RoHS church organs

[willawake]

I was watching a documentary about church organs where they discussed the RoHS directive (which is coming into force July 1 2006)

There is some whiny complaints from organ manufacturers about not being able to be compliant in time regarding the soldering of their boards for electronic church organs (think synths) which personally i dont agree with. I believe they would be doing hand soldering rather than mass scale production. If they have non RoHS compliant stock of boards then it should have been reduced in time.

whiny complaint
http://forum.europa.eu.int/Public/ir...f/_EN_1.0_&a=d

on to organ pipes which is another story :

Why do organ pipes contain lead?
• Organ pipes are made from tin/lead alloy. The properties of this metal contribute to the unique tone of the pipe organ. The alloy is malleable, enabling precise adjustments which determine the‘voicing' or sound of the pipes.
• Tin/lead alloy is uniquely suited to the hand production of pipes in the many sizes which make up the very wide pitch range of notes in an organ. It has the structural strength to support its own weight for centuries.

This is something else, they have a 50% lead content apparently. It is not clear whether they would fall under the directive or not. If a piped organ has electrics or electronic control they probably would.

http://www.pipes4organs.org/

Interesting to see all the effects of RoHS accross the market and interesting to see how it pans out.

do i agree with RoHS? well anything in that direction is a start, we have already pollution of the water tables in some places here in Greece with hexavalent chromium and other crap, but most of it comes from factories not electronic product waste/manufacture.

whether the current lead free solder is a good enough replacement we would have to see. the whiny pdf does raise some interesting points in that respect.

Directive 2002/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 January 2003 on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS Directive)
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/Lex...19:0023:EN:PDF

Member States shall ensure that, from 1 July 2006, new electrical and electronic equipment put on the market does not contain lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE).

[PeteS in CA]

Re: RoHS church organs

I posted this article on a news and politics discussion site where I'm a Mod:

Off-the-scale Nannystatism
Dennis Sevakis 3 18 06
The American Thinker

Why we want to be as little like Europe as we possibly can ... From the Times of London:

THE stops could be pulled for ever on many church organs because of an EU directive designed to control hazardous substances.

The instruments at Salisbury Cathedral, St Paul's in London, Worcester Cathedral, St Albans Abbey and Birmingham Town Hall are among the first that may be silenced. They are due to be refurbished or rebuilt and will fall foul of the directives, which are aimed at limiting the amount of lead in electrical items.

[rant]So yes, even pipe organs that are centuries old come under RoHS if they use a motorized (i.e. electrical) pump to pump air for the pipes. This is the kind of silliness that obtains when bureaucrats are empowered to write "Make it so" regulations without have to worry about feasibility or practicality.[/rant]

[willawake]

Re: RoHS church organs

RoHS refers to new products so why should these old installations be affected? it it to do with refurbishment parts?

interesting is said whiny pdf which refers to :

use of such lead free solders under typical electronic operating conditions can lead to so called "tin whisker" failures. This phenomenon, widely acknowledged by the scientific community, arises from the use of nearly pure tin solders, and can result in the fragmentation of the solder surface into shards of pure tin...

The risk of catastrophic failure associated with lead-free solder has been accepted by the Commission, which has already granted exemptions for the use of lead in high melting temperature type solders (ie tin-lead solder alloys containing more than 85% lead) lead in solders for servers, storage and storage array systems (exemptions granted until 2010) and lead in solders for network infrastructure equipment for switching, signalling, transmission as well as network management for telecommunication.

these are more valid points than said previous whines. you can look at the ERA Report which touches on some points which places servers in a different category to other computer products.

well i have seen quite a few enthusiast boards to be similar to server boards when manufacture is considered.

should we worry about this? will we have RoHS compliant solder failing early in our products?

[PeteS in CA]

Re: RoHS church organs

Tin whiskers is a potential issue. Component mfrs are doing things to reduce the problem, but it's hard to anticipate and fix in a few years the kinds of problems that were found and fixed over the century or so of use of tin-lead solder in electronic equipment.

Another potential problem has to do with the higher temp needed for using lead-free solder. Some lytics swell during the solder process, so they may be OK but they look like failed parts. The bureaucrats don't have to diagnose and fix electronic equipment ...

[willawake]

Re: RoHS church organs

what about polymers, will they be affected also?

it will not be enjoyable to recap on a lead free board, it is difficult enough on later boards with huge power plane traces let alone if the solder is more stubborn.

[Rainbow]

Re: RoHS church organs

I'm afraid that RoHS will reduce the reliability of most electronics. It's already unreliable enough with bad caps and poor manufacturing. It's not uncommon for (e.g.) a TV do die in 2 years. With lead-free solder, it will probably go to trash as it can't be reliably repaired. So maybe there will be less lead but there will be lots of electronic trash.

[willawake]

Re: RoHS church organs

there will be lots of electronic trash.

yay more free shit for us!!!

[dood]

Re: RoHS church organs

Buy all the leaded solder you can, while you still can!

A PDF on tin whiskers:

Another large article - http://www.sourceesb.com/configurabl...e20050209.html

[willawake]

Re: RoHS church organs

dont worry i am sure we will find tons of that for years in local electronic shops. my 500g has been lasting a looong time

[PeteS in CA]

Re: RoHS church organs

Bureaucrats might not take too kindly RoHS-compliant boards being repaired using tin-lead solder. The article I alluded to re swollen lytics was by an engr with NIC Components, and it referred specifically to SMT lytics.

[linuxguru]

Re: RoHS church organs

The RoHS directive will have more unintentional negative side-effects than positive. The *intent* is to reduce the amount of lead, other heavy metals and some plastics entering the environment. This is best achieved by having high quality, reliable, long-life equipment like a CRT that lasts 10-15 years. With the RoHS directive and bad caps, there is suddenly going to be a mountain of equipment that cannot be economically reworked for minor repairs (e.g. recapping) and has to be scrapped. Also add the effect of tin whiskers into the reliability equation. The volume of solid electronic waste, including plastics, is going to increase by a huge multiple.

The stuff about the church pipe organs is at the extreme end of this lunacy. Most church organs will never be scrapped at all - they're built to last 100s of years, so why subject them to the RoHS directive at all?

Anyway, I intend to stock up on a decade's supply of 63:37 and 60:40 while it's still available. I'm guessing that prices will tumble as July 2006 approaches. I'd also suggest picking up select high-quality, repairable, pre-RoHS equipment now (high-end audio, video, projectors, and the like) while they're still around.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Re: RoHS church organs

the thing with organs is, its not a product that reachs end of life quickly. not like pcbs which getting tossed in often 5 years of less. if someone has an organ. its gonna be around for a long time.

[gonzo0815]

Re: RoHS church organs

Well, i haveread an artickel over the leed fre Solder in an elektronic engineer magazin. The conclusion was, that especially solder joint which are getting hot during normal operation will be fail mor often.
So far, they haven`t found the ideal lead free solder and i think without lead this is not manageable. So i think this will raly reduce lifspann of elektronic equipment. Thos organ pipes i think they still use it anyway, or they issu for an exception. Another trick is to seperate the elektronic airpump from the rest. So only the pump will be affeckted from the RoHS.