Steve,

We do high voltage ball soldering as standard practice on our high voltage boards running up to 180,000 volts.  There is a little bit of a knack to doing it right.  I can give you more details on the "art" of ball soldering if so desired.

For our 400 volt bus we do not ball solder, but we do make sure there is enough clearance for operation at elevation and the necessary creepage and clearance to meet the requirements for TUV certification.  Naturally we would trim the leads to not have sharp peaks, so flush cut trimmers are necessary.

Best regards,

Phil Nutting

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Gregory
Sent: Friday, June 05, 2015 11:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] PCB High Voltage Soldering Requirements?

Hi All,

I have a question regarding high voltage soldering requirements. Quoting
IPC-A-610F page 1-5:

1.6.5 High Voltage - The term "high voltage" will vary by design and
application. The high voltage criteria in this document are only applicable
when specifically required in the drawings/procurement documentation.

So this situation is this; we built an assembly for a customer that was on
a expedited turn, there were no drawings that specified anything about high
voltage assembly requirements. All we had was a BOM and gerbers, and we
were able to get a IPC-D-356 CAD file for our programing software. The
assembly has a EMCO high voltage DC-DC converter installed on it:

http://www.emcohighvoltage.com/datasheets/hseries.pdf

The part number is H03PR, so maximum output voltage would be 300V. This is
the top of the board where it is installed:

http://stevezeva.homestead.com/PCB_Power_Supply_Top_thumb.jpg

This is the bottom of the board where it is installed:

http://stevezeva.homestead.com/PCB_Power_Supply_Bottom_thumb.jpg

I was asked by production if they had to apply high voltage soldering
requirements to the power supply, meaning to cut the leads of the power
supply and form bulbous solder joints, and I said no. For one thing there
was no customer requirement in any of the documents for us to do this, and
I reasoned that the even though the power supply has a "Danger, High
Voltage" label on it it was limited to 300 volts, and for some reason I
seem to have it in my head that a PCB wasn't considered high voltage until
it was carrying 600 volts or more.

Well, I was kind of chastised by quality for telling the operators that
they didn't have to apply high voltage soldering standards to the power
supply. Was I mistaken?

Steve

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