EU lead-free directive

John Popelish schrieb:

> "Applications of lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium, which 
> are exempted from the requirements of Article 4(1)...
> 7. � Lead in high melting temperature type solders (i.e. tin-lead 
> solder alloys containing more than 85 % lead)"
> 
> Why would they make an exception for solder that has over double the 
> lead of that most commonly used for electronics?  Does this mean that 
> if producers of electronics can find a way to use 85% lead solder, 
> they are exempt?

All exceptions are potentially limited in time. They are for products or
materials for which /currently/ no realistic substitutes are available. Another
example: Cadmium in NiCd cells of electric hand tools. As soon as
technologically possible, these exceptions will probably be dropped from the list.

-- 
Dipl.-Ing. Tilmann Reh
http://www.autometer.de - Elektronik nach Ma�.

Tilmann Reh wrote:
> John Popelish schrieb:
> 
> 
>>"Applications of lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium, which 
>>are exempted from the requirements of Article 4(1)...
>>7. � Lead in high melting temperature type solders (i.e. tin-lead 
>>solder alloys containing more than 85 % lead)"
>>
>>Why would they make an exception for solder that has over double the 
>>lead of that most commonly used for electronics?  Does this mean that 
>>if producers of electronics can find a way to use 85% lead solder, 
>>they are exempt?
> 
> 
> All exceptions are potentially limited in time. They are for products or
> materials for which /currently/ no realistic substitutes are available. Another
> example: Cadmium in NiCd cells of electric hand tools. As soon as
> technologically possible, these exceptions will probably be dropped from the list.
> 

That certainly seems to apply to the more inexplicable exceptions (lead 
is allowed in servers, storage devices, and network infrastructure devices).

It also seems, as far as I can see, that exceptions are granted where 
there is scientific or technical reasons not to use the substitute, or 
where the substitute is more harmful to the environment and/or people.

There is also a mention of spare parts and repairs - does this mean 
suppliers can continue to produce and supply lead-containing electronics 
as spare parts?

Bryan Hackney wrote:

> a) Lead batteries should be highly regulated
> 

Yes, a deposit on them, say $400. You pay it once, and redeem it by 
handing in the old battery. Like we used to do with bottles in the 60s.

> b) Since lead batteries are the worst lead offenders by an order of 
> magnitude,
>     all other lead regulation is pointless
> 

Not pointless, just less cost effective, and as people keep pointing 
out, damaging to an already fragile industry.

> c) Something else

Shouldn't be too difficult to extract the lead from PCBs, if the 
political will is there (roast them at 300 degrees in a centrifuge?) We 
need to encourage recovery and re-use over dumping anyway.

Paul Burke

David Brown wrote:
<snip>
> There is also a mention of spare parts and repairs - does this mean 
> suppliers can continue to produce and supply lead-containing electronics 
> as spare parts?

The alternative would be the very counterproductive/ludicrous:

"Oh, we have to dump that product now; Can't repair it as we cannot get 
parts anymore. Send it to the land-fill!"

..and a heap of lead that would not have otherwise been in the 
land-fill, gets there much earlier, because of the lead-free directive....

-jg

"Peter" <z180@nospam24.com> wrote in message 
news:unfo91l75645teuplpd7omgonj2nndst2m@4ax.com...
> Hi,
>
> This comes in mid-2006 and AIUI requires that lead content is below
> 0.1%.
>
> Surely, one could achieve this by making the overall product heavier?
>
> Or does it work on a per-circuit-board basis? In that case, the lead
> in standard solder will probably weigh more than 0.1% of the weight of
> the populated PCB....
>
> This could be a serious problem for any company that is slowly running
> down a stock of old chips. These won't be lead-free, and neither will
> be any chips purchased from the many used chip vendors who pass on
> surplus stock. I expect a lot of their business will dry up since many
> companies are requiring *zero* lead content on *all* components.
>
> Any views?

Ship the remaining parts somewhere that hasn't gone lead free yet.

Non-Eu countries in Europe.
Dump all the lead components to Bulgaria , Romania, Ukraine, Albania and 
former Yugoslav countries.

or elsewhere
Asia , Australia ,Central and South America , Africa ?

Alex 

On Tue, 31 May 2005 17:54:24 +0200, Tilmann Reh <tilmannreh@despammed.com> wrote:

>Peter schrieb:
>
>> A really stupid regulation, given the huge amount of lead used in car
>> batteries for example....
>
>Exactly. And particularly these are one of the exceptions, and will be used
>without any change.

This is an entirely sensible approach, as lead-acid batteries can be very easily extracted from
discarded products and recycled  unlike lead in components.

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.]
On 2005-05-31, Rich The Newsgroup Wacko <wacko@example.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 31 May 2005 19:03:48 -0400, John Popelish wrote:
>> 
>> What do you make of:
>> 
>> http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/pri/en/oj/dat/2003/l_037/l_03720030213en00190023.pdf
>> 
>> "Applications of lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium, which 
>> are exempted from the requirements of Article 4(1)...
>> 7. - Lead in high melting temperature type solders (i.e. tin-lead 
>> solder alloys containing more than 85 % lead)"
>> 
>> Why would they make an exception for solder that has over double the 
>> lead of that most commonly used for electronics?  Does this mean that 
>> if producers of electronics can find a way to use 85% lead solder, 
>> they are exempt?
>
> Probably because they're bureaucrats, i.e., have no concept of the way
> real reality works. ;-)

It isn't because "they" are bureaucrats (they are, of course). 
Just think about how politics work (or watch a few episodes of
"West Wing"). Funny stuff like this everywhere, but in the long
run it'll hopefully change things for the better.

robert

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.]
On 2005-06-01, David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote:

> That certainly seems to apply to the more inexplicable exceptions (lead 
> is allowed in servers, storage devices, and network infrastructure devices).

This is plenty explicable. The manufacturers of this equipment 
claim (with some validity) that there isn't much known about the 
long-term stability of the lead-free stuff, and since companies 
and governments and whatnot rely on reliable IT infrastructure 
they can't run the risk of switching over to a new technology. 

robert

On Wednesday, in article
     <rmuq91dit16ommcjfg5rsdk0hncov0sj7a@4ax.com>
     mike@whitewing.co.uk "Mike Harrison" wrote:

>On Tue, 31 May 2005 17:54:24 +0200, Tilmann Reh <tilmannreh@despammed.com>
> wrote:
>
>>Peter schrieb:
>>
>>> A really stupid regulation, given the huge amount of lead used in car
>>> batteries for example....
>>
>>Exactly. And particularly these are one of the exceptions, and will be used
>>without any change.
>
>This is an entirely sensible approach, as lead-acid batteries can be very
> easily extracted from
>discarded products and recycled  unlike lead in components.

They have been for years! Not really a change.

-- 
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>    PC Services
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/>              GNU H8 & mailing list info
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/>             For those web sites you hate

 John Devereux <jdREMOVE@THISdevereux.me.uk> wrote:

>> That is very strange - what about industrial electronics; that has to
>> last much longer than the average piece of IT gear.
>
>As I understand it, Industrial electronics appears to be exempt from
>the RoHS directive, at present. (But not from the WEEE one).

Hmmm. Interesting! Is there a reference to this somewhere? Currently,
every customer is sending us a list of questions about this. Would
"industrial" be anything "professional" e.g. professional broadcast
equipment?

What is WEEE?