Black zinc is the new olive drab cadmium?

[rounin]

We've been using 38999s in one of our products, with the classic olive drab cadmium.

This year, I wanted to start moving towards ROHS compliance. We discovered that finish type "Z", black zinc nickel, is mostly in stock, a near drop in replacement spec wise and is mating/galvanically compatible with the old cadmium parts which is nice as we burn down stock. Also not too much more expensive.

I guess black is the new olive drab  .

Anyone else switched old mil spec parts to ROHS? We're also looking at using electroless nickel to save a few $, but it looks like the environmental specs aren't as good and it isn't backwards compatible with cadmium. I'm somewhat surprised I haven't seen BZN yet out in the wild on some of the projects I've worked on (avionics).

[coppercone2]

well it seems that when there is a war the stuff that ends up being used is ancient when they run out of flashy stuff so I am not sure many people are going to sub par processes

[Swainster]

At my old job we changed to black zinc nickel thanks to RoHS. That was for roadside infrastucture, back home in the UK, pre-brexit (though I would guess that RoHS is still a thing)

[coppercone2]

Well I think its the coating that might be on some machinists rules IIRC, my ruler is black nickel coated, I guess zinc? (it was not listed in advertising as zinc). It had some corrosion show up on it after being stored in a somewhat damp place for a while. I cleaned it up with some kind of metal polish, and recoated it with grease for protection, but it looks kinda like it has splatter of missing surface material when you look at it with the correct angle. I think it had like 'white spots' growing on it

nevermind, mine is coated with 'black chrome' which I regard as shit, not black nickel. Not sure if its similar. Because the ruler was defiantly rubbed with 3-1 oil and it was stored near many other objects, which did not fail.

[rounin]

For some reason amphenol PCD seems to only make the backshells in zinc cobalt even though the faces are zinc nickel. weird. Will order a batch of parts this week, might sit a new cable assy outside for a few weeks.