Eeyore said:
The effort invoved in puting lead back on components always strikes me as one of
the more bizarre aspects of RoHS. Talk about proof the idea was fundamentally
wrong in the first place !
Graham
Got to agree. My view is it was pushed for a political agenda rather
than a scientific one (duh) and a reduction in hazardous substances has
not and will not be achieved from the directive. There are more
hazardous chemicals used (by volume) for the replacement processes than
is removed by the RoHS directive, amusingly. Another issue is because of
the suspect reliability of equipment (there definitely seems to be more
failures in RoHS compliant products), more equipment is actually made.
With the WEEE directive it simply means that more parts are used, and
the costs go up due to the cost of dealing with / recycling defective
equipment. Doesn't make much sense, really.
On the refinishing front, if we could buy SnPb finished parts, we would.
These are still available directly from manufacturers of some parts for
the aerospace industry, but not from others. Having two processes drives
up their costs, so we either pay the manufacturer for it or pay our own
facilities for it. Either way, the end product cost increases.
If the object of the exercise was to reduce hazardous substances, it has
failed spectacularly.
Cheers
PeteS
