LDR's banned by the EU?

[R.G.]

Governments, part II.

You're a law abiding person, right? Never particularly wanted to do anything criminal, right?

Google "You're (probably) a federal criminal".

[frequencycentral]

Still available on Ebay in the UK - so I just stocked up - just in case!

[frank_p]

This is a joke ?

On the contrary, it's serious as a heart attack.

Governments have discovered that they can get away with marking off whole classes of goods, materials, and actions because it ...might... cause some harm.

Think about this when you next try to buy an incandescent light bulb, because you don't want to endanger the environment by buying fluorescent bulbs which all contain mercury.

Sorry, I had a problem with my post.  But my question was: does some have insight (or heard echoes) on the substitution parts that will replace the cadmium sulphide ?  Like this device... (?).

http://www.arrownac.com/mktg/resource_mag/summer_2008/pdfs/vishay.pdf

whatever you want to force them to do.

Check this out,  it seems the issue is on the hot plate,

http://www1.silonex.com/announcements/Marshall_support_letter_01_08_07A.pdf

Oh... sorry again the question was already partly answered by George in the document posted...

[Cliff Schecht]

Looks like the memsistor is going to start making its mark in guitar pedals soon . I've never been a fan of Cadmium photocells anways, they're too slow for most of the applications I would use them in (although the slow turn-on/off time is sometimes desirable).

People describe photocells as "warm", especially in reference to their use in analog filters, but I've never been quite sure what they mean by this. My assumption is that the distortion added by the photocells adds to the overall character of the filter, but either way the slow transition times make for a fairly limited filter (as compared to other styles of voltage controlled filter). Plus, the wide tolerance from one device to another makes it hard to line up the filter poles properly; this leads to a filter that always sound distorted and "gnarly" but can't really do a clean filter sound.

[Scruffie]

Still available on Ebay in the UK - so I just stocked up - just in case!

What supplier did you buy from Rick? Namely I hope the cheapest lol, wanna grab a stock myself.

[loss1234]

damn

i use em in tremolo's and all kinds of other weird devices. i dont use em in filters as i prefer OTA's BUT i dont know what i would do without
my LDR's and my vactrols.

I have heard you can file for an exception if you are selling in europe if you can prove they are essential to your product.

hmmm

[Scruffie]

damn

i use em in tremolo's and all kinds of other weird devices. i dont use em in filters as i prefer OTA's BUT i dont know what i would do without
my LDR's and my vactrols.

I have heard you can file for an exception if you are selling in europe if you can prove they are essential to your product.

hmmm

With lower output, even if convincing is possible, sounds expensive...

I say stock up now (to an extent, unless you intend to produce in future), i'm about to grab 20 (they're more expensive than I thought at 50p a pop) i'd buy more, but money does not permit... hopefully they wont become the new SAD1024 and cost me £20 for £0.30 of production... Thankfully my stock of rare parts is growing... to be used in future (OC44,81... MN3007, MN3005... so on, i'm just glad to know I have some)

[JKowalski]

Sorry, I had a problem with my post.  But my question was: does some have insight (or heard echoes) on the substitution parts that will replace the cadmium sulphide ?  Like this device... (?).

http://www.arrownac.com/mktg/resource_mag/summer_2008/pdfs/vishay.pdf

That's just a phototransistor. They have been around forever and they are in no way direct drop in replacements for photocells - in the same way resistors are NOT transistors. It works well in that application only because of how the rest of the circuit is designed.

[Unbeliever]

Look for seller tes_john on Australian ebay - he used to have a bunch of LDRs, and might sell some (large quantities) to overseas people. I got a few thousand from him not so long ago.

[George Giblet]

Oh... sorry again the question was already partly answered by George in the document posted...

Your link answers the question about what they intend to do in the lighting industry.

One of the characteristics of CDS cells is that are a good approximation to the eye's behaviour.
Those photo transistors seem to have a response peak in the same region, so they
will obviously work OK.  (It actually mentions that in your link.)  The majority of photo
transistors have the peak towards the red/infra red.  Many moons ago the eye response
types were expensive because they were intended for light measuring instruments.

For audio, the fact no direct alternatives exist is still an issue - as put forward by the Silonex pdf.
Replacements in applications such as tube amps, like Marshall and Boogies, are a real challenge.

[slacker]

did you buy from Rick? Namely I hope the cheapest lol, wanna grab a stock myself.

You can still buy them from Rapid and Maplin in the UK, and most other suppliers I guess, I don't think they've actually been banned yet. Even when they are they'll just slap "Non ROHS" on them and sell them cheap until supplies run out, that seems to be what has happened with everything else anyway.
I don't think for DIYers it will be much of an issue there will be plenty floating round on ebay for years.

[Scruffie]

did you buy from Rick? Namely I hope the cheapest lol, wanna grab a stock myself.

You can still buy them from Rapid and Maplin in the UK, and most other suppliers I guess, I don't think they've actually been banned yet. Even when they are they'll just slap "Non ROHS" on them and sell them cheap until supplies run out, that seems to be what has happened with everything else anyway.
I don't think for DIYers it will be much of an issue there will be plenty floating round on ebay for years.

