Having worked in a failure analysis lab for an aerospace division of
Lockheed Martin, I got to see firsthand a lot of the detrimental effects of
poor design and unfortunate circumstance.  Specifically, we often had to
investigate field returns and much of the problems were attributable to some
form of contamination--whether it be moisture or another composition.  As a
military contractor, we were required to conformal coat everything and for
good reason.  Not only can moisture present problems when a board enters the
atmospheric extremes of flight, but also any other contaminate not expected
nor required to be present on the board.  Especially harmful were particles
of any metallic element which can cause catastrophic failures on some
electrically sensitive components and also degrade performance of some
tight-tolerance mechanical parts.

My suggestion is to make sure that if you decide NOT to conformal coat, you
obtain written approval from your customer so that they accept full
responsibility of the repercussions.  Good luck!

Chad Thibodeau
Component Engineer
[log in to unmask]
2114 W. 7th Street
Tempe, AZ 85281
P-602 333-2138
F-602 921-9012
http://www.efdata.com

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