take a grain of salt when someone tell you water vapor barrier  
coating or anti-wetting coating.  The second type was introduced to  
prevent water droplets stick to surface - but if you have any  
impurity, contamination, the surface tension changes (including hard  
water), you got problem... especially when the temperature goes below  
zero... it frozen to the surface, regardless wetting (slow warm up  
will leach some impurity or even coating constituent by long resident  
time on the surface...).  system level hermetic seal would be the  
best... as for sensing: you can use color indicator (less sensitive)  
or sensor chips (much better, but pricy...).  IMHO.  (My knowledge is  
few years old... you might want to do search and see what the latest/ 
greatest come up with).  by the way, if it is only short time and  
system level protected well for the limited water vapor intake, (like  
air craft), polyurethane dip coat usually works not too bad...  
provided system level - box level done properly - water tight seal  
(immersion like you pass IP test).
jk
On Nov 22, 2017, at 10:24 PM, Wayne Thayer wrote:

> That is a VERY difficult problem! You'd like the board to be  
> powered during
> this test so you can see how well the coating protected it. Well,
> condensation looks simple when your looking at a glass of beer, but  
> that's
> not a good model for a powered-up circuit board!
>
> I haven't seen attempts to correlate stuff like conformal coat surface
> energy vs droplet size, or the multitude of other parameters which  
> this
> would have to contend with.
>
> The best study I saw was with coated unpopulated boards using a nice
> consistent test pattern. These were mounted on a thermal plate at a
> well-controlled temperature while voltage was applied (the patterns  
> were
> inter-digitated traces (can't remember if they used vias too, but i  
> think
> not). My recollection is that the setup was placed in a large humidity
> chamber maintained at 85% RH (can't go much higher and stay in  
> control).
>
> They were able to see differences between the conformal coats they  
> tried.
> But this misses out on all of the other factors due to spray  
> application of
> a highly variant surface.
>
> Wayne
>
> On Wed, Nov 22, 2017 at 2:46 PM, Richard Kraszewski <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Other than what is written in IPC CC830 for thermal shock  and MIR  
>> testing
>> , is anyone away of  any  industry standard that addresses the
>> functionality of coating  or devices  when exposed to condensation?
>>
>> I have looked  at the IP Code for water ingress but all of that water
>> testing  seems too invasive & harsh for what I am looking for.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code
>>
>> Something in IEC perhaps.
>>
>> Rich  Kraszewski
>> Senior Staff Process Engineer
>> Plexus Engineering Solutions
>>
>>
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