As a custom manufacturer of sheet metal parts mainly for the electronics industry we are being asked by customers to provide certification that the products we make are compliant with the RoHs directive. This is not easy because the raw materials are not always available with certification. Does anyone else face this challenge, and if so how are you handling it?

As a custom manufacturer of sheet metal parts mainly for the electronics industry we are being asked by customers to provide certification that the products we make are compliant with the RoHs directive. This is not easy because the raw materials are not always available with certification. Does anyone else face this challenge, and if so how are you handling it?

Hi apurdey and welcome to the Cove,

I am from the same industry, and RoHS compliance is pretty standard stuff these days. We took a different approach 2 years ago and sent out samples of all our stock sheet metal. I would suggest you go to your distributors and ask them to provide you some data.

Good Luck!

We're in a slightly differnent field - producing iron powder that is used to produce PM parts. About 70% of the business is automotive end use. Several of our powder customers have asked for evidence of RoHS compliance - we check the powder annually by grade and send a sample to an outside lab for analysis and verification of RoHS compliance. We send a copy of that verification to our customers who require it.

So far that has been acceptable for our customers.

EU, Japan and China all have a ROHS directive. Electronic design magazine has some background on these directives.

http://electronicdesign.com/eBook/index.cfm?fuseaction=ebook&eb=693ceea8-d5c6-4cae-9a97-df8a10dddf73&code=rohshome

Carol is right. Your distributor should be able to supply a material certificate for the sheet metal that you buy.