Steve,

A work colleague of mine uses a pallet material by the name of CDM (Composite 
Delmat Material).  The laminate is made from a glass mat substrate mainly 
impregnated (parially filled with) with an epoxy de resin which is fully cured.

My colleague has had good results with the material for wave solder as well as 
reflow applications. 

Distributor: Von-Roll Isola Inc.
             Contact: Jim Ruth
             P.O. Box 259
             North Clarendon, Vermont   05759
             Telephone #:  1-800-654-7652

I hope that this helps.

              
Chris Markey
Hitachi


Good day!
     
    This is a request for any input to an increasing problem we're having 
with our wave solder process. We are a contract assembler and have starting 
using wave solder fixtures more often now than in the past, and for a 
different reason too.
     
    In the past, wave solder fixtures were primarily used when an assembly 
either did not have an acceptable shape to adapt to the conveyer of the 
wave solder machine, when there were components or items on the assembly 
that needed to be fixtured to meet a positional requirement that could only 
be acheived with fixturing, and when the board size needed additional 
support in preventing warp and twist.
     
    Recently, there has been another motivation to use fixtures...and that 
is for masking. We, as many other companies I'm sure, are cleaning our 
boards using aqueous methods and utilize a closed-loop water treatment 
system. This means NO WATER SOLUABLE MASKS! So we use a liquid latex mask, 
and just like everyone else has probably found out, this sure does add a lot 
of time to the process! The time it takes for the mask to cure, and then the 
time required to remove each peice of mask prior to wash eats a bunch of 
time as well. So that's why we use fixtures....it sure does make a 
difference in overall process time! 
     
But now a problem with our profiles is starting to show-up. It is becoming 
difficult to create decent profiles with the added mass of the fixtures 
thrown in to the equation. We use G-10 as the material for our fixtures, 
and we have Electrovert Econopac and Ultrapac wave solder machines.
     
My questions are:
     
 * Is there a better material to be using? Something maybe a little more 
   thermally transparent? ....that doesn't cost an arm and a leg?
     
 * Any tips on the design of the fixtures? (The fixtures need to be fairly 
   robust...we do a lot of boards)
     
 * Any suggestions regarding profile creation?
     
     
      My thanks in advance! I know if ya'll can't help nobody can!
     
     
                                         Steve Gregory
                                         Pragmatech Inc.
                                         101 Nicholson Lane
                                         San Jose, California 95134
                                         Phone: (408) 943-1151
                                           Fax: (408) 943-1461
                                         Email: [log in to unmask]