Rich,

For the board vendor to write off so casually the fact that the he has dust
on his artwork is a crime.  Shame on him.  We had a vendor like that once.
Notice that the key word is HAD.  In a case like this we would charge back
the vendor for his errors.  And if they repeated it again we would start
looking for a new vendor.

As for the methodology of repairing the boards... it doesn't give me a warm
fuzzy feeling.  Solder and bus wire may look clunky but I don't have any
doubt about the connection or current carrying capability.  I'm just an old
school(read thru-hole)kind of guy.

Regards,

Phil Nutting
Manufacturing Engineer
Kaiser Systems, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Rich Lasko [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 10:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Conductive and Overcoat Pens


Good morning everyone!

A little background....I am working with a vendor of ours ( that
manufactures the pcb for electronic assemblies) and we have had some issues
with small artwork opens in the traces.  (The pcb is double sided with dark
blue soldermask and has many small traces throughout the pcb which makes the
almost impossible to see visually).  At this time, the board does not have
an electrical test on it.  Our vendor has advised us that the root cause of
the small artwork opens is either minor dust or scratch on the artwork that
happens at their facility.  The opens are random in nature but are very
difficult to detect with visual inspection.  Our vendor has agreed to
implement electrical test (which is fine for future orders) but we have
approx. (15) fully populated boards that have these artwork opens that need
repair.   Total of the 15 boards are worth $3000.

So.....in order to "repair" the existing assemblies, our vendor has
indicated to us that they will be using Circuitwork's Conductive Pen and
then the Overcoat pen on top.

My questions to everyone are:

1.) Is this type of repair an "approved" industry standard for this type of
defect?  How many people use it?  Is it reliable - long term?
2.) Other than IPC 7711/7721, are there any other documented repair
procedures for this type of defect?

Any help on this would be great!  Peace!

Rich

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