Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

Some of you that are on the Oakley mailing list have seen Tony's recent
announcement that he is selling off all the current stock of modules and ceasing
production. This is based on 2 things: economics and RoHS compliance (which
takes effect July 1 2006).

For those of you not familiar with RoHS....in a nutshell it's the restriction of
importing electronics that contain "harmful" stuff, and lead is one of them.

MOTM has lead in 3 'areas': the pc board, the components and the solder itself.

PCB - the pc boards are 'coated' with a very thin layer of tin-lead solder (over
the copper traces). So, to be RoHS compliant, you can do 1 of 2 things: use
gold-plating or use a form of tin. I am in the process of getting quotes for
both to see what the impact is. Gold "flashing" has been around 30 years, that's
no big deal except gold plating itself is a ∗butt nasty∗ operation and many pc
board suppliers charge accordingly. There are several tin-based pcb
technologies, but some of them have a definite 'shelf-life' (there is a finite
time from when you unseal the boards to soldering, like say 2 weeks).

COMPONENTS - Currently, 99% of the MOTM parts that are on the pc board contain
lead in some form or another, mainly in the solder-coating of IC leads and the
wires on the resistors/caps. It remains to be seen what through-hole parts that
∗are∗ RoHS compliant will be offered after the July 1 2006 deadline AND at what
cost. Today, over 70% of SMT parts are compliant, moving to 100% by December.
What is interesting is all the pots and switches MOTM uses are compliant, but I
need to check on the jacks.

What does this mean going forward? The honest answer is: right now, I don't
know! If I can get the parts in RoHS, then maybe nothing at all. But what if say
Analog Devices doesn't offer the MAT02EH pair used in the VCO? Do I redesign the
pcb to accommodate?

SOLDER - well obviously this is an issue :) Kester and other companies are
going full-tilt-boogie trying to formulate 'no lead' solder. The main problem in
the solder is that the 'chemistry' is HIGHLY sensitive to lead contamination.
Meaning, if you have a leaded part and use non-lead solder on it, the lead
'leeches out' of the part and the solder joint forms tiny cracks. Joy :(

What does this mean for not just MOTM, but everyone (Doepfer, Modcan, .com,
etc). Here are the possibilities:

1) don't offer products for sale to the EU
2) find through-hole parts that are compliant, change the pcb and use non-lead
solder
3) reboot and offer SMT product only (a la not kits)

As far as what MOTM plans are, as of this very nanosecond:

a) I'm not changing anything until June, 2006. For all I know, the EU may just
say "Hey, we were just fooling around!" So, don't panic, don't sell off your
gear.

b) I'm going to carefully keep track of the parts situation. You CAN solder RoHS
parts with lead solder, so every colander quarter I will see if RoHS is offered
in say TL072s and if so, start shipping them. The resistors and caps are what I
have to check. It may be, for example, that 1% resistors are offered so all the
resistors in the kits would switch over to 1% which some of you uber-DIYers do
anyway :) I may change transistors types. I may change jack vendors. I may
offer the wire without the "dipped" leads.

c) around April-May of next year, I will have to decide what to ∗really∗ do. It
may boil down to: do I keep the kits as they are and abandon the EU users? Do I
kill kits altogether and offer SMT, assembled versions only? I can't do both
because assembled modules have never exceeded 7% of sales.

I suspect both Doepfer and AS will go to 100% SMT: they really have no choice.
So will Bob Moog.

Yep, being in the synth business sure can be 'fun' at times :(

Meanwhile, the month of July is my R&D month. I will dribble out some assembled
modules (mostly my tech is soldering the pc boards to allow 100% of the backlog
to ship by Sept). I really need to 'stop' and get the 650, the 600 and the 485
out the door.

I hope that Tony can find a way to get back in the game.

Paul S.