Graham,

I second Bev, after all is following his guidance that I've bought an XDAL about 7 years ago and never regretted it. A few other considerations:
- A hand held will not allow for many investigations, like checking a particular solder joint, as you can't really aim with it.
- When budgeting, make sure you include a few bucks for standards. The machine normally comes with those for the regular pure elements, but you will need to inspect plastics, labels, etc., which are not that obvious. Unfortunately I don't remember how much a standard costs.
- You will need to sell to your management the need for a full time XRF operator. I see you guys are an EMS and the more you inspect, the more your customers will want you to inspect and this takes time. It will not be a 1 hour a day twice a week type of thing. This hour will not even suffice to measure the carats of the jewelry that everybody in the shop will bring from home ;-)

Regards,

Ioan Tempea, P. Eng.
Manufacturing Engineer, Satellite Systems 

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Corporation, 21025 Trans-Canada Highway, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada H9X 3R2
Tel: +1-514-457-2150 x3556
www.mdacorporation.com

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-----Message d'origine-----
De : TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] De la part de Bev Christian
Envoyé : Tuesday, September 16, 2014 9:39 PM
À : [log in to unmask]
Objet : Re: [TN] lead free (RoHS) testing in manufacturing

Graham,
You get what you pay for. I recommend a Fischer XDAL.  Oxford has some good offerings, as do Shimadzu and other companies that have been selling XRFs for metal thickness measurements.  If you buy one, make sure you buy one with apertures of the size you need for the leads you will want to take measurements on.  You are looking at at least $50K.  I know one of the Shimadzu ones can pull a vacuum in the chamber which allows you to detect lighter elements than my Fischer, but this is even more $$.

I would NOT recommend a hand held unit, especially for use in Canada. Not only will you have to abide by any provincial legislation, you will also have to comply with the federal Red Act, which is pretty onerous.  Take a course, another course for an instructor with a written test, eye test, color blindness test. I was told these things sequentially by a dealer, NOT up front and when I then said I didn't wan this device, he said since I had accept at our delivery dock a smaller portion of the accessories for the device that if I wanted to "return" the handheld, which I had not actually taken possession of, that there would be a 20% restocking fee - on a $42,000 piece of equipment.  Ouch!

Gabriele has given good advice about the lead swab tests.  Good for a really rough first go, but would never stand up to scrutiny by ECHA.

Way around this?  When you ask for certificates of compliance for the components you buy, demand an accompanying chemical test report that stands behind the CoC. Preferably the report is from somebody like Intertek or SGS.

Regards,
Bev

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Graham Collins
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 2:37 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] lead free (RoHS) testing in manufacturing

Good day TechNet
We are a late arrival to the lead-free party, as our customers thus far are exempt.  But a couple of them see the writing on the wall and are moving toward RoHS compliance.  Which leads me to two questions with regards to our testing of parts to ensure compliance.

The first question - what XRF?  We are concerned with price given that we are dipping our feet here, does anyone have a recommendation for a good but inexpensive unit?

Second question is concerning alternative test methods, a customer is planning to use 3M LeadCheck swabs (LC-8S10C) to ensure no lead.  Given that the product is described as for use on painted surfaces I don't think this is intended as a way to verify lead-free status on electronics.  Any comments on this?

Thanks!

--
regards,

Graham Collins
Senior Process Engineer
Sunsel Systems
(902) 444-7867 ext 211



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