04-15-2008, 09:30 AM
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| Gold Member | | Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: United States
Posts: 2,717
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Far deadlier than Roll-on Hair Spray:-) RoHS is the acronym for the EU's mandated 'Reduction of Hazardous Substances'. It is why you cannot find cadmium plated screws, beryllium copper or normal leaded solder anymore. You might eat it and die so you are protected now with inferior substitutes.
We manufacture electronic devices. We used to use normal 63/37 solder (63% tin, 37% lead). It melts at 178C and produces superior solder joints. The RoHS substitute is lead-free solder. It melts at 228C and produces inferior solder joints. Silicon semiconductors (ICs, MOSFETs, diodes, transistors) sustain damage above 245C. We had to buy a new conveyor reflow oven to use RoHS solder. It cost $23K and uses 38kW of electricity while the old oven for normal solder is 10kW.
The new oven precisely controls board temperature at 240C during reflow and the product works. In the past when someone blew a MOSFET and returned a drive for repair, the blown part was replaced. Now usually the drive is thrown away and replaced with a new one. Why? You cannot control temperature within that narrow 17C safety range (245C - 228C) using a hot-air rework station.
Consequences?
1) You pay more. The drives cost a little more than they should because equipment must be amortized and repairs mean it's a new drive when a $0.30 part has failed. Where do the bad drives go? The landfill of course.
2) 38kW vs. 10kW. More energy is used.
3) You can safely eat the drives now without getting lead-poisoning. That must be a good thing.
Mariss  |
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