Bob, you are exactly right. We use boots often on large volume orders. If I
was building and coating the boards in house and it was the same part
number over and over, I would invest in the boots. Reusable to a point,
simple, and as you said, quick. And the best are the common connectors
where the boots are cheap and easy; round coax, spade terminals, and male
header connectors.

On the other side of it, the negative of using a boot is the manufacturing
cost. Boots usually have to be customized to each connector so you can have
5-10 different boot part numbers for one board. The boot manufacturer has
to build a mold for each so the cost per board can rise quickly. I have
quoted boots for a customer that came to $25 per board in boots yet I would
coat the whole board for him and only charge $17 per board shipped. If he
only has 100 boards to coat, my quote is more economical but if he had
1000s, then buy the boots. He sent me the boards as he only had a couple
hundred and alleviated him of all the coating completely.

Lloyd Duso
Plant Manager
Diamond-MT
(814) 535-3505
www.Diamond-mt.com

On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 9:55 AM, Bob Wettermann <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> All:
>
> After the last discussion of masking tape I happened to be involved soon
> thereafter in a time study of using re-usable "boots"/"caps"/"plugs" to
> protect components in the conformal coating process.
>
> Like most who perform coating we spend an AWFUL lot of time masking and
> demasking in these projects and are always looking for the best method.
>
> We have used the silicone-based boots and have been successful on larger
> repeated projects to use them 250-300X. They are fine for spray coating for
> medium density boards.
>
> The time to mask and demask ,depending on the complexity of the part and
> coating being applied as well as the application method determines whether
> or not the boots make sense. We are partial to the silicone-based boots
> (though with the caveat described in the previous posting about trying to
> get silicone out of the shop-especially for medical applications).
>
> I am wondering if there have been any favorite materials for these boots
> amongst the coating community other than silicone?  If so how do you find
> the boot matches your process and actually derives the time-savings
> benefit.
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> Bob Wettermann
> BEST Inc
>