ROHS, how does this affect you?

Reduction of Hazardous Substances.
The EU as decided that hazardous substances like lead and mercury should not be used in products after 1 july 2006. What are you guys doing for spares and repairs that will no longer be available. Manufacturers are simply obsoleting a lot of old products rather than making the RoHS compliant.

I just wish that there was a standard Logo for RoHS.
Different customers want you to use their own special style of marking to show that you comply, but the requested labels seem to be a little bit different.

elevmike said:

Some time back they eliminated lead content from motor & generator brushes. Now we change brushes every couple of months instead of every couple of years. Not to mention the huge mess the lead-free brushes cause buy the accelerated wear.

This and the freon ban are classic cases of jumping the gun and causing an unintended adverse effect that may actually cause more contamination and lead to other safety hazards.

Thank God for AC drive technology...However not all existing DC machines are going to be replaced anytime soon.

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I hardly think they are "Jumping the gun" on this one mike..Lead is a poison..its a proven fact..Freon is bad for the enviroment.(cant comment on this one)..

would you still put leaded fuel in your car?..I know the lead free brushes dont last as long (And if you are in the elevator trade i imagine 99% of your motors require brushes) but YOU will last longer ..

Would lead also be banned from the production of bullets?

darrenj said:

I hardly think they are "Jumping the gun" on this one mike..Lead is a poison..its a proven fact..Freon is bad for the enviroment.(cant comment on this one)..

would you still put leaded fuel in your car?..I know the lead free brushes dont last as long (And if you are in the elevator trade i imagine 99% of your motors require brushes) but YOU will last longer ..

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Darren,

There are a lot of exemptions to this directive, and an entire slew of new exemptions being considered. By far this is NOT an all out ban. Mainly becase the substances in question are required for many applicaions. Banning lead in fuel, paint and other consumer items isnt in question. But removing it from brushes for large motors has caused some problems. Like with anything, it requires approperate care when handeling it.

Does this mean we can't use fluro tubes or mercury vapour lamps any more?

What about lead/tin solder?

What about lead/tin solder?

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If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty certain that part of the RoHS directive is changing manufacturers over to lead-free solder.

From What I know really only applies to printed circuit board connectors for the lead free soldering directive.

I have used Phoenix Contact for a while and I think they are like 98% compliant which is more hten most I believe. I don't even think some of the big guns are 2% compliant.

They call it their combicon line.

We are currently in the process of changing over.

It isn't only the solder that is used, but we actually have identified three areas that we need to address:

1. As stated before, the solder is 63/37 (37% being lead) will be changed to a composition that is 96% tin, 3% silver and .5% copper. The cost for the new solder is approximately 3 times the cost. Plus there are new issues with this solder. You have to make certain that the copper content does not reach a certain percentage or else you will contaminate the entire pot. If that is the case, then you will have discard over 200 lbs of solder.

2. Components - all component leads have some form of lead composite. Component manufacturers are in the process of converting non-RoHS components to RoHS compliant. What a mess this is. Every manufacturer has their own method for identifying the RoHS compliant product. Some manufacturers won't do anything until their current supply is depleted. Lead times have been extended due to this transition. Some companies have already completed the process.

3. Our circuit boards are tinned with a solder based composite that is 63/37. Therefore, we requested our board house to convert our process from tin lead to Electro Nickel Immersion Gold plating.

The last step for us will be the new solder machine. The conversion of components, we are at the mercy of the manufacturer and distributors that we purchase from.

From what I have read so far, there is an exemption for industrial controls, but we won't be using it as an excuse.

The whole concept of RoHS was initiated some 10 years ago, so it is by no means a trigger reaction. Many of the larger companies have known about this for some time, but because the deadline set by the EU wasn't until July 2006, there was no urgency. I first learned about RoHS in December 2004, when a rep told me about it, a customer requested it and I went to a seminar held by one of my vendors. Rather than deal with the end result of what to do with 15,000 tons of lead waste / year in the EU, they decided to eliminate it at the source.

The seminar was eye opening...not with regards to the impact that it would have on us, because we have a narrow BOM in that many components are used on multiple controllers, but the impact it was going to have on many contract manufacturers. We are talking about 10,000 parts to concern yourself with, whereby we maybe have 300-400 parts.

So don't be surprised if your costs go up on equipment that you purchase.

RoHS

We are experiencing same issues:

1. Component availability or more accurately getting manufacturer statements of RoHS compliance from some of the large components distributors and ensuring that they really are compliant.
2. Temperature profiles required for our SMT lines to ensure proper solder reflow on circuit boards. Then new solder required higher temps and we need to recharacterize the reflow ovens
3. Automated Optical Inspection - it appears that some systems use reflectance as a way to find cold solder joints and the new lead free solder doesn shine as bright as the lead solder. Working with 0402 body components that are already are tiny doesn't help the issue.
4. Going to hard gold plating on circuit boards.
5. Having to STRIFE / HALT test assemblies to ensure the new procedures / components yeild equivalent rugged parts.

One of the things I saw that is really concerning (especially defense and medical industries) is the formation of tin whiskers on the newer solder / component assembiles.

Link to an interesting article on the issue...
http://www.reed-electronics.com/tmworld/article/CA6251552?text=lead+free

Change is dependent on your situation.

If you ship product to Europe, then you have to be compliant by July 2006. They say this, but I am not certain what the ramifications are or how they will police it. There are certain industries that have an exemption.

Also, what is going on in Europe right now comes home to California, beginning January 2007. Apparantly, California has enacted similar standards. So, if you ship product to California, in 2007, you will have similar standards to meet.

I also believe there are other countries that are instituting similar standards to RoHS.

well, it seems (especially after Rod's comments on the 'Tips' post) that once again hindsight is 20/20. Making changes now because of past mistakes is what governments do best!

I worked as a technical engineer for a company that made Xray inspection machines for food processing plants. The parent company is located in Italy. We told customers that we could detect glass as small as .8mm, but the glass was from Europe....it contained a trace amount of lead which made it easier to detect. 1mm was as small as could be detected using glass from here.

If it helps the world, then great. I have kids that would like to live long enough to see their grandkids, and I'd prefer the world didn't look like Bladerunner or some other post-apocalyptic wasteland.