ROHS: using up non-ROHS component stocks

I heard recently that some old building had to get paint *with lead* to keep the upholders of planning law happy.

Graham

They want you to scrap your old products and design with new components.

Take a design done in say 1995 (or before). It can probably be built with really cheap components. 5c MOSFETs, 10c op-amps (LM358 :) ) and so on. But if you force a redesign, with modern parts, a lot less of the parts list will be multiple sourced. Few relatively complex parts introduced in the last 20 years are multi-sourced. This is good for prices of course (increases them).

Replacing a 14c88+14c89 with some fancy integrated chip from Maxim or (especially) Linear Technology is going to triple the cost of that one function. Very good for business.

Sure, you just gotta believe...

OK, but who has ever heard of "Stained Glass Linux"?

.pdf

Not to me it doesn't. The text refers to substitution of substances, not parts:

(6) Taking into account technical and economic feasibility, the most effective way of ensuring the significant reduction of risks to health and the environment relating to those substances which can achieve the chosen level of protection in the Community is the substitution of those substances in electrical and electronic equipment by safe or safer materials.

That's why, if they wanted to stay in business, they should have spent some of the past couple of years re-engineering to use RoHS compliant parts in those devices which are not subject to exemptions.

The deadline? :)

Then there's nothing to worry about.

Tim

Instead of these new fancy see-through GUIs, or a choice of "Windows Classic", why don't we have a Gothic Window theme GUI?

John

You could always use it for wallpaper on the desktop. You could even replace that annoying noise Windows makes on startup with some bells, or even a short clip of your favorite song. I think Johnny Paycheck's "Take this job and shove it!" would be the perfect exit sound for when you shut the computer down at the end of the day. ;-)

One of my old Windows 3.1 computers had a clip from the Monty Python TV series yelling, "You started it, you bleeding pig!" ;-)

When I redesign I ensure I *don't* use fancy parts.

They must be barking mad if they truly think that !

In any case if your product is uncompetitively priced you'll go out of business.

Graham

well, you can make Linux as ugly as windows

martin

Yes, thank you! I've been bringing this one up for a while. It seems totally crazy!

Jon

business.

The vendors also know this, and understand that if you can't sell your product, they can't sell you parts.

As to the original question:

If you do not have an expemption, if you have parts not yet part of a product on shelf, you can NOT use those parts. Period.

Do they care if this costs you money? No. Do they care if this means the product itself will no longer be made? No.

Stupid, but that's the way the directive reads.

Cheers

PeteS

business.

Do they care if it's stupid ?

NO.

Graham

No it isn't. There has been an established recycling path for battery lead for decades. It's essentially a closed system.

Of course I don't know what amount of lead leak out of that system over time, and how it compares to the quantity of lead in electronics.

robert

The recycling scheme does exist but car batteries get chucked out everywhere you look. Lots get chucked into rubbish skips, or left by the roadside.

The tiniest amount of lead thus lost will far exceed the amount of lead in consumer electronics.

Then you have all the lead used in the building trade; mostly exposed to rain and thus draining directly into the ground.

I don't think the idiots in Brussels ever thought this through properly.

Luckily there is the "control and monitoring" exemption, and some others, and a great deal of non-consumer business can continue to exist under that umbrella.

Finally, one can lie. Already, as I can see from a large pile of boxes which have just arrived from the Far East, sticking an "ROHS" sticker onto every box is becoming standard procedure. The products inside are not even affected by ROHS... It's like the CE marking on everything including toilet paper; the whole thing just became worthless within a year or two.

You are rather underestimating just how big the useage of lead is in electronics, and overestimating how many batteries are dumped. However the biggest problem with battery 'recycling', is that most of it is done abroad, with terrifying levels of pollution at the recycling sites involved...

Building lead, and lead water pipes, basically put almost nothing into the ground water _unless_ (in the case of water pipes), they are used in areas with peat soils. Building lead builds an oxide layer in a few days, and then is really remarkably inert. The problem with lead in electronics, is when this goes into dumps, the acid in the leachate from other things does erode it quite quickly. However again the passage into groundwater on a properly designed dump was almost zero. Unfortunately, one 'apparently informative' assessment of this said otherwise (since retracted..).

Yes. Unfortunately, like most badly designed laws, the result will probably be more pollution of different types. Electronics which has generally become quite remarkably reliable, tending to fail quicker, more dumping, and more problems from other things...

Best Wishes

Included in the list of tree-hugging hardware is the "lead-free" bullet, offering clear advantages over the traditional variety which "can harm the environment and pose a risk to people".

martin

But not in the bureaucrats' tiny brains because they have a regulation that say you can't do that !

Don't fuss over mere details like that !

Since when did they ever. They thought you could preserve fish stocks by throwing undersize or 'the wrong species' of fish caught in a net back into the sea even though they're already dead !

I'm curious to see how the pro-audio exemption fares too !

What did you expect ?

Graham

In other words a lie was used to get a result.

Graham