Overplating is a must. Unfortunately Buehler stopped selling thier E-Ni kit at least couple years ago.


Vladimir

SENTEC

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Rogers network.
  Original Message  
From: Bev Christian
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 10:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Reply To: TechNet E-Mail Forum
Subject: Re: [TN] Measuring Gold Thickness

Bob,
Please excuse my previous short answer, but my wife and I were out walking
the dog.

"Cost effective". "Single use". Find a friend with an XRF.

Here are some suggestions.
1) Use a Fischer, CMI, Oxford, Shimadzu or other known brand. I would NOT
use a handheld, even if they say you can do thickness measurements (Not sure
if they are able/touting this ability).
2) Make sure it is calibrated with a set of standards (also calibrated!)
similar to your sample (ENIG standard set for ENIG, electroless gold over
copper for same sort of sample)
4) Use as large an aperture as possible
5) Make measurement on a flat sample surface
6) Make sure there are no obstructions between the incoming beam and the
sample surface and the sample surface and the detector
7) Don't skimp on the time for the measurement. Use 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
8) Measure in more than one spot!

Typically for ENIG you will get +/- 5% for the gold and +/- 10% for the
nickel.

I agree with George with regards to cross-sectioning. If you are going to do
it, you should probably over plate with nickel first.

Regards,
Bev

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bob Wettermann
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 10:01 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [TN] Measuring Gold Thickness

Gents/Ladies:

This would be confirming gold plating thickness after repair using a brush
plating technique. Repair thickness is a function of many variables....

I was looking for an instrument to verify that would be cost effective as
it is for this single use.


Bob/BEST

On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 8:37 AM, Bev Christian <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> XRF
>
> Bev
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
> Original Message
> From: Bob Wettermann
> Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2016 9:28 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Reply To: TechNet E-Mail Forum
> Subject: [TN] Measuring Gold Thickness
>
> Outside of x-sectional measurements for QA. can someone please share their
> favorite method/instrument for measuring gold thicknesses on PCBs?
>
> Thanks
>
> Bob/BEST
>



-- 
Bob Wettermann
BEST Inc
[log in to unmask]
Cell: 847-767-5745