What is RoHS?

[Shocker]

Re: What is RoHS?

It would probably be best if people stopped thinking of "toxic" and "non-toxic" substances. Anything can have ill effects with bad enough overexposure. Yes, even oxygen, green freaks.

[Shocker]

Re: What is RoHS?

Keep in mind also how heavily lead was used before they realised its toxicity. Silver being a precious metal, it's understandable why it doesn't get as much bad press.

I feel that many things get this type of treatment where people overhype the negative aspects without fully understanding the differences. Some of these include air conditioning, fan heaters, and the Pentium 4. All of those fare poorly in generalised comparisons with the alternatives, but if assessed on their own merits, there's nothing truly wrong with them.

[Shocker]

Ouch.

This is what I got when I made pixel measurements of the human toxicity potential graph (from the study document itself):

Between each multiple of 10 on the scale is 28 pixels.

The bar for Sn63Pb37 goes only 4 pixels up.

The bar for Sn95.5Ag3.8Cu0.7 goes 229 pixels up.

Which calculates to a kg DCB equivalent of:

Sn63Pb37: 1.42857...
Sn95.5Ag3.8Cu0.7: 81.7857142857...

Seriously, WTF environmentalists???

[Shocker]

Re: What is RoHS?

I think I may have the answer as to why they put lead on the RoHS list without thinking it through.

Stress.

It doesn't really need to be said again that stress is the #1 cause of mistakes. Ironically (but unfortunately too true), people often stress about mistakes.

I honestly think lead has earned too much of a reputation for being toxic, causing people to forget about those other toxic substances. That only two of the lead-free solders compared in the PDF (Sn99.3Cu0.7, which isn't especially reliable even compared to other lead-free solders, and Sn89Zn8Bi3 by a small margin) had lower human toxicity potential than Sn63Pb37...and every solder with silver was many times more toxic...if that's not an epic fail, I don't know what is. Some people just don't get it.

The analogy some people use by comparing it with petrol is, of course, completely ridiculous, as lead in solder stays in place for the life of the equipment, unlike tetraeythllead which is continually released straight into the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, popular opinion is what makes the votes, no matter how ill-considered it may be.

[ratdude747]

Re: What is RoHS?

Reading about that Toyota incident, I think the eco-freaks deserve to die. And it's scary how little voltage it takes to form a plasma arc. Five volts?!

Off topic: I see somebody besides me is using my smiley... cMon Topcat, add it! "" would be an appopriate code for it...

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: What is RoHS?

I knew we had LED torches bit of other stuff
but looking here it seems quite a bit is going on that way
(more then I thought, Street lights!)

The town of Springfield (Vermont) has been having LED street lights installed!

Since 2011, with most installed during 2012.

I'm gonna miss metal halide, lol.

[tom66]

Re: What is RoHS?

No, I support some environmentalist policies myself, such as reducing the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere.

The key is not to take it to the enviro-mentalist too far, and lead-free solder is an example of that.

But this is politicians looking good, and it's very unlikely to be reversed, even though it would likely lead to greater reliability.

Maybe it'll take some large scandal like every third Xbox 360 failing after 13 months... oh, wait.

[Shocker]

Re: What is RoHS?

Reading about that Toyota incident, I think the eco-freaks deserve to die. And it's scary how little voltage it takes to form a plasma arc. Five volts?!

[Behemot]

Re: What is RoHS?

I've run into some interesting material, see the attachement…

Notice page 11, I think it says pretty much everything.

[Shocker]

Re: What is RoHS?

upgrade the ram with a P4 1.8 cpu

Anyway, those people have to be fools.

[Uranium-235]

Re: What is RoHS?

I find businesses with dimension 2350's still today, and they want to upgrade the ram with a P4 1.8 cpu hoping it would make thier computer super fast. Planned obsolescence is a good thing, but its usually too short or long

[Shocker]

Re: What is RoHS?

no, planned obsolence is a GOOD thing.

but ROHS is stupid cause the amount of solder in a whole board is so small.

Murcury from ccfls is more of an enviormental problem.

All fluorescent lights. I don't know WHY people made such a big fuss over the new CFLs.

Also, metallic mercury ≠ organic mercury (I hope you knew already)

am I on a soapbox? hmm, I guess I somehow ended up on one and didn't even realize it

Perhaps you are...

[Uranium-235]

Re: What is RoHS?

no, planned obsolence is a GOOD thing. it just needs to be changed to be extended from what most companies have it for. non ROHS would just stop the bga problems, but there would still be bad caps, bad mosfets, and other bad parts, to which having lead in your solder would not make much difference

but ROHS is stupid cause the amount of solder in a whole board is so small. Murcury from ccfls is more of an enviormental problem. But, all the pollution from factories in china is probably the worst enviormental problem, but as long as the products they import dont' have lead, the US looks the other way as long as what WE get dosen't contain lead, but the factories producing them are sweatshops, that pollute the globe at large

am I on a soapbox? hmm, I guess I somehow ended up on one and didn't even realize it

[Shocker]

Re: What is RoHS?

Sorry for bumping.

What they really need to do is to ban planned obsolescence. If things didn't break then having lead in them wouldn't be much of a problem...

RoHS

[Krankshaft]

Re: What is RoHS?

To my knowledge the only Gallium Arsenide semis I have in my house are in my two Electroline dropamp cable amplifiers.

I have about 8 splits and passive splitters weren't cutting it .

The Arsenide did raise an eyebrow when I read it in the specs.

They claim it reduces the noise introduced during amplification when compared with silicon semis.

[Wizard]

Re: What is RoHS?

Also there's BeO as well. Used as insulating and thermal conductive for seminconductors. Powdered is poisious. Only seen in high power stuff like power line, industrial stuff. Not in consumer/computer stuff.

What about one that blew magic smoke released when GaAs semiconductors blows?

Cheers, Wizard

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: What is RoHS?

And in case you missed it, at least the EU bureaucrats does no like small companies. In fact they are doing anything they can do, to destroy small and mid size companies.

Sounds like when Bush was the president in the US.

And Orrin Hatch.

[kc8adu]

Re: What is RoHS?

gaasfets are too expensive to eat so i am not going to worry!

[starfury1]

Re: What is RoHS?

here on safety from wiki but remember nothing is totally complete

Safety

The toxicological properties of gallium arsenide have not been thoroughly investigated. On one hand, due to its arsenic content, it is considered highly toxic and carcinogenic. On the other hand, the crystal is stable enough that ingested pieces may be passed with negligible absorption by the body. When ground into very fine particles, such as in wafer-polishing processes, the high surface area enables more reaction with water releasing some arsine and/or dissolved arsenic. The environment, health and safety aspects of gallium arsenide sources (such as trimethylgallium and arsine) and industrial hygiene monitoring studies of metalorganic precursors have been reported recently in a review.[6]

[starfury1]

Re: What is RoHS?

GaAs. Arsenic highly toxic too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GaAs

Dont givem Ideas Gonzo

yes I'am joking but like you are correct, where to you begin and end.

used to go to science class and hold mercury from thermometers in our hands.

So did I when I was at school

cheers