Are your products RoHS and WEEE compliant?

The new EU directives WEEE and RoHS are relevant for all manufacturers of electronic equipment and components, the printed circuit industry, the cable industry together with all plastics industries.

From July 2006 the use of certain substances in electrical and electronic instruments will be prohibited.

Which elements does this refer to?

It refers to lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr VI), polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) and polybrominated diphenylethers (PBEs). The allowed thresholds are all in the range of 1000 ppm, but for cadmium it is just 100 ppm.

Why are XRF- Handheld Instruments (in comparison to Fischer Benchtop Units) not suitable for RoHS compliance?

8 Good reasons against Handheld Instruments:

1. Small measurement spot is not possible!

The irradiated area by handheld instruments is at least about 1cm². This allows only procedures on LARGE components. Therefore a RoHS conformity test on pc-boards or electronic components is not possible.

2. No RoHS compliance possible on coated parts!

Beware: Rohs-compliance cannot be verified correctly with handheld instruments on coated specimen, like on coated PC Boards! The portable instrument does not analyze each layer separately. This generates wrong readings.

3. Error Measurements on PCBs with Handheld Instruments:

Example 1:


• Handheld Instrument: The measuring result shows: “ RoHS-compliant “ -> WRONG, because a mean value is formed over a LARGE area.
  
  
• Fischer Instrument: The measuring result shows: „Not Rohs-compliant“ -> CORRECT, with a spot-precise measurement on the soldering pad.

Example 2:


• Handheld Instrument: The measuring result shows: “ Not RoHS-compliant “ -> WRONG, because the individual components (here the RohS-„exempt“ components like diodes) are not considered separately.
  
  
• Fischer Instrument: The measuring result shows: „ RoHS-compliant“ -> CORRECT , because the spot-precise measurement separates the RoHS-„exempt“ diode from the other components.

4. Lack of Radiation protection of Handheld Instruments

Potential endangerment of the operating personnel and need for a radiation protection agent. It is not without risk to point the x-ray beam into the area where people are present and working. In addition, possible endangerment through stray radiation.

5. No user-friendliness

Ergonomically cumbersome measurements. The operator must hold the relatively heavy instrument in the same position with the force of his own hand during the entire measurement. This makes accurate positioning difficult and unprecise and contributes to an enormous error rate.

6. No picture documentation is possible!

7. Poor Cadmium-excitation

Poor Cadmium-excitation due to only 40 kV tube voltage.

8. No Primary filters

No primary filter and therefore compromise, that does not allow for an optimum excitation of all elements.

Verifying RoHS compliance with our instruments FISCHERSCOPE® X-RAY XAN® and XDAL® :

FISCHERSCOPE^® X-RAY XAN^®-DPP

• The reasonable version!
• Manual positioning via video
• Very suitable for small parts

FISCHERSCOPE^® X-RAY XDAL^®

• Programmable XY(Z)- table
• Automatized Scan over areas, e.g. individual spots like soldering pads on PCBs or individual components

FISCHERSCOPE^® X-RAY XDV^®-SD

• Designed especially for RoHS/ WEEE tasks
• With a digital pulse processor and 6 primary filters
• With an extremely high repeatability

Further advantages:

• Full protection instruments with construction approval;
  Thus, no endangerment of the operating personnel and no radiation protection agent required.
• Very small measurement spots possible, from about 0.15 mm !
• Print-out of analyzed area within protocol
• Only very little experience required
• Red data warns you when limits are exceeded
• No time-consuming preparation of specimen
• Additional advantage: You can also use instruments for coating thickness measurement or solution analysis.

For questions, please ask our Fischer-Team. We will be pleased to help you. (Contact address see upper menu).