Stop 3458A sold in EU.

[klaus11]

December 31 stops Keysight 3458A sold in Europe for failing to meet RoHS standard.
http://www.keysight.com/main/editorial.jspx?cc=ES&lc=spa&ckey=2579854&nid=-536902435.536881781&id=2579854
Any views.

[SeanB]

Likely the mercury wetted switches, the brominated plastics, the lead based solder or the cadmium containing parts inside. Just means that the large companies that need the units will use a non EU subsidiary to order them, and simply do an internal transfer of the asset if they absolutely need to have them. The militart and Aerospace industries will not worry, as they already have an exception for this anyhow.

[German_EE]

This gives Keysight time to bring out a 3458B model that uses ROHS compatible technology, possibly with a better performance. When life gives you lemons it is time to make lemonade.

[HighVoltage]

Since I will probably never buy a 3458A new, I will not worry too much.
And if someone needs it new, just buy it in the US or somewhere outside the EU.
As long as the EU will not stop the sale of used equipment, we should be ok.
 

[MadTux]

That means, if I should ever have enough money to buy a 3458A, it will be something used or made in USA. I will never buy an expensive instrument that is made with lead free solder where I risk burning PCBs when soldering.

It's the usual retarded EU mentality, ban lead in solder so that none ends up in the landfill. Understandable for cheap consumer electronics. But retarded for anything that is expensive, made to last  or could be user repaired. So instead of being repaired, the unit will end in trash, because the PCB are destroyed during repair. Same with laptops and graphic chips. No chip underfill/ball cracking problems during lead solder times. As soon as they removed the lead, the Geforce 8xxx drama started and repeats every few years for different chips.

[tooki]

That means, if I should ever have enough money to buy a 3458A, it will be something used or made in USA. I will never buy an expensive instrument that is made with lead free solder where I risk burning PCBs when soldering.

What makes you think US-made instruments will use leaded solder? These companies want to sell worldwide, so the EU's RoHS has resulted in essentially all electronics manufacturing moving to lead-free. (Some US states, like CA, also have restrictions similar to RoHS.) We are at the tail end of this shift as many of the exemptions expire. Nearly every new product released in the past 10+ years, anywhere in the world, has been lead-free.

It's the usual retarded EU mentality, ban lead in solder so that none ends up in the landfill. Understandable for cheap consumer electronics. But retarded for anything that is expensive, made to last  or could be user repaired. So instead of being repaired, the unit will end in trash, because the PCB are destroyed during repair. Same with laptops and graphic chips. No chip underfill/ball cracking problems during lead solder times. As soon as they removed the lead, the Geforce 8xxx drama started and repeats every few years for different chips.

I agree that this may be a net loss in the end, but it's done and we have to live with it. And in all fairness, it does appear the industry has improved the processes over the years. Manufacturers now know how to make lead-free, and people now know how to rework lead-free.

[free_electron]

This gives Keysight time to bring out a 3458B model that uses ROHS compatible technology, possibly with a better performance. When life gives you lemons it is time to make lemonade.

when life tries to give me lemons i throw them back and a few other things as well !

[acbern]

What makes you think US-made instruments will use leaded solder? These companies want to sell worldwide, so the EU's RoHS has resulted in essentially all electronics manufacturing moving to lead-free. (Some US states, like CA, also have restrictions similar to RoHS.) We are at the tail end of this shift as many of the exemptions expire. Nearly every new product released in the past 10+ years, anywhere in the world, has been lead-free.

There are parts in this unit that have lead inside. It may be true that for the unit unleaded solder is used (but not proven, although possible of course). So probably the milligramms of solder in some specific FETs and so prevent shifting this item to be ROHS compliant. Personally I think, banning this on such items, is rediculous. Compared to the tons of lead still showing up leagaly in the enviroment thereafter, indusrial test and measurement gear should remain excempt, given the small amounts. Rather than solving a problem the EU creates one.

And companies may not import themselves from outside the EU (through subsidiaries or direct), this is illegal too, at least by July 2017. So reality is, by then, if a 3458A is not in the EU you cannot import it anymore (unless for excempt applications such as military, but certainly not for normal industry/metrology needs). Transmille will love this, as well as Fluke.

[nidlaX]

It's not just the 3458A. Virtually all of the legacy designs inherited from HP days that have been produced unchanged will stop selling in the EU. That includes many of the 66XX series system power supplies - although they've arguably released suitable alternatives for many of those products.

[Len]

It looks like many (all?) of those 66xx series supplies are being discontinued completely either this summer or next summer.

[acbern]

It's not just the 3458A. Virtually all of the legacy designs inherited from HP days that have been produced unchanged will stop selling in the EU. That includes many of the 66XX series system power supplies - although they've arguably released suitable alternatives for many of those products.

The positive thing about this is that you can find another power supply from someone else or a newer one from Keysight.
However, finding a (comparable accuracy/cost) replacement for a 3458A or a 34420A will be difficult. This in the end hurst the industry and research. For essentially nothing.

[tszaboo]

It's not just the 3458A. Virtually all of the legacy designs inherited from HP days that have been produced unchanged will stop selling in the EU. That includes many of the 66XX series system power supplies - although they've arguably released suitable alternatives for many of those products.

The positive thing about this is that you can find another power supply from someone else or a newer one from Keysight.
However, finding a (comparable accuracy/cost) replacement for a 3458A or a 34420A will be difficult. This in the end hurst the industry and research. For essentially nothing.

All hail the environment lobby! I just hope that the 34480A comes out. It should not be too hard to make, just take the 34470A and upgrade it where it matters. Probably we dont get that high samplerate, but be honest noone is using the 3458A in that mode.
Damn, now I miss the 3458A I had at work.