Ah that's true, I still buy leaded solder several years later from e-bay.
I don't tend to use Rapid and Maplin due to there high postage costs, Ebay or Bitsbox for me, but I'm seeing them for like 40-50p each... 20 seems more like it.

[frank_p]

Oh... sorry again the question was already partly answered by George in the document posted...

Your link answers the question about what they intend to do in the lighting industry.

One of the characteristics of CDS cells is that are a good approximation to the eye's behaviour.
Those photo transistors seem to have a response peak in the same region, so they
will obviously work OK.  (It actually mentions that in your link.)  The majority of photo
transistors have the peak towards the red/infra red.  Many moons ago the eye response
types were expensive because they were intended for light measuring instruments.

For audio, the fact no direct alternatives exist is still an issue - as put forward by the Silonex pdf.
Replacements in applications such as tube amps, like Marshall and Boogies, are a real challenge.

Thanks for the explanations.  It's kind of strange that a device that had been used in many applications and products will be banned and there is no direct replacement for it.  I wonder what kind of economical and technological studies had been done before making legislation like this.  I am completely surprised.

[StephenGiles]

The EU seem to be banning all sorts of things - in particular the very light bulbs we have used as long as I can remember. The replacements are useless, give out far less light and very much more expensive. I read an article that "industrial lamps"  are still "allowed by the EU taliban!!!

http://www.lyco.co.uk/Light-Bulbs/Regular-Light-Bulbs/Rough-Service-Bulbs/sc1340/p1303.aspx?gclid=CNe61Pv45JwCFaAA4wodxT92Fg

[frequencycentral]

Still available on Ebay in the UK - so I just stocked up - just in case!

What supplier did you buy from Rick? Namely I hope the cheapest lol, wanna grab a stock myself.

I used Ebay seller consiliumdesigns, 5 for £2 inc shipping. Shipping discounts for multiples.

[Scruffie]

The EU seem to be banning all sorts of things - in particular the very light bulbs we have used as long as I can remember. The replacements are useless, give out far less light and very much more expensive. I read an article that "industrial lamps"  are still "allowed by the EU taliban!!!

Yeah... I better stock up on old bulbs actually, have they made dimmer switches for the new type of bulbs yet? Not that i'm buying brand new dimmer switches for the house.

I wonder if they'll ban Tubes  

Still available on Ebay in the UK - so I just stocked up - just in case!

What supplier did you buy from Rick? Namely I hope the cheapest lol, wanna grab a stock myself.

I used Ebay seller consiliumdesigns, 5 for £2 inc shipping. Shipping discounts for multiples.

Cheers Rick I found £1.50 for 4 with free postage in the end... don't think i'm buying enough that the shipping discount will do anything for me (12 should cover me for any future projects I hope.. might have to start socketing them like Germaniums so they can be re-used.)

[frank_p]

The EU seem to be banning all sorts of things - in particular the very light bulbs we have used as long as I can remember. The replacements are useless, give out far less light and very much more expensive. I read an article that "industrial lamps"  are still "allowed by the EU taliban!!!

http://www.lyco.co.uk/Light-Bulbs/Regular-Light-Bulbs/Rough-Service-Bulbs/sc1340/p1303.aspx?gclid=CNe61Pv45JwCFaAA4wodxT92Fg

It seems that the European Union parliament are making a joke of themselves as countries are not willing to abdicates their law for the EU ones.  So countries keep rights on what they want and accept the EU ones when there is no major consequences.  The big picture is that EU will have a very hard time applying all this to all countries in all industrial sectors.  This is even more true when the products banned are a major income of money for the country.  Just look at what is happening in the pharmaceutical sector: companies work hand in hand with the black market and the government instances to bypass the EU laws.  Looks like a lot of perverse consequences are going to happen soon, or should I say, had already began to happen...

[R.G.]

The business of governments is power and control. The corruption of the people in government is only kept in check by removing the people in the positions at short intervals and replacing them with people who have been corrupted by power and control for a shorter time.

We used to do this in the USA.

[alanlan]

The business of governments is power and control. The corruption of the people in government is only kept in check by removing the people in the positions at short intervals and replacing them with people who have been corrupted by power and control for a shorter time.

We used to do this in the USA.

You just had an election right? (and no, I'm not a Japanese sex therapist)

anyway let's stick to LDR's

There'll be tons available for years I would have thought, no worries.  100W light bulbs have been banned yet I can buy 100 off for £33 on Ebay!

and if they do run out, then necessity is the mother of invention - let us not forget that very important fact.

[MetalGuy]

Most reputable company's in the U.S. wont want to be complicit in that kind of thing. Importation of a banned substance and so on. For Instance stew mac wont ship certain types of paint to the EU for these reasons. Maybe ebay,the far east etc.

The company won't be importing anything - it's my problem what's in the package I'm receiving and believe me nobody is interested in checking what's in a small personal package unless the scanner shows drugs , explosives or similar. This is not theory  - I'm speaking from experience.