Printed Circuit Board Assembly & PCB Design SMT Electronics Assembly Manufacturing Forum

Printed Circuit Board Assembly & PCB Design Forum

SMT electronics assembly manufacturing forum.


Scrapped Boards

phil

#23892

Scrapped Boards | 23 March, 2003

Hi,

If a PCB board is scrapped because it contains faults that cannot be repaired or it has been damaged, we currently quarantine them for a period of time. Once this period of time has passed the boards are then disposed.

Does anyone know of any standards concerning this issue or if any component on the PCBs could or should be recycled, if so please can you let me know + what are your thoughts on recycling of PCBS/components. Thank you very much.

Kind Regards

Phil

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MA/NY DDave

#23894

Scrapped Boards | 23 March, 2003

Hi

"If a PCB board is scrapped because it contains faults that cannot be repaired or it has been damaged, we currently quarantine them for a period of time. Once this period of time has passed the boards are then disposed."

Sounds Good, Usually this is for failure analysis, yet it could be for many other good reasons like process improvement or communications with suppliers, or or...

"Does anyone know of any standards concerning this issue"

Company Standards are usually in play.

"or if any component on the PCBs could or should be recycled, if so please can you let me know + what are your thoughts on recycling of PCBS/components."

Well YES, It all depends on the cost of the components. When a single component costs slews of money to 1000s of dollars recycling is a high priority. For most components the cost trade off point is in favor of scrapping. Now Gold Components get scrapped yet with special treatment to recover the Gold or other precious metals.

YiEng, MA/NY DDave

This message was posted via the Electronics Forum @

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Jon Fox

#23902

Scrapped Boards | 24 March, 2003

Look for a local smelting service. They will take your boards (in bulk, we used to send them 300lbs at a time) and then credit you back for the precious metals recovered (gold, silver, platinum, etc...) minus any fees for service. Shipping costs a good penny, but this is a small fee for the piece of mind it gives you knowing that you're not filling up some land fill with toxic materials, and you do get some rewards for the metals recovered. One example I remember we shipped PCBs for about $125. Reclaimed materials credited us with about $300. They charged about $45, for the service, and we had no more scrapped boards to worry about how to get rid of them. Good Luck.

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#23911

Scrapped Boards | 25 March, 2003

Rework and repair methods are: * 7721 - Repair & Modification of Printed Boards & Electronic Assemblies * 7711 - Rework of Electronic Assemblies

There are no standards regarding: * Repair and rework of electronic assemblies. * Reclaiming components from scrapped assemblies.

This makes sense because those decisions should be based on product end use and customer expectations. So such a prescription that would be correct for consumer goods, would be improper for under the hood. It�s like a recent thread here on SMTnet that considered the appropriateness of reballing BGA ... * Some consumer goods assemblers say, �Why are we talking about this?� [Although, Motorola only uses reballed BGA for internal purposes.] * Some medical equipment assemblers say, �Why are we talking about this?�

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Phil

#23924

Scrapped Boards | 26 March, 2003

Thank you all for your help you have given me some paths to follow.

Regards

Phil

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