt.

Furthermore, the regulations (certainly in the EU) regarding documentation are
so excessive that no small company can ever actually afford to comply fully.
It's simply bureacracy gone totally mad.

Personally, I'm all in favor of making things kinder to the
environment. The problem with lead-free solders,
however, is that they are simply not an acceptable
solution. The issue is "tin whiskers" which grow
from the so-called solder at an alarming rate and
can short to adjacent conductors. It's hard to
imagine that anyone could seriously consider this
as an acceptable replacement for leaded solder.

My first reaction to all this was that we should just
do a better job of diverting electronics devices from
the landfills, and into some sort of material recovery stream.
But these days "electronics" might be in almost anything,
including kids' sneakers. If the RFID proponents get
their wish, electronics will be in damn near *everything*.

What's the answer? Biodegradeable organic conductors
and semiconductors? Or maybe everything in one huge
bonded ASIC that needs no solder because there's
nothing else to connect to?

Whatever, there is clearly a need for improvement!

Best regards,


Bob Masta

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Signal Generator
Science with your sound card!

 

[Eeyore]

Personally, I'm all in favor of making things kinder to the
environment.

And 'lead-free' is a negative solution


Graham

 

[[email protected]]

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.

Others 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

Does anyone know how this company did this introduction on there
website. www.empero.us it is so awesome.
Please contact me if you can help!

Ali

 

[Lord Garth]

The general consensus among all the electronic enginers I know is that the whole
lead-free thing is 100% barmy and is a solution looking for a problem.

No-one I know wants to make equipment that will be less reliable (lead free).

Stop to consider why the miliary, aerospace (AIUI) and certain
telecoms/networking are exempt.

Furthermore, the regulations (certainly in the EU) regarding documentation are
so excessive that no small company can ever actually afford to comply fully.
It's simply bureacracy gone totally mad.

Graham

Agreed!

 

[Chris Jones]

Personally, I'm all in favor of making things kinder to the
environment. The problem with lead-free solders,
however, is that they are simply not an acceptable
solution. The issue is "tin whiskers" which grow
from the so-called solder at an alarming rate and
can short to adjacent conductors. It's hard to
imagine that anyone could seriously consider this
as an acceptable replacement for leaded solder.

My first reaction to all this was that we should just
do a better job of diverting electronics devices from
the landfills, and into some sort of material recovery stream.
But these days "electronics" might be in almost anything,
including kids' sneakers. If the RFID proponents get
their wish, electronics will be in damn near *everything*.

What's the answer?

How about make all of the disposable consumer crap lead free except offer a
blanket exception to allow 5% leaded solder in any product which comes with
a 5 year or greater warranty, and up to 36% lead if the warranty exceeds 15
years. I think that companies that offer a long warranty will put more
thought into making the product last longer, and they should be given the
best materials to achieve the lowest total amount of pollution (which must
include the energy and materials that goes into making lead-free
electronics that fails and is scrapped after a couple of years due to tin
whiskers). The warranty would need to be backed by a pre-paid voucher on
the appliance for shipping to the manufacturer within the warranty period
or shipping to a proper recycling facility thereafter. It would be
reasonable to require the manufacturer to buy insurance to protect the
warranty service in the event that they might go out of business within the
warranty period (as otherwise this would be a cheap get-out for
unscrupulous companies), but any "insurance", "recycling scheme" or
membership fees should be set at a fixed price per kilogram of electronics
content sold, rather than the kind of annual per-company bribes /
protection money / membership fees / WEEE registration that penalises small
businesses and start-ups, and favours only the largest companies (and
therefore has been implemented).

Chris

 

[Chris Jones]

How about make all of the disposable consumer crap lead free except offer
a blanket exception to allow 5% leaded solder in any product which comes
with a 5 year or greater warranty, and up to 36% lead if the warranty
exceeds 15
years. I think that companies that offer a long warranty will put more
thought into making the product last longer, and they should be given the
best materials to achieve the lowest total amount of pollution (which must
include the energy and materials that goes into making lead-free
electronics that fails and is scrapped after a couple of years due to tin
whiskers). The warranty would need to be backed by a pre-paid voucher on
the appliance for shipping to the manufacturer within the warranty period
or shipping to a proper recycling facility thereafter. It would be
reasonable to require the manufacturer to buy insurance to protect the
warranty service in the event that they might go out of business within
the warranty period (as otherwise this would be a cheap get-out for
unscrupulous companies), but any "insurance", "recycling scheme" or
membership fees should be set at a fixed price per kilogram of electronics
content sold, rather than the kind of annual per-company bribes /
protection money / membership fees / WEEE registration that penalises
small businesses and start-ups, and favours only the largest companies
(and therefore has been implemented).

Chris

Or another option: allow lead but tax it at 1 euro per gram. Tax it equally
per gram of lead, whether it is in flashing on the roof of a house, in a
car battery, in steel alloys or in solder - there is no reason to victimise
only one industry. Give a full refund when it is recycled. The refund
would be paid for the ingots of reclaimed alloy, and let businesses figure
out a way of buying back the old appliances for the right price. New
consumer appliances would mostly be lead-free or nearly so, for cost
reasons. Recycling rates would be very high, yet expensive and important
equipment could be built with the most reliable solder. And best of all:
with my hoard of 60/40, I'll be rich!

 

[John Larkin]

Or another option: allow lead but tax it at 1 euro per gram. Tax it equally
per gram of lead, whether it is in flashing on the roof of a house, in a
car battery, in steel alloys or in solder - there is no reason to victimise
only one industry. Give a full refund when it is recycled. The refund
would be paid for the ingots of reclaimed alloy, and let businesses figure
out a way of buying back the old appliances for the right price. New
consumer appliances would mostly be lead-free or nearly so, for cost
reasons. Recycling rates would be very high, yet expensive and important
equipment could be built with the most reliable solder. And best of all:
with my hoard of 60/40, I'll be rich!

You are both proposing yet more complex laws and yet more taxes.

If ingots were bought back at $1 a gram, imagine the amount of lead
that would be smuggled in from China!

The sensible thing would be to allow small amounts of tin/lead solder
(as on component leads) and exempt industrial/small-production stuff
entirely.

John

 

[Eeyore]

The sensible thing would be to allow small amounts of tin/lead solder
(as on component leads) and exempt industrial/small-production stuff
entirely.

Yes.

Graham

 

[Lord Garth]

Yes.

Graham

What I laugh about is one of my vendors plugging RoHS compliant products
to me like it's the best thing to come along. I explained to him how crappy
it is only to be told that "that's the way it is, you can't change it".

We'll see.