How China recycles

[Drirr]

http://blogs.nokia.com/nseries/2011/05/03/how-china-recycles-millions-of-cellphones-every-year/

[chscholz]

There is an interesting observation out there that used electronic components in some cases might be better than new ones:

Infant mortality of certain electronic components is highest when they are new and of course at the end of life of the component.
So if you use a e.g. one year old component the probability of failure can be significantly less than a new component.

For that reason one could argue that a used component should sell at a higher price than a new one.

Ironically, today's US laws prohibit vendors to sell product that contain used components, they are usually sold as, well,
used or refurbished, usually at a discounted price.

[Psi]

hehe, next time you buy a cheep reel of smt components from china you'll have to wonder...

[Ferroto]

I would never use a used component as there are only so many times they can be soldered and de-soldered before they die.

[sacherjj]

That looks like how I got components as a kid.  Never had lots of money, but with some work, I could get most of what I needed from cheap rebuild surplus boards from AllElectronics and other places.  A little desoldering and I'd have $20 worth of components from a $3 board. 

[Leo Bodnar]

hehe, next time you buy a cheep reel of smt components from china you'll have to wonder...

LOL.  You don't need to buy from China.  You can buy from Farnell or DigiKey and still get burnt.  The components piracy and reuse is a big worry for distributors just as well.

[Zero999]

There is an interesting observation out there that used electronic components in some cases might be better than new ones:

That's true to some extent but it's often the soldering PCB itself that fails, not a specific component.

[Drirr]

I think that they can recycle only some types of components. For example electrolytic capacitors may change parameters due repetitive soldering.

[Zero999]

I agree but I can't imagine a Chinese company not recycling electrolytic capacitors.

[sacherjj]

I agree but I can't imagine a Chinese company not recycling electrolytic capacitors.

Don't they just wrap them in a bigger case with different numbers on the outside? 

[CircuitMart]

As a vendor of PCB and Parts in China, I know there is a city located
at Guangdong Province, every citizen here is good at taking off second
hand parts from used machines... and the river is polluted to grey color.

My clients from Japan and South America sometimes choose to use refurbished
parts, you cann't refuse because of cost reduction, and refurbished ones still
could work as well.

But I also heard news that US companies outsourcing parts from China sometimes
encounters problems....

So this is really depending on your initial design purpose... to make good use of
refurbished parts,  in a certain degree, is good to this globe.

Cheers,

Iris Cao

[Leo Bodnar]

US Military is really getting pissed off with this.  http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/211428/woman_helped_sell_fake_chips_to_us_military.html

I can't find exact reference now but a substantial amount of what supposed to be "NOS" components from 80s and 90s that are still required for maintenance of some equipment are actually recycled from old junk.
After US allowed independent third party contractors to become suppliers to DoD there appeared thousands of spare-bedroom / kitchen-table / eBay style suppliers that would buy desoldered i8080 in China and sell to DoD for $499 claiming they are NOS.  Some of them got nicked after the recycled parts were found in fighter jets avionics but the gravy train still steams ahead.

http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/counterfeit-military-components-and-chips/

[tinhead]

cheap, cheaper, china?  No, no problem at all, recycled parts are good enough for 99% of projects anyway.

Btw, look on the hot air gun - of course STEINEL and not a china brand. The cool part of this story are the test equ. setups for BGA chips.

[Fraser]

In Kowloon, Hong Kong, I regularly witnessed electronic components shops desoldering SMD memory chips from PC memory sticks in full view of the buying public. They were using a household paint stripper gun that cooked the PCB's but the chips just fell off. After cooling they were put in little non ESD conductive display boxes in the window for sale. This was all back in 1996 and I see no reason why it would be any different today if I re-visited. Recycled components appear totally acceptable in HK and if the price is right for hobby projects fine, but I personally would not want a Cardiac monitor or defib unit to contain such components !

I also regularly witnessed steel welding on the public streets of HK without eye protection for the operator or the public.... life can be very different in China/HK and my employer had to consider this when we disposed of IT equipment. We didn't want such equipment to end up in sweat shops with children desoldering the parts with heat guns and breathing the not so pleasant vapours.

Whenever I built electronic modules at work, my employer insisted that 'burnt in' semiconductors be used. This was all through-hole stuff. It was 'burnt-in' by taking Mil-Spec components and running them on a test bed for a number of days (can't remember how many) before being spec tested. A simple SN74LS00 chip would cost around GBP12 each (1990 price) after such testing ! BUT it was unlikely to fail before the MTBF in mission critical applications. It was considered worth the money in the application. The high-street price of a consumer grade chip at the time was around 40p These components were considered 'New-Tested' rather than 'Used' as they had not undergone the stresses of soldering/desoldering.
We would never have used 'used' components as we could not predict the MTBF without knowledge of the previous deployment and any abuse that may have occurred (overheating/overvoltage etc).

I did repair a GBP200,000 piece of equipment once using a used component though. The failed component was an obsolete Ferranti bridge amplifier/driver chip that also found it’s way into hi-fi amplifier units. I found such a hi-fi on the used marketplace, removed the two Ferranti amplifier chips and repaired the faulty equipment for a total cost of around GBP14 plus we had a spare chip for future use. My employer agreed to risk the components use as the application was not mission or calibration critical.

Plessey/GEC discontinued the SL series RF chips some years ago…. I would not hesitate to use a second user chip to repair one of my receivers that use the chipset as some are now as rare as hen’s teeth but I believe my employer would scrap the whole piece of equipment rather than take such a risk in a mission critical application. It’s all about cost saving/availability versus the impact of unpredictable failure.  

[CircuitMart]

  I don't like refurbished parts, because sometimes it makes my hands a little dirty....
But if it could be used again onto some equipments sounds not so dangerous, like a game machine.
I think they at least contribute to environmental purpose...  It it is thrown away, it is so hard to be refurbished.

I try to make boards using ROHS without extra cost, this could also be a little better to environment.

I must confess my little business are polluting southeastern China... but have to make a living.

Use Organic Surface Protection instead of Gold or Sn/Pb surfacing, it is much better.

Living standard of my country is so complex. some are very rich, more people are poor.

I think this is simliar throughout the whole world...

[johnwa]

I saw someone on ebay selling zip-lock bags full of SMD components (loose, not on tape). I wondered why at the time, but this explains everything!

[saturation]

In the old days we would buy the whole boards outright like those on Apex Electronics, and do the desoldering ourselves.  If I could find such a place like this in the Western world, I'd buy those zip lock bags in a heart beat, they're like low end Jameco grab bags.

[Fraser]

Not all SMD components are on tape so don't be too suspicious or dismissive of loose parts in little plastic 'pots'  and plastic boxes. I have several such containers of loose SMD capacitors from a reputable source. These include some high performance RF types that cost over GBP15 each ! Only their gold end caps give away their value ;-)