To be honest, RoHS only directly impacts manufacturers who ship into
Europe. Primarily it changes the type of solder that the leads of
components are tinned with in our kits from lead based solders to
non-lead based varieties.
Either type of part can still be easily soldered with regular lead based
solder. It in no way impacts individual buyers. There is even a specific
exemption in the European RoHS regulations for Eu buyers who import
items for their own home construction. Using regular lead based solder
thus is not an issue for individual builders in Eu or the U.S.
We -strongly- recommend continuing to use regular lead based solder to
build our kits. Kester 44, and other 63/37, 60/40 lead/tin mix solders
are not going away in the US or in Eu and work much better for soldering
both RoHS and non-RoHS tinned parts. Removal of non-lead solder is
difficult at best for most builders, potentially damaging PC boards and
components, and thats why our warranty prohibits its usage. Lead free
solder is really designed for use in mass production lines.
We are converting to RoHS parts for several reasons:
1. Our assembled products, like the T1-A, absolutely must be RoHS
compliant for import into EC countries.
2. While it appears kits are exempted for individual import by the EC
regulations (we do not have an office in Europe) we don't want to take
the chance that a customs official in some country will interpret the
rules differently. :-)
3. Ultimately all parts are going this way, since suppliers do not want
to supply two types of each part. We're ahead of the game this way.
4. California has also announced that it plans to follow Europe in this
area sometime in 2007. (But they are vague on this at this time.)
5. We also can't afford to build two types of kits in the long run.
73, Eric
P.S. I frequently do not read the reflector on a daily basis, and I
receive a lot of unsolicited emails. As a result can not always reply
quickly to all posts or direct emails.
=====================
On 8/24/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Sorry Ive been gone for a while, what exactly is ROHS and how does it
affect me? Is it just the type of solder and what the compenents
themselves are made out of? And do I have to go out and buy a
special soldering iron now?
WT5Y out of the loop for the last year and a half
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