Rich,

As a member of IEC TC111 Working Group 3 (WG3) and the US TAG to TC111, I
can tell you we are still working on test methods.  At this time, TC111
(successor to the ad hoc committee) just met in Cape Town S.A. and reviewed
the 95+ pages of comments received from national committees on the
Committee Draft (CD) distributed during the summer.  It is unclear whether
WG3 will issue a new CD or move to a CD for Voting (CDV).  There will be
new Interlaboratory Studies (ILS) commencing soon because there is no
validation information yet for any of the draft methods in the CD.  The ILS
will certainly have an influence on the CD or CDV decision to be made
before Dec. 15.

There are two other activities regarding test methods for RoHS and similar
regulations elsewhere in the world.

ASTM International F40 is developing standards.  We meet next week in
Dallas.  Among other activities, we will review existing test methods that
are or might be made to be applicable to both electrotechnical equipment
and its parts and to raw materials.  Stay tuned, or better yet, get involved.

The other source of test methods is the Peoples Republic of China.  PRC
published six test methods a couple months ago.  I have only seen them in
Chinese.  My sources tell me they contain references to and elements of
existing standards from the China National Inst. of Standards.

For those who want more information on the proposed regulations from China,
please see the Notify US website run by NIST (www.nist.gov).  Notify US
allows you to comment on the China proposals.  The open comment period
lasts until the end of November.

John Sieber


John R. Sieber, PhD
Research Chemist

Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8391
Gaithersburg, MD  20899-8391 USA

[log in to unmask]
Tel:  1.301.975.3920
Fax:  1.301.975.3845
www.cstl.nist.gov/

Identification of commercial items in this document does
not imply endorsement by NIST or that items are

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