In a message dated 5/26/99 8:06:14 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< We as you all have X'ed out boards which run through our lines.
 Our machinery will recognize a white or bright yellow dot as a bad board
 and automatically skip that offset in the programs.

 Paper dots go through the reflow just fine but in the water wash they fall
 apart and would clog up the wash after a period of time.

 We can use a white marker which is permanent and hand draw a dot on every
 board but now the problem is as human beings go. Some make big dots and
 some put specks on which the machines may or may not recognize.

 Any suggestions?????

 Thanks >>

Hi John!

I hear ya'...regular hi-temp masking tape dots would probably come off in the
wash, and using a kapton type material that could withstand everything is
more money than you need to spend anyway on top of the inefficiencies that
are caused from running panels with x-outs.

One solution you could do (but this won't help you now), is to have an area
on each board with a pad that's big enough to be seen by your equipment. I
don't know what kind of machines you have, but some need a kinda large area
(when I say large I'm talking a few millimeters in diameter...bigger than a
fiducial anyway), and some just need a fiducial sized area. If there isn't
room on the board and your panel has "skirts", "rails", or "breakaways" you
could put these "bad-board" marks adjacent to each board where the machine
could still see them. Then all you need to do is take a permanent black
marker and cover each "bad-board" mark with that. It would go a lot quicker
that way and you wouldn't need to spend any money on labels. But you have to
get someone to put that in the gerbers for ya' and I know how tough that can
be sometimes!

-Steve Gregory-

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