EU lead-free directive

[Barry Lennox]

Hi,

This comes in mid-2006 and AIUI requires that lead content is below
0.1%.

Surely, one could achieve this by making the overall product heavier?

Or does it work on a per-circuit-board basis? In that case, the lead
in standard solder will probably weigh more than 0.1% of the weight of
the populated PCB....

This could be a serious problem for any company that is slowly running
down a stock of old chips. These won't be lead-free, and neither will
be any chips purchased from the many used chip vendors who pass on
surplus stock. I expect a lot of their business will dry up since many
companies are requiring *zero* lead content on *all* components.

Any views?

Sorry, that was an interesting interpretation, was tried and caused
sqeals of protest from the EU tech committes.

It was 0.1% of ANY homogenous material, not the total weight.
Homogenous was defined as any material that canot be mechanically
divided.

Maybe the French saying "stick your constitution where the sun don't
shine" will give them something else to think about, instead of crazy
lead-free rules and dictates.

Barry Lennox

 

[Joerg]

Hello Barry,

Homogenous was defined as any material that canot be mechanically
divided.

Doesn't open that a door to another interpretation battle? Even a die
can be mechanically divided with a dicing saw. So if that won't count as
being separable, how about potting up the whole thing?

Regards, Joerg

 

[tim \(moved to sweden\)]

Speaking of who gets blamed, I once insisted on working a contract type
job as an employee. It was medical equipment. Anybody sues us, they
can't sue an employee,

You are wrong here. If you are the person in the company who is
the professional expert on the subject and your advice is wrong, it
is you who can be personally sued. If your advice is correct and
the management over-rule it, then the management can be sued.

Of course what actually happens depends upon the type of loss.
If the loss is a simple monetary one, then the company can be held
to be vicariously liable and are likely to be sued as well, because
they are the ones with the (insurance) money. But if the loss is of a
life, then it is the individual engineer who is the one in the dock on the
manslaughter charge.

If you want, I am sure that I can find you some examples.

tim

 

[Jim Thompson]

You are wrong here. If you are the person in the company who is
the professional expert on the subject and your advice is wrong, it
is you who can be personally sued.

Only if you are an officer of the company and are a "PE" or similar
with sign-off responsibility.

If your advice is correct and
the management over-rule it, then the management can be sued.

Of course what actually happens depends upon the type of loss.
If the loss is a simple monetary one, then the company can be held
to be vicariously liable and are likely to be sued as well, because
they are the ones with the (insurance) money. But if the loss is of a
life, then it is the individual engineer who is the one in the dock on the
manslaughter charge.

If you want, I am sure that I can find you some examples.

tim

On this side of the pond, they must first prove criminal negligence,
otherwise it's simply a financial responsibility of the company.

...Jim Thompson

 

[Joerg]

Hello Jim,

Only if you are an officer of the company and are a "PE" or similar
with sign-off responsibility.

I believe it's not "and a PE" but "or a PE". Meaning that people who
work in med may be better off without PE since you can't get insurance
anymore.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Jim Thompson]

Hello Jim,


I believe it's not "and a PE" but "or a PE". Meaning that people who
work in med may be better off without PE since you can't get insurance
anymore.

Regards, Joerg

Neeerp! An officer cannot be sued _personally_, corporate shield and
all that... unless the criminal negligence condition can be proved. A
PE with signing authority can... that's part of the "responsibility"
section of the law.

...Jim Thompson

 

[Luhan Monat]

Hello Jim,



I believe it's not "and a PE" but "or a PE". Meaning that people who
work in med may be better off without PE since you can't get insurance
anymore.

In this case, I was hired as an electronics engineer. The guy I worked
for had a PHD in biomedical engineering (or some such thing). Therefor,
I was not the 'medical' professional on the project.

 

[Paul E. Bennett]

You are wrong here. If you are the person in the company who is
the professional expert on the subject and your advice is wrong, it
is you who can be personally sued. If your advice is correct and
the management over-rule it, then the management can be sued.

This is especially so under some EU and UK legislation. It is also the
reason why engineers need to keep their own log-books (you do don't you).

Of course what actually happens depends upon the type of loss.
If the loss is a simple monetary one, then the company can be held
to be vicariously liable and are likely to be sued as well, because
they are the ones with the (insurance) money. But if the loss is of a
life, then it is the individual engineer who is the one in the dock on the
manslaughter charge.

Not necessarily on his own though. After all, the management should have
ensured that their procedures and process did not rely on just one person's
say-so for decisions on safety aspects of a system or product. We are,
after all, now supposed to be completing a full risk assessment on all our
products before we let them loose on the world. That does not mean that all
products will be inherently safe but what risks remain in the product are
identified, brought to the attention of the purchaser so that he knows how
to safely use the product.

If you want, I am sure that I can find you some examples.

tim

--
********************************************************************
Paul E. Bennett ....................<email://[email protected]>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy .....<http://www.amleth.demon.co.uk/>
Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972
Tel: +44 (0)1235-811095
Going Forth Safely ....EBA. http://www.electric-boat-association.org.uk/
********************************************************************

 

[tim \(moved to sweden\)]

Only if you are an officer of the company and are a "PE" or similar
with sign-off responsibility.

In the US maybe, but this thread is about the EU (or so it says)

tim

 

[tim \(moved to sweden\)]

This is especially so under some EU and UK legislation. It is also the
reason why engineers need to keep their own log-books (you do don't you).


Not necessarily on his own though.

If the investigators do their job properly, there should only be the
one person in the dock, the one who decided that best practice
could be ignored, beit the engineer himself for deciding his work
didn't need to be checked (on this occasion), the person who
skimped on the checking that he should have done, or the manager
who decided that his depatrmet needn't bother with best practice.

