Shedding light on RoHS2

What is RoHS 2 and how does it affect my business?

RoHS 2 stands for the Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). It came into effect in 2011 and prevents all EEE from containing:

• mercury
• lead
• hexavalent chromium
• cadmium
• poly-brominated biphenyls (PBB)
• polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE)

The exemptions are certain applications where products can’t currently be manufactured without the use of some of the banned substances. These include certain types of fluorescent lamps that need mercury, and various medical devices, where the alternative component design may not be approved and where failure could potentially have life-critical consequences.

Therefore, instead of banning all these applications at once, RoHS 2 removes those exemptions gradually over time to give manufacturers the chance to find suitable alternatives. The exact requirements of the directive are also highly dependent on the product type and process, target market and the suppliers involved.

The latest product group that now falls under RoHS 2 as of July this year is industrial monitoring and control instruments. Manufacturers of products that are included in this group have to ensure that all products placed on the market of the European Economic Area are compliant with the directive. This might affect the electrical components used, as well as other parts or process operations.  The impact for many manufacturers, who may be unaware of the change in criteria, is that they are in breach of the legislation and could be open to penalty charges of up to £5000.

This will be extended to all all EEE except for the ones explicitly excluded by July 2019.

What can I do if I need help with compliance? 

If you find your products or processes are now affected by RoHS 2 andfinding compliance difficult, then you might want to consider outsourcing part or all of your electronics manufacturing to a contract electronics manufacturing partner; one that understands the full scope of the directive and the varying requirements depending on product type, processes involved and supplier conformity.

At Offshore Electronics we are ble to build assemblies fully compliant with all aspects of RoHS 2 and can help you with the design and manufacturing process as well the prototyping of your product. To find out more please contact us [email protected]

To find out more about RoHS 2 visit http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/rohs_eee/events_rohs3_en.htm