Your opinion about RoHS and WEEE ?

Recommend to check http://leadfree.ipc.org

I agreed the lead free is a must for environmental and human health. Not sure how soon they can found out another harmful material

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I think they need to go after the real lead contaminants. PCB/electronic waste accounts for .01% of lead waste based upon my last info I rec'd. So this lead free agenda is really going to help alot isn't it. I believe that most of the lead contamination in europe would be from bombs, bullets and batteries wouldn't it?

I beleive this to be a big scam with some type of political and monetary gains behind it somewhere! (somebody is getting $RICH$ from this!)

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Here's my 10 cents

Studies done in the 1980's concluded that pure tin was prone to whisker generation. A tin content lower then 70% became exempt from this phenomenon. I have never seen or done any studies on the impact lead had in reducing the potential for whisker growth. Tin levels above 70% are crossing the danger zone. I have not seen any concern in the lead-free debates about tin pest. Tin pest is the disintegration of tin into a grey powder and has the potential to occur after long incubation at low temperatures, never seen tin pest with leaded, antimony and bismuth alloys.

The reason more studies were done in the 70's and the 80's is that more resources were available because those were the golden years for the electronics industry. Another important factor in those years was that electronics were serviced and repaired, field failures were better documented and analyzed (a wealth of reliability and defect data).

Today electronics are not repaired, we just throw them away and buy a new one because it's cheaper then repair. If the malfunction of the device was caused by whiskers or another solder defect (related or not too lead-free) we will never know.

The plastic mountain we are building will eventually become a bigger concern then the lead, because almost all electronics have plastic housing. We are unlimited in how much plastic we can make, and the plastic will be around forever (man made like the CFC's remember). The lead on the other hand is limited to how much nature produces, and in my opinion it's ok to give it back to nature if we don�t need it anymore (just don't dump it close to a water well).

I am an opponent of the very quick political (not at all technical) driven transition to relatively unknown alloys and high mix of different alloys. And being in this field for a living I'm very concerned hearing on a daily bases we don't want to go lead-free "we just have to"

For a long time I thought I was the only opponent to the lead-free transition, but one day I saw a powerful statement from "the well known" davef which was very encouraging to me. Thanks Dave

Patrick

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It's driven by those highly technically astute politicians in Europe. IPC has a lead-free forum you can subscribe to and almost to a person in the forum agrees that elimination of lead in solder is assinine.

From the automotive end of electronics, the testing we've done with lead-free alternatives shows much lower reliability due to the higher temps and residence times involved underhood. So if you don't mind your engine stopping for no reason or your ABS system failing, we can easily convert to lead free. Fortunately for us, we're not governed by RoHS and WEEE but EoLV (end of life vehicle) which gives lead in solder an exemption.

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1. Its market protectionism for the Europeans. 2. Silver is less toxic than Lead? Wrong! 3. Don't expect your local alloys exchange market to take a position (London Metals Exchange). No other alloy is cheaper than lead. The cost of silver and Tin will rise. 4. Why not start with a take-back and recycle program trial rather than a total industry shift? Talk about jumpin in with both feet. 5. Car batteries consume over 97% of the worlds lead. They have a near 100% recycle exchange. I doubt it was always like that. So why is Electronics any different? 6. Land fill leachant is of great concern. Lead efflent will now be exchanged for silver effluent. Silver toxicity anyone? 7. How about legislating better landfill methods or industrial waste disposal techniques?

...Oh I gotta run. Wal-Mart has cheap (pronounced "Chinese made" ) disposable goods on sale and I'm a fad conscious, un-educated consumer with a short attention span and an average household credit card debt of 7,000 dollars.

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