[senso]

But all cars have lead batteries, and I see a lot of them in dumpsters..

[Monkeh]

That means, if I should ever have enough money to buy a 3458A, it will be something used or made in USA. I will never buy an expensive instrument that is made with lead free solder where I risk burning PCBs when soldering.

It's the usual retarded EU mentality, ban lead in solder so that none ends up in the landfill. Understandable for cheap consumer electronics. But retarded for anything that is expensive, made to last  or could be user repaired. So instead of being repaired, the unit will end in trash, because the PCB are destroyed during repair. Same with laptops and graphic chips. No chip underfill/ball cracking problems during lead solder times. As soon as they removed the lead, the Geforce 8xxx drama started and repeats every few years for different chips.

It's odd how most of us have no problem repairing devices with lead-free solder.

It's also amusing you think anything is made in the US or for the US with leaded solder.

[m100]

So reality is, by then, if a 3458A is not in the EU you cannot import it anymore (unless for excempt applications such as military, but certainly not for normal industry/metrology needs). Transmille will love this, as well as Fluke.

For new equipment, I agree, but for used equipment (for various definition of used) then there are a number of countries within the EU that will not be bothered at all about RoHS compliance on said 'used' equipment.   These tend to be the countries where imported equipment of all types doesn't get held up customs for months on end and might even get returned to the sender depending on which way the wind is blowing. 

[MadTux]

It's odd how most of us have no problem repairing devices with lead-free solder.

So, and why is nearly every repair shop still using leaded solder for lead free repair jobs?
The old Pb60Sn39Cu solder is cheaper, has better wetting properties, less brittle, the solder joint generally looks nicer, has 30°C lower melting point (190 vs 220°C), I can use plain old Kolophonium flux instead of that stinking crap from china and there are no tin whiskers as the instrument gets old.
Removing DIP-40 packages and BGA/LGA soldering already is evil enough with leaded stuff, I don't need that with lead free stuff at even higher temperatures.

All my stuff made in USA is leaded simply because it's at least 10 years old and I'm too poor and greedy to buy new stuff. And that won't change because some EU bureaucrats think leaded solder is evil.  I rather buy old equipment then.

[rf-loop]

It's odd how most of us have no problem repairing devices with lead-free solder.

So, and why is nearly every repair shop still using leaded solder for lead free repair jobs?
The old Pb60Sn39Cu solder is cheaper, has better wetting properties, less brittle, the solder joint generally looks nicer, has 30°C lower melting point (190 vs 220°C), I can use plain old Kolophonium flux instead of that stinking crap from china and there are no tin whiskers as the instrument gets old.
Removing DIP-40 packages and BGA/LGA soldering already is evil enough with leaded stuff, I don't need that with lead free stuff at even higher temperatures.

All my stuff made in USA is leaded simply because it's at least 10 years old and I'm too poor and greedy to buy new stuff. And that won't change because some EU bureaucrats think leaded solder is evil.  I rather buy old equipment then.

Tin whiskers are good for shorten the product life cycle.

http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/background/


The real disaster begins on page 40 on this next paper.  But, because The Political Green Science, whole paper is good reading.
http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/reference/tech_papers/2011-kostic-pb-free.pdf

[pelule]

In my understanding this statements out of 2011 where caused by missing long term data and soldering experiance/know how.
All judgements had to be made based on that time available knowledge and long life time simulation, as well stress tests.
A quality engineer will not give any confirmation, if there is no sufficiant liability data existing.
 
That's in my impression the reason, why there have been made several exceptions (aironautic, automotive, medical, military).
The know how is increasing daily, but still far away from that of the many years of leaded soldering.

PeLuLe

[robert_]

As far as i can comment, reliability wise RoHS didnt turn out nerarly as bad as expected, at least for us.
Now with around 15 years of data, it did actually improve on nerlay all units (that were made a good time before 2001 so there is any data to compare with). Reasons probably being that the adjustments done on the soldering process (such as inert gas reflow/wave soldering) actually did more good than Pbf solder/Components did harm.
Stuff made is used in general and also high-rel industrial, sometimes high vibration (such as railways) use. So it can be done. Just not with the cheapest possible materials and poor process control.
As for repair/bench work: Replaced that old Ersa with a JBC station and it works just as well as before at the same temp setting. Just if something needs to be resoldered repetedly, lead based solder seems to work better, with Pbf solder it needs to be cleaned off and freshly soldered after 2 or so times. Its terrible to work with bad solder (such as Sn99,7,  or anything with bad flux) and cheap soldering tools (just forget anything old or cheap, it wont do)

[tooki]

But all cars have lead batteries, and I see a lot of them in dumpsters..

The RoHS directive does not apply to automobiles, nor to batteries in general. (Other than tight limits on mercury and cadmium in batteries.) And while no doubt some end up in dumpsters, the vast majority of car batteries are recycled, because recycling the lead out of them is so easy that battery makers want dead batteries back, as they have for many years now.

[babysitter]

Then there are gigabuttloads of lead stuck in all the theaters of former and recent wars.  So solder in electronics looks tiny to me.

[tooki]

Then there are gigabuttloads of lead stuck in all the theaters of former and recent wars.  So solder in electronics looks tiny to me.

Yep. I think RoHS made a mistake in banning lead. While the amount by weight of lead in electronics up through the 1990s was substantial, and I guess seemed shocking to legislators, nearly all of it was CRT glass!! But even when they were penning early RoHS drafts, it should have been blatantly obvious that CRTs were going the way of the dodo, fast.