Having more than one of these in the dock will make it virtually
impossible to get a conviction, as each will blame the other and
there will not be enough convincing evidence for a criminal
conviction.

After all, the management should have
ensured that their procedures and process

I know that we all know that it is usually a management decision
that skimps on the checks, but there are some rogue engineers
who think that they know better.

tim

 

[Joerg]

Hello Jim,

Neeerp! An officer cannot be sued _personally_, corporate shield and
all that... unless the criminal negligence condition can be proved.

True. But there were times when it was proven and then it was off to
Club Fed.

A PE with signing authority can... that's part of the "responsibility"
section of the law.

Yes. However, all these license boards don't seem to understand that
there are by now several fields of work where PL insurance simply isn't
available anymore. "Decline to quote" was the usual answer. When talking
to them it seemed that checking the "med" box has the same effect as
disclosing a prior stroke or something like that on a health insurance
application. So it seems that as a PE you can have a legal obligation to
carry insurance but can't get any.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Rich Grise]

Note that this requirement will probably trickle down to the engineer.
Management will ask the eng. to state that the product complies.
Guess who gets the blame.

The Tech. )-:<

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Joerg]

Hello Luhan,

In this case, I was hired as an electronics engineer. The guy I worked
for had a PHD in biomedical engineering (or some such thing). Therefor,
I was not the 'medical' professional on the project.

The academic title isn't too important. What counts is who called the
shots. With a PE that can be different because they can stamp and seal.
Doing that on any piece of documentation carries a great responsibility.
Then again, so does the action of any engineer who is bound by the IEEE
code of ethics (but that doesn't count in a legal sense).

Regards, Joerg

 

[John Popelish]

Each material must be RoHS conform, for example contain less than 0.1% lead
(similar tresholds exist for the other "evil" substances).

As an example, often an IC is used: it consists of
a) the die itself
b) the leadframe
c) the expoxy encasing
d) the surface finish of the leads.

*Each* of these materials must conform to the RoHS directive.

Another example is a simple cable, where the metal wire is defined as asingle
material and the plastic insulation as another material, and both must conform
to the RoHS limits.

For assembled boards, this extents to the PCB base material, its surface finish
(HAL) where it persists after soldering, the solder, and all parts (forthose
see above).

What do you make of:

http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/pri/en/oj/dat/2003/l_037/l_03720030213en00190023.pdf

"Applications of lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium, which
are exempted from the requirements of Article 4(1)...
7. — Lead in high melting temperature type solders (i.e. tin-lead
solder alloys containing more than 85 % lead)"

Why would they make an exception for solder that has over double the
lead of that most commonly used for electronics? Does this mean that
if producers of electronics can find a way to use 85% lead solder,
they are exempt?

 

[Rich The Newsgroup Wacko]

What do you make of:

http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/pri/en/oj/dat/2003/l_037/l_03720030213en00190023.pdf

"Applications of lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium, which
are exempted from the requirements of Article 4(1)...
7. - Lead in high melting temperature type solders (i.e. tin-lead
solder alloys containing more than 85 % lead)"

Why would they make an exception for solder that has over double the
lead of that most commonly used for electronics? Does this mean that
if producers of electronics can find a way to use 85% lead solder,
they are exempt?

Probably because they're bureaucrats, i.e., have no concept of the way
real reality works. ;-)

 

[Luhan Monat]

Hello Luhan,



The academic title isn't too important. What counts is who called the
shots. With a PE that can be different because they can stamp and seal.
Doing that on any piece of documentation carries a great responsibility.
Then again, so does the action of any engineer who is bound by the IEEE
code of ethics (but that doesn't count in a legal sense).

Regards, Joerg

IEEE code of ethics? I'll just have to look that one up. Basically, if
a client wanted a 'marital aid' with 'midi in', I would just quote
them the cost to make a 'working prototype'.

 

[Luhan Monat]

In the US maybe, but this thread is about the EU (or so it says)

tim

Threads have a way of wandering around, from my recent experience here.

 

[Pooh Bear]

Hi,

This comes in mid-2006 and AIUI requires that lead content is below
0.1%.

Surely, one could achieve this by making the overall product heavier?

Or does it work on a per-circuit-board basis? In that case, the lead
in standard solder will probably weigh more than 0.1% of the weight of
the populated PCB....

This could be a serious problem for any company that is slowly running
down a stock of old chips. These won't be lead-free, and neither will
be any chips purchased from the many used chip vendors who pass on
surplus stock. I expect a lot of their business will dry up since many
companies are requiring *zero* lead content on *all* components.

Any views?

It's stupid legislation that will merely increase the price of goods to no
real beneficial effect and possibly put a number od small firms out of
business. Funny ( ha ha - not ) since one of the leading ( lol )
principles was that it should have *no* effect on cost.

That's Brussels for you. Getting kind of sick of the Commission telling us
what we can and can't do. They aren't elected either.

Graham

 

[Pooh Bear]

I heard that too, that you can pass the limits by
delivering the electronics on top of a 5 pound solid
steel slab. That is almost infinitely silly.

Since the leaded cases can easily be combined with the
rest of the leadfree technology, eg leadfree pcb,
leadfree solder, ... I'd just use up the stock
and just don't tell anyone.

No-one's going to be checking anyway !

Graham

 

[Joerg]

Hello Luhan,

IEEE code of ethics? I'll just have to look that one up. ...

It's here:

http://www.ieee.org/portal/site/mai...th=about/whatis&file=code.xml&xsl=generic.xsl

... Basically, if
a client wanted a 'marital aid' with 'midi in', I would just quote them
the cost to make a 'working prototype'.

ROFL!

Regards, Joerg