Roger wrote:
>Although the "Tin Whiskers" caused by the elmination of lead in
>electronics may sound off topic in the AMPS reflector they are quite
>relevant as many of our newer commercial amps contain not only printed
>circuit boards, but ICs and other semiconductors that are going to be
>affected by this change and particularly the new solid state, does
>everything amps. We also use subassemblies and solid state components
>in our monitoring and control circuits. We may need to evaluate future
>projects and purchases at it appears equipment and parts manufactured
>to the new Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive or RoHS are
>quite likely to have greatly reduced reliability where mean time
>between failures (MTBF) goes from thousands or hundreds of thousands of
>hours to a couple of calendar years.
>
The situation in Europe has been bizarre. The electronics industry has
made massive R&D efforts to meet the deadlines, but there was no time to
look at long-term performance; and there have been no categorical
exemptions for important areas like safety-related equipment. (Some
back-tracking has now resulted in avionics remaining exempt.)
>As to the requirement not applying to us in general for building or
>repairning our own equipment that is likely to happen by default. If
>the sale of solder to manufacturers drops to zip I doubt the home
>hobbiest, or ham is going to present enough of a market to assure the
>availability of easy to use solder. If it becomes unavailable then we
>are stuck with the alternative even though it's not legally required.
I don't think that will be a problem, as regular tin/lead solder will
continue to be available for repairs to older equipment. However, we
won't be able to walk into a corner store for it. Solder will become
another thing that we have to buy online from specialist suppliers.
>The same is true for enclosures. Although we may not use tin plated
>enclosures for our projects, what about remote mounted amps, relays,
>and other *stuff*?
>
Pure tin plating *is* allowed. It is the most common RoHS-compliant
finish, and it works just fine with tin/lead solder. You're probably
using some pure-tin-plated components already.
What won't be allowed is tin/lead solder plating, for example the hot
rolled finish on many PC boards. An interesting twist is that my board
supplier decided not to use pure tin, because the low cost of the metal
would be wiped out by the environmental cleanup costs of the plating
process. Cheapest overall (for them) was pure silver, and some board
suppliers are now routinely using gold.
>So the new RoHS leaves us pretty much in limbo as far as future
>components and reliable parts
>
Those trains are coming, sure enough... but they're not the train that's
going to hit you first.
Anyone involved in parts procurement can expect two years of total
chaos! There will be dropouts in supply as production processes have to
be converted. At that point, some older production lines will close
totally, and some useful components will cease to exist. Then, all the
way down the supply chain, the stock code for every single component
will have to change.
All of this will be made worse by incompetent regulations, and worse
again by suppliers who haven't read them.
We're mostly through this process in Europe, and our changeover has
already forced many of the US-based global suppliers to get on board.
With luck, the USA may have an easier ride than we did.
--
73 from Ian GM3SEK
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek
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