Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - SMART Group Sells Out Annual Lead-Free Seminar & Exhibition

On Feb. 3, 2004, the SMART Group (Bucks, UK) held its 6th annual Lead-Free Seminar at Wycombe Football Club Conference Centre. Delegate numbers were finally cut-off at 173 a week before the event (another 50 engineers wanted to attend). According to the group, the exhibition area could have sold out four times over.

The Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) announced at the event that it would shortly be embarking on a whistle stop trip to the U.S. spreading the WEEE/RoHS status. Steven Andrews and Mark Downs will be speaking at four U.S. seminars, in addition to company visits and meetings and evening discussions. The two will arrive in New Jersey on Feb. 18, then move on to California, Seattle and Chicago.

The visit will complete the DTI coverage of the major markets and suppliers for electronic and electrical equipment (EEE) who have most interest in WEEE/RoHS. DTI approached American Electronics Association (AeA) to get involved with U.S. seminars, after similar initiatives were undertaken in China and Japan.

According to a survey conducted during the conference, most delegates are still conducting investigations on lead free; few had actually built demo or test boards, or selected the lead-free alloy, although most expect it to be tin/silver/copper. Help and advice is still needed, including a a help desk, hands-on experience and regular lead-free forums. When attendees were asked what was needed to get industry moving, the only positive response was for the government to give some financial help, by way of tax benefits, especially in the first year of the changeover from processing with lead solders to lead-free solders.

SMART Group is associated with LEADOUT, a European-funded scheme that will expand the SMART Group PPM Monitoring Project in a lead-free environment. In cooperation with over 20 organisations across Europe, LEADOUT will examine reliability, process change and the training needs of small and medium volume organisations.

www.smartgroup.org