ROHS: using up non-ROHS component stocks

[Michael A. Terrell]

What about the windows?

Don't tell me you expect churches to switch to Linux?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Eeyore]

What about the windows?

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

Graham

 

[Peter]

WTF has it got to do with *THEM* ????

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.

 

[Keith]

Don't tell me you expect churches to switch to Linux?

Sure, you just gotta believe...

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Sure, you just gotta believe...

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


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Tim Auton]

The product in question has been on the market for about 10 years.

It uses a microcontroller which is single sourced, and moreover is
discontinued. It is not lead-free.

The manufacturer has stock of the chip for about another 10 years.

What is the ROHS situation?

http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/pri/en/oj/dat/2003/l_037/l_03720030213en00190023 ..pdf

|3. This Directive does not apply to spare parts for the repair,
|or to the reuse, of electrical and electronic equipment put on
|the market before 1 July 2006.

also

|(11) Exemptions from the substitution requirement should be
|permitted if substitution is not possible from the scientific
|and technical point of view

appears to suggest that one can continue building this product.

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.

To be entirely realistic, manufacturers of long established products,
which use a chip that isn't ROHS, can't possibly just discontinue the
product. That would wipe out the whole business of many smaller
companies.

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.

Am I missing something obvious?

The deadline?

Actually, the product I refer to falls under the "control and
monitoring" exemption anyway...

Then there's nothing to worry about.


Tim

 

[John Larkin]

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

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

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

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!" ;-)


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Eeyore]

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.

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

 

[martin griffith]

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

well, you can make Linux as ugly as windows

http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/09/06/vistas-ui-is-better-than-this/


martin

 

[Jon Elson]

Really,

look at a car, we are removing a few milligrams of lead from the
electronics while the battery still contains pounds of lead...

Mark

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

Jon

 

[PeteS]

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

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

 

[Eeyore]

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.

Do they care if it's stupid ?

NO.

Graham

 

[douglas dwyer]

Lead acid vehicle battery kilogrammes Pb is the xtreme absurdity.
Not as if a modern £300 lithium could net be used and save MPG.

 

[Robert Latest]

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

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

 

[Peter]

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.

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.

 

[Roger Hamlett]

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.

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...

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

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..).

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.

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...

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.

Best Wishes

 

[martin griffith]

Anything that *has* to contain lead is exempt of course !

Graham

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".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/18/lead_free_bullets/


martin

 

[Eeyore]

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.

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

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

Don't fuss over mere details like that !

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

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 !

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.

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

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.

What did you expect ?

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

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..).

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

Graham