Offering a one stop facility for all of your electronic assembly requirements
News
Patronics is RoHS Compliant
May 2006
July the 1st sees the introduction of the restriction of hazardous Substance Directive introduced by the European Union as an environmental measure to ban the use of certain substances such as lead in the electronics industry. Over the last 18 months, Patronics has been preparing both their manufacturing facility as well as their customers for the impending introduction of the directive. Having installed the last piece of equipment required for total compliance during early May, Patronics is now totally process compliant in house.
Workers at the plant will have seen the installation of a Seho wave soldering machine which is purpose built for processing lead free solder.
Patronics Sales and Purchasing teams have been working with their customers over the last 18 months to ensure that their products will comply with the new regulations from July the 1st this year. In spite of the notice period there has been a last minute rush from customers who need to comply with the directive, which has caused quite a strain on Patronics Purchasers. Down in the stores at Patronics, great care is being taken to segregate and identify RoHS compliant components and along with the companies Quality Department they are ensuring that components being delivered are actually compliant.
The implementation of RoHS compliance is proving an expensive exercise for Patronics. Apart from the significant investment in equipment, the new solder is 3 times more expensive than the previous tin lead solder and the increased controls in goods inwards and manufacturing cause significant additional cost.
To make matters worse, Patronics will have to deal with at least four different requirements from their customers. Some are exempt from the new legislation and require boards to be soldered with the old tin lead. At the other end, others will need to comply and require RoHS compliant components to be soldered with lead free solder. In the middle are other customer requirements where Patronics must supply RoHS components where possible and solder with tin lead, and others where the RoHS components must be soldered with lead free solder but the non RoHS components hand soldered using tin lead. Confused?.
You will see, that great care must be taken to get it right.