I doubt a process engineer can help because they likely haven't seen enough cross sections to know what improves standoff and what doesn't. A year or so ago a few of us at work talked about laying out a test board and trying various things (pad size, stencil thickness, overprinting, etc) to see what effects standoff but we never got around to it.  My guess is that none of this would have much effect.  My experience is that when you increase paste volume, either by reducing the pad, increasing the stencil aperture, or increasing the stencil thickness, you end up just changing the shape of the fillet.  It seems like there's a natural joint thickness under the part termination due to bouyancy effects and any excess solder ends up creating a big blob of a fillet.  You might be able to force more standoff by using a really small pad that wouldn't allow fillet formation, but that would create other problems.  This is just my seat of the pants take on it - I could be wrong.

Scott Post
Staff Manufacturing Engineer
P.O.U. 0000-001E-0CTC
2151 E. Lincoln Road
Kokomo, Indiana    46904-9005
765-451-2983 (Phone)
765-451-0287 (FAX)


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