Quality challenges of reused components

For the End-of-Life treatment of electronic products the option of reusing electronic parts and boards are of high interest. Among the reasons for doing this are not only legal regulations, but also economical and environmentally motivated reasons. The economic point of view covers advantages as well as limits which are in most cases related to the quality of the worked-off parts. This paper presents as an example, the disassembly of printed wiring boards at the automated BeCAP pilot line. The analysis of the characteristic and limiting properties for re-assembling, for example, the form tolerances, the wettability and presence of remaining solder, will be described. A reason for decreasing wettability can be the opening of the intermetallic phases during the desoldering process, which requires the re-tinning of the components. One of the other worrying weak points is the popcorning of the packages. This paper is interesting for companies from industry and consultancy which are correlated with assembly and reuse of electronic parts and the test of the parts quality regarding to the ability for re-assembly. It shows some of the crucial points of disassembling processes of printed wiring boards, which should be taken into account, if high quality disassembly processes are planned.