RoHS AKA Woah, Hoss!

What you say doesn't surprise me.

What happens if you're not a big enough concern to run 2 lines though. I know of someone with this problem and whichever way he goes he's going to lose some business.

Graham

And you can be damn sure that's exactly what they will claim.

Graham

Basically, a simple no clean line will cost him $25-30 grand. Thats for small scale junk equipment that is marginally good enough to run leadfree.

Two words: Garbage Incinerators.

Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

Hello! If you are burning such stuff in an incinerated, you are breaking the law. By your mentality, we should ban rubber tires, spray cans, etc., because some doofus might burn them. Dumb arguement.

"Ian" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com:

At last someone realises the true value of RoHS for us engineers. More unreliability-shorter product cycles-more profits for electronics companies. Is not this good for the industry?

I suspect it would be more productive (it would achieve a greater reduction of lead in soil, groundwater and lead dust in the air) if lead wheel balancing weights (used on virtually EVERY car wheel in the US) were replaced with another more benign metal or substance, rather than eliminating lead in all electronic solder and parts. Here's a website dedicated to the no-lead weights idea:

Quoting from the page "What is the problem with lead wheel weights?":

In October of 2000, Dr. Robert A. Root (Environmental Health Perspectives, Volume 108, Number 10. October 2000) published a study documenting the rates at which these weights fall off their host vehicles and are gradually abraded into lead dust. His study was the first to examine this phenomenon, and it established that lead wheel weights are, in his words, "a major source of lead exposure that heretofore has not been recognized."

Perhaps that was indeed the "first to examine this phenomenon" with any rigor and published in a related journal, but I recall a letter in EE Times circa 1996 on this very issue, perhaps prompted by the lead-free solder idea that was gaining momentum back then. IIRC that time period was when the EU first passed a phaseout of lead solder in electronics to be completed by something like 2002(!).

Has lead in electronics dumped into landfills been demonstrated to increase lead in surrounding soil groundwater, or some similar claim demonstrated? I recall one or two statements in this thread claiming the opposite, that the lead in electronic solder pretty much stays put.

Replacing lead wheel weights with iron or steel (or any non-toxic choice) seems like such a no-brainer (I've only seen sites positive to the idea, are there negative aspects these sites don't mention or I haven't read?), that it seems this would have already been done in the US. It looks obvious to me and it wouldn't cost much (it would slightly increase tire balancing costs, but would not "cost jobs" or anything horrific like that), so why hasn't it been done? It appears the EU has already done it with no complaints.

For that matter, with all the problems (proported, but I have no reason to doubt them, I've read about tin whiskers years ago, and not just in SED) created by going to lead-free solder, why did this RoHS thing get passed so strongly, and why has it persisted so well? I can only put on my cynical (or tin, aluminum, or even lead) hat and guess that eliminating lead in solder gives politicians (I've only studied US politicians, but I presume politicians are the same worldwide) quite a bit of economic control, and dealing with all these companies (legitimately!) wanting/needing "exceptions" gets them greased palms and such. Perhaps that's why the USA still uses lead wheel weights, the wheel weight industry isn't big enough for politicians to spend time messing with when they can bring home more pork doing something else.

I should run for public office. I'd never have to pay for another meal (or hardly anything else) as long as I'm in office.

On Tue, 30 May 2006 05:48:24 GMT, Robert Baer Gave us:

an

work

taken as

reliability

reason for lead

of ppl

However, a huge attached cost of manufacture hike is typically passed on for the customer to bear.

In other words, some euro fucktard is costing ME more money to live.

Good? Not likely. People's habits change when they find out they are getting "junk". Warranty claims skyrocket. Consumer confidence in products drops out. No, not good.

The vast majority of politicians are contrl freaks. Power. Influence. Not serving people. It is really a sad state of affairs.

So much crap going on, all unfounded by science and forced upon us by politicians. Lead free solder. Registration of farm animals. Constant attacks on firearms (look at the UN conference on world gun bans to be held, yes, on the 4 th of July in the US!). All kinds of crap done by people wanting control and for reasons no where near those stated. Its almost like we need an armed revolt!

Isn't the absense of a reply to this post telling? I demanded fact, not nonsense. Got no answer. Thats why Rohs and your arguement are such crap!

There are also products that ppl expect to last a decent length of time. Consumer white and brown goods for example.

Graham

The curious thing is that the European Commision ( responsible for this nonsense ) is run by bureaucrats who are appointed not elected and are essentially not answerable to any electorate.

Graham

Depends on your definition of "junk." You can make some pretty solid arguments that -- with *marketing* driving people to buy new cell phones every

I think a lot of people (including me :-) ) are from the "old school" engineering league where it was assumed that your products were going to last pretty much forever; those folks probably are best off doing like John did: getting into high-end commercial or military product design rather than consumer electronics!

Oh horrid person. Think of the children, if it improves the IQ of one child by 1 point it will all be worth it.

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."

a well known European.

The only flakey evidence of harm from low level lead exposure that I am aware of is a reduction of IQ in children. Flakey because IQ measurement is fraught in adults never mind children and where small correlations have been found proving them causal is virtually impossible.

I guess two words aren't enough.

There's nowhere near enough political pull from landfill operators and the landfills' neighbors worried about local water quality to cause this lead free "movement". (And after a landfill is full, and the money quits coming in, it's just its neighbors...).

The push to de-lead the world comes from the large industrial combines that build garbage incinerators and the companies that want to generate electrical power using a "free" fuel source. This is not a Green thing, it's Wall Street at its worst. Some organizations see a niche in the economy for financing, building, and operating garbage powered electrical generators, but there are a couple of barriers. Like the pollution laws. And public opposition.

These outfits have a lot of money to lobby governments to change things around to where the money can start coming in. And, as I've read and observed, they want to get the waste down to the point where the pollution generated is "acceptable".

Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

How myopic are you? PLENTY of people keep even cell phones for 3-5 years, giving them up only when technology change demands it. Plus, I know of NO ONE willing to accept a high end tv that lasts 18 months. Or a car whose electronics fail in 18 months. Or a top model wash machine. Or a GPS unit. Or a pacemaker. Or.....

Curious? No. They should be shot, for crying out loud.

I used to think people were nuts when they belonged to groups like the NRA, etc. As and adult, I realize they kept me sheltered from these very real threats. We need to do better.

On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:08:55 +0100, nospam Gave us:

In other words, just as I said, some Euro fucktards are costing ME more money to live.