A european question : RoHS

Hello Spehro,

Sometimes I have the feeling that they don't consider advice from engineers at all.

Regards, Joerg

Yup.

Over here the chambers of commerce are as out of touch typically as the bureacrats.

Hence the NOs in the recent referendums.

Graham

We tried that years ago, over the EMC directive. The simmple facts are that the big guns have much richer lobbies, and the chambers of commerce are msotly non- electronic and can't be arsed. I gave up on c-o-c after that. Trade associations, of course, were dominated by the likes of Plessey at the time.

We're over a barrel with lead. "Everybody knows" lead is bad, you can't lobby for it, it's like supporting paedophilia. Big firms can negociate exceptions- for themselves.

Paul Burke

Rumour has it that the power level of 75W ( to be later reduced to 50W at some undefined time ) regarding the application of Class D waveforms in the original IEC1000-3-2 was at the instigation of a certain well known Dutch company that had an interest in keeping down the price of its portable colour TVs !

Graham

The ROHS hasn't just sprung up out of the blue - both it and its implementation date has been known for a long time now. Many manufacturers, like ourselves, have been steadily working toward 'lead free' for some time: it has cost virtually nothing and, so far, zero inconvenience. Changes have been made but largely when a change was to occur anyway (for any number of reasons).

Some, I understand, have ignored the implications of the ROHS until (this) near last minute and then start bleating. But you always get some who object to any change and/or ignore it and hope it goes away.

So far its all pretty painless. Not complete yet in 2 sites but close --- I hope I do not have to eat my words!!

Hello Paul,

Yes, but it is short-sighted. After all, most companies that are now huge conglomerates have started small. Maybe not in a garage like HP but close. When they outlive their lifetime like it seems to be the case with Grundig or Plessey there needs to be some entrepreneurial succession. If the Europeans regulate their small businesses into financial failure pretty soon they will look at unemployment numbers yet unheard of.

Regards, Joerg

My suspicion is that the Brussels bureaucrats are entirely unaware of the number of small companies. And their value too !

Their directives aren't really too awful for big business to deal with but 'full-blown by the book' compliance with all their regs could require a full-time compliance officer for a small company that simply can't afford it. A large company or corporation can easily afford a whole compliance *dept* for comparison's sake. We make do as best we can by 'doubling up' on our skills.

Graham

Rubbish. I regularly get notifications of withdrawn products from Farnell. That means I have to re- engineer products which use these. In many cases it's simply a matter of specifying a direct replacement, but in other cases, electrical specifications or pinout of the replacement product are different. So I'm spending money for exactly zero return.

The impact is proportionally higher on me than on a large concern that is regularly re- engineering its product lines for reasons of built-in obsolescence, fashion etc. Many of the products of smaller firms are specialist items which have been made for years, and don't need changing because they fulfill a specific need.

Paul Burke

And the last thing they want is other small companies to grow to rival them! They would rather pull up the ladder behind them.

Paul Burke